Anyway, when demos are recorded in slow-motion, the Playing Time for a particular level will appear much higher than the level completion time, which would mean that the game was either played at a very slow realtimefactor, or the player restarted the level multiple times without quitting that particular session, IE pressing fire after dying and being sent to the start of the level. I believe it includes the time needed to complete the level, as well as the loading time for the level itself, which for me can be between 5-10 seconds. For legitimate runs, the total Playing Time should only be a couple seconds higher than the time needed to complete the level. Playing Time is the cumulative time spent playing the game in a particular session. On the tally screen, there are values for the time taken to complete a level, say, "06 - Oasis" which is 3:25 and Playing Time, which is 3:31. I'm not sure how speedrunning admins determine if a demo was played using slowdown, but the screenshot helps verify that it wasn't. The game allows the action to be slowed down with the following command, taken from ShellSymbols.txt in the Help directory:Īs I found out, demos recorded in values lower than 1 can be played back at normal speed. Why is this method of validation so important? Well, at first I only intended the screenshot as a bonus because of the absense of the tally screen in the demo, but further exploration into the commands in Serious Sam revealed something else. However, capturing a screenshot of the tally screen and packaging it with the demo is just as effective. First, it should be noted that the tally screen, which normally appears at the end of the level describing the time taken for completion, total kills, secrets found, etc. However, I've come up with my own measures to assure that these and future runs were done legitimately. ![]() Unfortunately, I don't remember what sort of validation process was implemented in "Serious Sprint," hell I'm not even sure how it's handled for Quake or Doom. Anyone who wants to try a run like that are welcome to do so. All levels were recorded individually as to allow improvements for earlier levels without affecting the rest of the runs. These were NOT recorded like a traditional QDQ project, where the stats you have in one level are carried over to the next. These runs were recorded (using version 1.05) on Serious difficulty from scratch using the Custom Level menu, which I will explain in a bit. Since no real speed records remain, just walkthrough runs with all secrets collected, I tried my hand at some demo recording and eventually completed a set of runs for the entire game. ![]() Unfortunately it has since disappeared, although some records of its existence are still available at the Files section of Check out the demos there for some solid walkthroughs of the levels. Sometime after the release of the First Encounter, a forum for potential Sam speedrunners appeared in the form of "Serious Sprint," which was much like Quake's SDA or Doom's Compet-N. Since then, Serious Sam has appeared on many different platforms in many new adventures, and continues to be the source for "serious" action. ![]() Less than a year after the release of The First Encounter in March 2001, the aptly-named Second Encounter, Sam's next adventure, was released, improving upon the original in many ways but retaining the same successful shoot-em-up formula. Gamers were given an unexpected sample of Sam's first adventure in 2000 in the form of a tech demo, showing off expansive indoor and outdoor environments and hordes of enemies thrown at the player at the same time, which has become the Serious Sam calling card. Serious Sam began life in 1996 and was developed for five years by the now-famous Croteam. With some awkwardness afforded by that opening, I'm happy to introduce my collection of speedruns for the fast-paced shooter, Serious Sam: The First Encounter. You might remember me from such speedrunning bloopers as "Doom/Doom2 Done Nightmare Style" or "The Obscure Appearance in the Skillz Test #4 Reel." dem recordings which require v1.05 of the game to play. Individual level speed runs of Serious Sam: The First Encounter on Serious difficulty.
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