Vlambeer on Serious Sam: The Random Encounter & Taking Sam Into RPG’s

The Serious Sam Indie Series is almost here, with Serious Sam preparing to go places he’s never gone before. Up to this point, Sam Stone has handled just about anything that’s come his way. He’s faced off against screaming kamikazes without heads to scream with, maniacal clowns, and zombies that also happen to know martial arts, just to name a bizarre few. Having confronted all that, Sam Stone is ready to face one of his greatest challenges yet — the turn-based RPG.

Serious Sam: The Random Encounter completely removes Sam from his FPS roots and places him in a different genre entirely. It looks less like Doom and more like a bullet-riddled Final Fantasy. It’s an unexpected transition, but if anyone is equipped to handle it, it’s the fine folks at Vlambeer. Coming off of Super Crate Box, the Dutch-based Vlambeer are no strangers to intense shooters. So even with the RPG-style gameplay, expect the trademark gun-toting violence that the Serious Sam series is known for.

To shed a little more light on Serious Sam: The Random Encounter and what fans can expect, I talked to the minds behind Vlambeer, Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman. They were happy to share some facts about their upcoming contribution to the Serious Sam Indie Series, their favorite Sam Stone memories, and also what the post-SS future holds for Vlambeer.

IGC: Talk about how the collaboration with Croteam and Devolver Digital came about. How do you feel about being chosen to take part in the Serious Sam world?

Vlambeer: Well, Devolver Digital contacted us through a quick e-mail saying ‘hey, we dig your stuff, want to make a Serious Sam game?’. At Vlambeer, we both happen to have fond memories of those games, so we were really honored to be asked for such a thing. We asked whether we had complete creative freedom, they said yes and so it came to be that we’re now working on an IP we loved -what is it- ten years ago?

IGC: With Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, you’re taking Serious Sam in a completely different direction. What led to the decision to make this game into a turn-based RPG?

Vlambeer: Well, you don’t have a chance to work with something like Serious Sam every day, so we wanted to do something unique. We thought of cool, new things that Sam normally wouldn’t feature in and the turnbased RPG was at the top of the list. We made a prototype, had a lot of fun shooting swarms of enemies and started work from there.

IGC: Fans of the Serious Sam games might look at this game with a bit of skepticism. What familiar elements of the Serious Sam games can those fans expect to find in The Random Encounter?

Vlambeer: We just happen to be fans of Mr. Stone — we’ve been fans ever since the first game, so we’re being pretty true to the spirit, enemies, and weapons of the series. What I think will surprise most people is how well the enemies resemble their original counterparts in terms of behaviour. You still have to dodge Werebulls and hit them from close by, you still have to watch out for charging Kamikazes, you still have to quickly take out Arachnoids if you don’t want to suffer some massive damage.

IGC: Battles that can feature hundreds of on-screen enemies at once calls for serious firepower. What kind of weaponry will Serious Sam have available to him in The Random Encounter?

Vlambeer: A lot of them. To name a few, Sam has access to revolvers, shotguns, snipers, rocket launchers, cannons and many more. Sam will also have access to a variety of items ranging from simple healing items to Kamikaze Bait. Yes, we said Kamikaze Bait.

IGC: To give fans a taste of what to expect, describe some of the boss fights. What kind of giant creatures will players run into?

Vlambeer: Well, let’s put it this way: one the biggest bosses is so large that you’ll be shooting at the only part of it that fits in the screen: its feet. The boss-fights are exactly what boss fights need to be: big, overwhelming and challenging.

IGC: One thing that I noticed with the other two entries to the Serious Sam Indie Series (Serious Sam Double D, Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack) is that their respective developers worked within a genre familiar to them. In the case of Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, this is Vlambeer’s first RPG title. In somewhat stepping out of your comfort zone, was developing for this game easier or more difficult than you expected?

Vlambeer: I don’t know, we’re really used to doing new and unexplored things at Vlambeer. It’s what we like to do, do something entirely new and add that Vlambeer-style mayhem to it. It’s exactly because its challenging that it’s fun to do.

IGC: Things tend to change over the course of the development cycle and certain things inevitably end up getting cut. Is there anything that you originally wanted to include in Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, but wound up on the cutting room floor?

Vlambeer: Yeah, at one point we had a Huge Lava Golem boss. Our animator was already declaring us insane for asking him to animate bosses bigger than the screen, but it turned out the Huge Lava Golem boss wouldn’t fit in terms of graphics, game progression and story, so players’ll have to make do with a Giant Lava Golem that’s only ten times Sam’s height.

Vlambeer: Cannonballing bulls is a big favorite. Rami really likes the moment where Sam is confronted by Kamikazes at that desert hill early in the first game, ‘Aaaah yourself.’

“Shotgunning something from really close by”, says Jan Willem. “Except for Kleers. We hate Kleers.”

IGC: With your contribution to the Serious Sam Indie Series nearly behind you, what’s next for Vlambeer?

Vlambeer: We’ll be working on Ridiculous Fishing with Zach Gage and Greg Wohlwend — it’s a really cool team to be working with. Beyond that, we have no plans set in stone. If we have enough funds, we’ll try and see if we can get to a really big project we’ve kind of been thinking about, but we’ll see that when we get there.

IGC: Thank you, Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman, for talking to us about Serious Sam: The Random Encounter!

Serious Sam: The Random Encounter is set to chuck a Serious Bomb at RPG’s later this month on PC. Indie Games Channel will continue to follow the progress of Vlambeer, as well as the rest of the Serious Sam Indie Series.

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