Serious Sam Double D

Announced in March 2011, Double D was created as part of the Serious Sam Indie Series to promote the release of Serious Sam 3: BFE. Devolver Digital requested a "Contra on acid", and the designer Nathan Fouts modeled the game after Mommy's Best Games's first release, Weapon of Choice. Double D debuted for Windows in August 2011. D XXL, an expanded version, was co-released by Mastertronic for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade in February 2013, introducing more content and a local cooperative multiplayer mode. This version was ported back to Windows and released in October 2013 as a free update for the original game. Both versions of Double D received mixed reviews. The gun stacker was well received, although a lack of depth was noted. The sound design was praised. Conflicting opinions were raised regarding the game's writing, level design, music, and visual style. Its repetitiveness and technical issues were criticized.

• Title — Serious Sam Double D • Developer — Mommy's Best Games • Publisher — Devolver Digital • Series — Serious Sam • Engine — XNA • Platforms — Windows, Xbox 360 • Released — * Windows • August 30, 2011 • October 21, 2013 (XXL) • Xbox 360 • February 20, 2013 (XXL) • Genre — Side-scrolling shooter • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer (XXL) • Designer — Nathan Fouts • Programmer — * Nathan Fouts • Richard Rosenthal • Artist — Nathan Fouts • Writer — AJ Johnson • Composer — Hamdija Ajanovic

• Illustration — Sam (left) clashing with a Caterfighter using a six-weapon stack Serious Sam Double D is a 2D side-scrolling shooter with run and gun, platform, and exploration elements. It is played as a twin-stick shooter with a gamepad or with a keyboard–mouse control combination. The primary objective is to lead Sam "Serious" Stone through various historical settings, fight enemies from the horde of his nemesis, Mental, and destroy the teleportation beacons it has placed. The antagonist is General Maxilla, who is leading the horde on Mental's behalf. Sam, as the player character, traverses confined levels, most of which have a primary route leading to the right, while others have branching paths, and some include puzzles. Enemies approach from multiple directions and attack using varying behaviors: some engage in melee combat, others bear ranged weapons, and some act as suicide bombers. Sam can use up to four weapons of each of eight types, which can be collected throughout levels. By default, he brandishes one machine pistol. As part of the "gun stacker", using collectible connectors, the player can stack up to six weapons vertically and fire them simultaneously. Eight stacks can be configured and, at any time, altered and swapped between. Each gun has a separate type of ammunition, of which explosive projectiles may inflict self-harm on the character. Once acquired, a portable jump pad can be thrown repeatedly. It remains where it lands, including on walls, and Sam and enemies bounce off it. Among other techniques, wall jumps can be performed using it. Sam's movement direction can be adjusted mid-air. Upon death, enemy corpses persist in place and become navigable platforms. Some level sections continuously spawn enemies until enough corpses pave the way, either vertically or horizontally, for Sam to proceed. Some collectibles are hidden, among them unlockable challenges that pit the player against a certain number of enemies with a predetermined arsenal. The game automatically saves progress at checkpoints, while quicksaves can be performed manually. In Serious Sam Double D XXL, each type of weapon has four distinct upgrades. These, as well as ammunition, can be purchased from shops using currency dropped by enemies killed by the player characters. For the local multiplayer mode, a second player, assuming the role of Dan "Huff" Huffington, can join at any time and engage in cooperative gameplay. If either player character goes off-screen, he is automatically transported back to the other. If one of them dies, the other can resurrect him by collecting crosses the corpse emits. Two players can also engage in head-to-head combat in a separate mode. Of the twenty-one levels in XXL, three employ auto-running gameplay using vehicles.

Serious Sam Double D was developed by Mommy's Best Games, an indie game studio founded in 2007 by Nathan Fouts. The studio had previously created Weapon of Choice (its first), Shoot 1Up, and Explosionade. After coming across Weapon of Choice, Devolver Digital, the publisher of the Serious Sam series, contacted Fouts, asking him to create a game as part of the Serious Sam Indie Series, a triplet of spinoffs to be created by small studios to promote the impending launch of Serious Sam 3: BFE. The Indie Series also encompasses Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! and Serious Sam: The Random Encounter. Fouts had been a fan of the series, wherefore he accepted the request. The publisher sought a "Contra on acid", while Fouts ruled out simply creating a 2D conversion of a previous Serious Sam game. Fouts modeled Double D after Weapon of Choice, reusing and improving on its development tools and XNA-based game engine. Using a prototype image and specifications for the "gun stacker" mechanic, he pitched the idea to Devolver Digital, which replied with "Make this right now!" The subtitle "Double D -"} characterizes that the game is in 2D, as opposed to previous entries in the series. Fouts was responsible for the design, hand-drawn art, animations, programming, and sound effects. He was joined by three collaborators: Arizona-based Hamdija Ajanovic composed original music, Florida-based AJ Johnson wrote the story and dialog, and Richard Rosenthal provided further programming. Croteam, the main developer of the Serious Sam series, was hands-off in the development. Devolver Digital rarely interfered with Fouts's creative direction but provided funding and marketing. The gun stacker was conceived because Fouts wanted to include irregular guns (as he had in his previous games) but constrained himself to those from previous Serious Sam games. At one point, up to twelve guns could be stacked, but Fouts considered this chaotic and reduced the number to six. The ability to stack chainsaws was added in response to a comment by user greyson97 on a Joystiq article about the game. The jump pad was added to adapt the circle strafing technique often used in 3D Serious Sam games. For levels that require the player to pile enemy corpses, Fouts was inspired by game covers that depicted the protagonist standing on such a pile, although the games themselves had no such element. He picked ancient Egypt as the first setting, as fans of the series were already accustomed to it, and settled on original locations for later parts. The game incorporates several enemies previously seen in other Serious Sam games, as well as original designs. The Serious Sam Indie Series was announced by Devolver Digital in March 2011. An early version of Double D was playable at the PAX East trade show later that month, and at E3 2011 in June. During development, Fouts was under pressure to finish his game before Serious Sam 3: BFE was released. Three trailers were published, one in July and two in August. The first two showcased parts of the gameplay, while the third coincided with the launch. Fouts was not significantly involved in their creation but liked them nonetheless. Double D was released for Windows on August 30, 2011, as the first entry in the Serious Sam Indie Series. The game was cracked by the Theta group within five hours of release, which Fouts described as "flattering" as it would have required high interest. A free demo was made available in October. Fouts held a postmortem at the March 2012 Game Developers Conference.

Following the release, Fouts took a break before commencing work on an Xbox 360 port in December 2011. Mommy's Best Games and Devolver Digital agreed on features that would make such a port worth releasing, which Fouts subsequently developed, following the content specifications for the platform. By March 2012, Fouts was deeply engaged in creating new game art for a "(sorta) secret project" relating to Double D. Voice-over was added for all characters, with John Dick reprising his role as Sam. For the cooperative multiplayer mode, Fouts initially considered adding a "Hologram Sam", based on one of the characters from the multiplayer modes of other Serious Sam games, as the second player character. He eventually agreed with Michael Dalmon, the actor from the trailers, to use his voice and likeness, adding his character to the game as Dan "Huff" Huffington, along with additional dialog between him and Sam. To combat repetitiveness and adjust the game's pacing, Fouts created more levels that required less shooting, some of which used vehicles and others necessitated strategizing. Some existing levels were slightly adjusted to suit the changes made to guns and ammunition. He stated that many of the elements added were previously not included in the original game due to time constraints. The expanded release was announced in May 2012 as Serious Sam Double D XXL, with a projected release later that year. The certification process for Xbox Live Arcade was completed in December 2012. In a two-part "Gun Diary" series of videos publicized between January and February 2013, Fouts explained the additions made to XXL. By February, he devoted most of his work time to marketing efforts for the game. Ajanovic, Johnson, and Rosenthal also worked on this version in their respective capacities. A launch trailer was released alongside XXL. Devolver Digital released the game through Xbox Live Arcade on February 20, 2013, co-publishing it with Mastertronic. Mommy's Best Games held a launch event titled "Shave and a Haircut 8-Bit" in March in Louisville, Kentucky, and invited local game developers to showcase their work. At the time, Fouts stated that XXL was likely to arrive on personal computers at some point. In June 2013, he started porting the game to the platform, cleaning up hard-coded elements, and after a break continued development in September. XXL was released on Steam on October 21, 2013, as a free update for existing owners of Double D, which remained playable separately. The Serious Sam Collection, a physical compilation of Serious Sam games including XXL for Xbox 360, was released by Mastertronic and Maximum Games in July 2013. The game was altered to run directly off the disc and without requiring a connection to the Xbox Live services, which was otherwise a requirement of XNA-based games. Fouts believed that this was the first time an XNA game had been distributed physically. XXL continued to "sell well" through 2015, although sales had been declining. The Xbox 360 version was delisted from Xbox Live Arcade shortly after Mastertronic filed for administration in November 2015.