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'Serious Sam 1' Engine Released As Open Source

Posted by timothy on from the teachers-take-note dept.

jones_supa writes: id Software is well known for publicly releasing the source code of its old first-person-shooter games. Now Croteam is joining the club by releasing the source code of the engine of the very first Serious Sam game. It's the very same engine that the company used for Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter and The Second Encounter. Croteam's Vyacheslav Nikitenko, who worked on the source code and prepared Serious Engine v.1.10 for this release, had this to say: "Historically, this version of Serious Engine is very important for Croteam and for me personally. I created several mods for Serious Sam back in the day, before even starting the work on the source code, and it was a great tool for learning. And it's even better today! Obviously, Serious Engine v1.10 won't produce top-notch graphics, but the source code is very well commented, easy to modify, and there are lots of user generated mods out there. This version has everything you need to build your own game – or just experiment. If you're looking to get started, just download the files from GitHub and head over to SeriousZone, it has a great community and lots of tutorials." Happy hacking! (And here's a video with some game play that shows what this engine can do.)

82 comments

  1. Re:Engine specs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    800 brake horsepower. 12000 torques.

  2. Re:Engine specs? by Black+LED · · Score: 3, Informative

    A about a million headless, exploding zombies.

  3. Serious Sam was to much... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I never gotten into Serious Sam back in the day. Probably because of the endless hoard of enemies that keep on coming and coming and coming. A guy needs to rest between repeated comings, especially as he gets older.

    1. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ^ Minute Man spotted.

    2. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Threni · · Score: 0

      Looks really boring to me. Backdrop, largely flat, empty playing area and the odd humanoid running towards you. Wasn't the point of the FPS games generally loads of bad guys, multi-player and a sense of claustraphobia? Plus being dark meant you imagined rather than saw generally rather full graphics? This is awful; was it ever impressive?

    3. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      Serious Sam does have loads of bad guys and multiplayer.

    4. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was more of a LAN party game for dudes/ladies to eat pizza and shoot stuff than a story game, for people who have no idea about the gameplay. Hosts a decent number of people (~8?)

    5. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wasn't the point of the FPS games generally loads of bad guys, multi-player and a sense of claustrophobia?

      The "sense of claustrophobia" came from the limitations of most FPS engines at the time, which resulted in room-and-hallway level design to limited how much detail and how many NPCs got drawn on the screen. The Serious Sam engine was different as it featured wide open spaces and an endless supply of NPCs.

      Plus being dark meant you imagined rather than saw generally rather full graphics?

      Depending on the FPS engine, colored lighting requires time to calculate bounces and drop offs from each source. Some levels are dark because of the storyline, other levels are dark to compile faster. Serious Sam went with full brightness.

      This is awful; was it ever impressive?

      It was back in the day.

    6. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obvious Troll is Too Obvious Go play COD and enjoy your Pretty Explosions...

    7. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Serious Sam Was a parody game of a Genre that took itself much to seriously. It had loads of humorous references to pop culture and a fast pace that focused on action. I played it for the first time, the first level when going the wrong way for about 3 minutes and found a secret weapon only to be chased by a hoard of enemies. It was just something put in for fun and it was.

    8. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      Minute Man spotted.

      My attention span these days are 15 minutes or less. My days of playing video games for hours at a time are long gone.

    9. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      Serious Sam Was a parody game of a Genre that took itself much to seriously.

      The only game I can think of from that era would be Duke Nukem. Or was it Shadow Warrior?

    10. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Faw · · Score: 2

      Instead of watching that boring video watch this one. Is more representative of serious Sam gameplay.

    11. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by maestroX · · Score: 1

      Boring? Never really tried the cannon did you?
      Also funny, only things serious are the coding and gameplay..

    12. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      so says 'creimer'

    13. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That isn't what I was talking about.

    14. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by spire3661 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When you go to a museum, do you completely ignore the history of art and shit on anything that is not in the modern realist style?

      --
      Good-bye
    15. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      You know you're getting popular on Slashdot is when the ACs start trolling you on a regular basis.

    16. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      That isn't what I was talking about.

      Be polite to others by keeping your personal problems to yourself. ;)

    17. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Threni · · Score: 1

      If i saw something that was a pale, derivative version of something else I'd already seen, sure. The Monkeys/Oasis, John Williams, Tracey Emin... no point. Get the originals.

    18. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True. You've only been laid by your hands.

    19. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      You've only been laid by your hands.

      Being celibate has its own rewards.

    20. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are no originals in art. Every one of the people you think were original drew their inspiration from those before them.

    21. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Serious Sam does have loads of bad guys and multiplayer.

      And it scales up in multiplayer: 12-player co-op on Serious difficulty was a site to behold.

    22. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Another settlement needs your help.

    23. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If i saw something that was a pale, derivative version of something else I'd already seen, sure. The Monkeys/Oasis...

      That one, sir, was pure genius, and quite nicely sums up the true status of Oasis
      For those not in on the joke, their opinion of themselves is a lot higher than, oh, wait, do you mean Monkeys not Monkees?

      Not a God botherer, but I refer you to Ecclesiastes 1:9.

    24. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was Shadow Warrior.

      The converse was Rise of the Triad. That series of games did not take itself too seriously, as the trampolines, sky platforms, and strange weapons attest. It was like Duke 3D, but without non-orthogonal walls (more Wolfenstein-3D-ish, but with multi-player support).

      Duke 3D didn't take itself seriously either. Duke Nukem (and Duke Nukem 2) were gread side scrolling 2D platformers.

      If you want, I can punch your Geek Card, but not on the "Knows his Shit" portion, just "Knows about shit".

    25. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      It's more like ignoring the artists who have, for the last 100 years, used their art to deliberately exclude and belittle the rest of us, while laughing about it and looking down on the little people. Previous to this, art was an integral part of people's lives and was appreciated by pretty much everyone.

      "Art is dead"
      -- Russian dadaists, 1915

      They were right.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    26. Re:Serious Sam was to much... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are strengths of the engine. It can handle huge areas with hundreds of enemies with ease.

      The reason that many older engines look so dated now is because the designers and artists were targeting the average computer from back in the day. I haven't worked much with Serious engine, but I still do some stuff in the Raven modified Q3 engines so I know it's possible to produce maps and models that rival some modern games. Many old engines are a lot more flexible than you might think.

  4. Let's examine it ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Hmm .. MSVC 2013 or MSVC 2015, DirectX8, GPLv2 ...

    Looks useless!

    1. Re:Let's examine it ... by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      It's a Windows game. What did you expect?

  5. Learn with it. by erapert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Want a job in the gaming industry? Make a mod or make improvements to an open source game engine and instantly impress at the job interview. (ioQuake3, ioDoom3, Irrlicht, Unreal 4, Unity, etc. and now Serious Sam)

    Want to build a therapy tool or viz tool or prototype but don't want to re-invent the wheel? Use an existing engine. (see above)

    Thank you, id, Croteam, Epic, and others for your generosity. Stuff like this helps keep up the momentum of innovation and drives human progress forward.

    Don't misunderstand me, though: I think it's perfectly appropriate to charge money for software. A man/woman has gotta eat!

    1. Re:Learn with it. by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      Want a job in the gaming industry?

      To get paid shit and treated like shit? Yeah, sign me up!!

    2. Re:Learn with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Want a job in the gaming industry?

      Do you have a job in the gaming industry?

    3. Re:Learn with it. by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Law of supply and demand, my friend, law of supply and demand.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    4. Re:Learn with it. by war4peace · · Score: 1

      You forgot Lumberyard.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    5. Re:Learn with it. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Want a job in the gaming industry? Make a mod or make improvements to an open source game engine and instantly impress at the job interview.

      I doubt that will work in Las Vegas. Their gaming industry is a little bit different.

    6. Re:Learn with it. by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      "Sucker born every minute" is a perfect description of the long line of people who think they want to be game programmers. Unless you're a Carmack, there's no really no point unless you're in to being shit upon.

    7. Re:Learn with it. by spire3661 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, when Amazon actually makes something interesting with Lumberyard, then you can add it to the list.

      --
      Good-bye
    8. Re:Learn with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to be any kind of artist (musician, poet, writer, comedian) you pretty much have to subsidize your own career until you become good enough that people want to pay you to do it. Game devs are the same. If you love game development enough, it's worth it to get paid crap (or sometimes, not at all) just to do what you love.

      Not everyone uses money to 'keep score', some people take satisfaction out of the things they do in life and measure success by their own happiness.

    9. Re:Learn with it. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Want a job in the gaming industry?

      Hell no.

      (And because my parents were married, I can't be in Marketing either.)

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    10. Re:Learn with it. by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      I like making games, too. But there's no way in hell I'd work in a game company. Working 80+ hour weeks while always being just around the corner from being fired is not worth it. Unless you can hook up with a great indie studio, pretty much all the other choices are crap.

      But, hey, if you enjoy being shit on go right on ahead. :)

    11. Re:Learn with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      id software did a good thing releasing ioQuake3. It makes all these other engines so pointless.

      Why bother with SeiriousEngine news when ioQuake3 exists

      Notable games using IoQuake3:
      Urban Terror, Tremulous, Reaction, Smorking Guns, Quake 3, World of Padman, Turtle Arena

      Notable games using SeriousEngine:
      Serious Sam


      IoQuake3 is clearly the winner.

    12. Re:Learn with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are better of starting out indie these days. You can make decent money out of modest sales numbers, and those numbers aren't hard to achieve if you follow a formula and do some PR work.

    13. Re:Learn with it. by Desler · · Score: 1

      First of all, one can't play Serious Sam on ioquake3. So for someone like myself that wants to play Serious Sam it's irrevelant what games run on ioquake3 if Serious Sam isn't one of them. Secondly, all thise games you mentioned for ioquake3 didn't exist the very second the engine was released. So you're comparing apples to oranges.

    14. Re:Learn with it. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      To get paid shit and treated like shit? Yeah, sign me up!!

      Depends where. I'm in a cow-orking space where an independent mobile game developer has one of the private offices. I often chat to the various staff members over tea or coffee since the kitchenette is shared. They seem pretty happy to me. I don't know what the pay is like though.

      Not all game shops are EA-like meat grinders. Some of the are ex-EA. Apparently it's not as bad as you hear about online, I got told, before being told about perma-crunches, 14 hour days, 6 days per week.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    15. Re:Learn with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The id Tech 3 engine cannot handle the large open spaces and hundreds of simultaneous enemies that the Serious engine can.

    16. Re:Learn with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Getting a job in the game industry doesn't mean you have to be a programmer. 99% of a game are the assets, not the engine.

    17. Re:Learn with it. by Desler · · Score: 1

      So having even less job security? Oh goodie!!

    18. Re:Learn with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are naive. There is no such thing as job security anywhere.

    19. Re:Learn with it. by erapert · · Score: 1

      I work on a VR project using TRI's Infernal Engine, then Unreal 3, and now Unreal 4. My boss started out making mods for Quake and the work I did on building a game is one of the prime reasons I was hired.

    20. Re:Learn with it. by erapert · · Score: 1

      1. Serious Engine has only just been released as open source so of course there's not a lot of derivatives.
      2. This isn't really about getting a bunch of derivatives up and running. It may just be as simple as letting people port Serious Sam to new and weird platforms.
      3. I love Urban Terror and I've been playing every night for close to a decade. Frozen Sands, the team behind UrT, has been good about releasing updates over the years. The fact that the Q3 source code was released was a big help to that game and its community. Perhaps we'll see the same with Serious Sam.

  6. Filter error: Too much repetition. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

    Pretty cool of them to release the source code. Maybe someone can replace every cool enemy with something mundane and fuck up the controls.

    1. Re:Filter error: Too much repetition. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Maybe someone can replace every cool enemy with something mundane and fuck up the controls.

      WE DON'T NEED A REMAKE OF DAIKATANA!

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana

  7. Re:Engine specs? by Faw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There was nothing scarier than hearing those screaming exploding guys coming from the distance.

    Well maybe it was scarier to find lots of ammo and health because you knew that as soon as you picked it up something bad was coming.

    Probably lots of screaming guys...

  8. icculus.org port by DrYak · · Score: 1

    What did you expect?

    He expected that. by the time he had fired his git client,
    Ryan would have already release a "ioSeriousEngine" branch, completely ported to SDL2 + Vulkan + OpenAL.

    Worst part? It's not that far from being plausible.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  9. Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of open source 3D engines. What makes this one different on a technical level? What is its historical significance? What are the things it's good at? What are its flaws?

    1. Re:Why is this engine significant? by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1

      You seem to be clueless about the game at hand. Perhaps this is research you should be doing on your own.

    2. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of open source 3D engines. What makes this one different on a technical level?

      It runs Serious Sam and those others engine don't?

    3. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you mean? There's very little information online about the engine (as compared to say the Quake engine, presumably because not that much is known about it) and the game itself doesn't look that impressive for a game released in 2001. Maybe there was something noteworthy about it, but I cannot tell from the let's plays.

    4. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone freely GPLs their formerly proprietary code and all you can do is whine and bitch?

    5. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GP is asking some completely relevant questions...

    6. Re:Why is this engine significant? by malditaenvidia · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was noteworthy by means of throwing hundreds of enemies at you, all with distinct patterns, which forced you to switch between different weapons. The engine was noteworthy for generating gigantic maps and dozens of enemies on screen without chugging, and it managed to do so efficiently on fairly low end systems even at the time. It is also of note that croteam is a small dev house who developed it with really limited resources. Serious Sam is one of the biggest indie releases of all time.

    7. Re:Why is this engine significant? by damnbunni · · Score: 1

      It's very efficient. Not only does it support enormous levels with tremendous draw distance, and not only does it handle enormous enemy counts, it does all this while supporting four player on one PC splitscreen.

      And it does all this on what was modest hardware at the time.

      Serious Sam's poly counts per enemy were never the highest, but when you throw entire mobs of them on the screen without slowdown, it gets impressive.

      I recall a user-made level that was just one big field with the player, a minigun, ammo spawns, and one thousand enemies. In one wave. And the engine handled it.

    8. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It also ran better online than just about any game ever.

      16-24-44 players online and the enemies cranked up to 100x insane levels... THOUSANDS of guys rushing you.

      not many games TODAY can handle that on a home pc. serious sam did.

    9. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was this one very good example of how very bad AI affects the number of enemies the game has to "offer" to the player. It was just a joke with all these "waves" of different types of enemies just coming at you. It felt like riding between these "curves" while avoiding all the damage.

    10. Re:Why is this engine significant? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I recall a user-made level that was just one big field with the player, a minigun, ammo spawns, and one thousand enemies. In one wave. And the engine handled it.

      Wow! Sounds like nuts.wad has found its true spiritual home. Anyone else remember that one?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    11. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Megane · · Score: 2

      So it was a 3D shooter version of a "Bullet Hell" 2D shooter game?

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    12. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it known what this engine does differently than previous engines in order to achieve this?

    13. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then maybe he should go get the game (it's only $5.99 on gog.com) and play it to find out what it offers over the others.

    14. Re:Why is this engine significant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not necessary for it to do it differently to be noteworthy.

  10. I dawt it said Son of Sam engin ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I dawt it said Son of Sam . I was gonna say...why name a engin after Son of Sam. That's pretty stupid...Jeffery Dalmer diveshaft or how bowt the Al Capon hubcab?

  11. Final Solution by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    Maybe someone can open source the code for Arkham Knight so modders can finally make it work.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  12. "... A man/woman has gotta eat!" by antdude · · Score: 1

    But not everyone is a (wo)man. I am an ant! :P

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  13. Linux support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anyone know if this includes the Linux support added in by Icculus?

  14. Awesome Features by KermodeBear · · Score: 1

    This engine had features that you simply could not find in other engines of the day. Multiple gravity sources, real-time visibility to other parts of a map, extremely round objects, the ability to handle 50+ enemies on the screen at once (with zero slowdown), ability to handle huge outdoor areas.

    You could do things with the Serious Engine that would make the Quake, Half-Life, and Unreal engines choke, at best.

    And it still looks pretty good today. The guys at Croteam did a phenomenal job.

    --
    Love sees no species.
    1. Re:Awesome Features by Black+LED · · Score: 1

      Multiple gravity sources

      That was one that blew me away when I first played it. That cylindrical room that you could run up the sides freely in. The only other FPS I've seen to do anything like that was Prey.

  15. Makes me puke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not trolling.

    It really gives me nausea like Doom, but Quake IIRC wasn't that bad in the vomit dept.

    Why?

    1. Re:Makes me puke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BTW, I know it's motion sickness. I want to know what can be done to mitigate that.

  16. Couch multiplayer or handhelds with buttons by tepples · · Score: 1

    I like making games, too. But there's no way in hell I'd work in a game company.

    If you want to make games focused on couch multiplayer, or handheld games that rely on buttons instead of a touch screen, the platforms designed for those use cases are consoles. Console makers demand "financial stability" and "relevant experience" from developers, and other Slashdot users have told me that working in an established game company is the most reliable way to show "relevant experience".