Serious Sam Fusion Along The Nile 3 Giza Complex

Описание: Well here it is, arguably the worst level designed by another human being just because of THAT room. Tbf, the level itself actually isn't that bad and I quite enjoy the starting area. The fights that occur on the island and in the opening area of the Giza Complex are really cool, with the entrance courtyard having my favorite fight of the level.

It's kind of odd because it suffers from the exact same problem that level 2 does, where the start is really fun, the midsection is monotonous, and the end is again really good... also THAT room exists which makes me want to tear out my spinal column and use it to stab whoever made it.

I think if THAT room was reworked or just cut out, then the level would have better pacing. On that note, pacing is really what Along The Nile lacks and desperately needs. I get it's supposed to be a super hard slaughter map where you have OP weapons and are meant to take on legions of bad guys, but the ways in which Along The Nile tries to break up fights is just tedious and kills replayability.

If you're not engaged in a huge slaughter fight, you're either A. Holding out against legions of weak enemies; B. Walking long distances to get to the next big fight, or; C. Sitting still on a boat that takes roughly 2 minutes to bring you to another big fight. If none of these sound fun to you that's because they're not, and Along The Nile is chalked full of moments like this.

To summarize, the main reason I don't like Along The Nile isn't because it's a slaughter map or because it's too difficult, it's because it has no sense of pacing and the attempts made at pacing don't respect the player's time. Surviving a huge fight, having to wait on a boat for 2 - 3 minutes, and dying to a fight right after you finally get off the boat is downright painful, and it heavily discourages players from wanting to replay the map.

I get that it's difficult to get the pacing down on a huge map like this and I'm not necessarily an expert when it comes to pacing maps either, but I think a good start would be to include some teleporters that skip the boat sections as well as teleporters that let you skip large walking sections after completing a fight. It might not also be a bad idea to introduce a few gimmicks here and there to make it feel less monotonous. Instead of constantly spawning in weak enemies, make it so something funny happens in those moments where you're walking from point a to b.

I think I've rambled on for long enough so I'll summarize my thoughts on Along The Nile. Map 1 is good for the most part. Maps 2 & 3 start strong, have fantastic final arenas, and boring middle sections. Map 3 in particular has THAT room which just feels unfair to the player and needs a strong revision. Along The Nile overall succeeds in being a slaughter map but has low replay value due to bad pacing and massive difficulty spikes that occur far into the map.

Suggestions: Introduce teleporters that spawn in after you beat a fight and label them so players know where they'll be teleported to. For sections where you currently fight waves of weak fodder enemies, replace them with stuff that will keep the player's interest. I'd suggest putting in optional challenges that grant players supplies upon completion or just having fights designed around fun gimmicks (keyword being fun). For THAT room, don't spawn in any enemies until a key is placed. Make it so you have to place all 8 keys and so that the correct key is placed automatically. Once all keys are placed, start an endless fight that continues to ramp up in intensity until the boss enemies arrive, and killing the boss enemies ends the fight. This way, you're able to focus on collecting the powerups and don't have to juggle between memorizing which keys go where, etc.

Now I'm done. I hope you enjoyed my descent into madness.

Thanks again for watching and as always, stay Serious!

Along The Nile by Nevermore2790: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...

Serious Mods for Serious People: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...