It was meant to be a simple job: find one of your boss' ex-partner and snatch the key he hangs around his neck. Of course, when the coward heard a contract was put in his head, he packed his things and fled away with two henchmen. As they say in Radio City: "you can run but you can't hide" and sure enough, your investigation leads you to Barren Meadow, a small town in the middle of nowhere. Barren Meadow is structured like a classic Kingpin unit, complete with a pawn-o-matic, bar, and a central hub that connects five distinct areas packed with blood-thirsty loons. The mod improves the notepad system, cleans the pawn-o-matic a bit, and adds two weapon mods: pistol accuracy and slow burn for the flamethrower.
Articles
Overview
Barren Meadow is a single-player unit for Kingpin following most of the original design choices: it puts the emphasis on shooting, rewards exploration, has a hub connecting multiple action maps and many options to defeat your adversaries (from weapon modifications to hirable henchmen). It features spooky environments and foes, ideal for a spooky Halloween fix. The campaign isn't that long and will last you for an hour to an hour and a half (maybe more on harder difficulties).
New features and fixes
No one likes a broken record, but this time it's for a special occasion. Barren Meadow features new content and fixes some of Kingpin's awkward aspects (nothing game changing). The source code used to build this mod isn't exactly identical to the one used to compile the original game's DLL, so there might be a few issues here and there that were not in the original.
New stuff:
- New weapon modifications: accuracy for the pistol, slowburn for the flamethrower and acid shells mod for the shotgun (select the shotgun twice to load acid rounds).
- Barren Meadow uses tons of rain particle effects. If it slows your computer down, you can adjust the "raindensity" console variable (default is 1.00, double with 2.00, remove entirely with 0.00) and reload the map.
- You can remove all cast entities from the map with the new "nomonster" command (you may also add "2" behind that command to remove only enemies)
- If you want to take some nice-looking action shots, you can stop time with the new "freezeworld" command.
Changes:
- Hints are added to the note book in the order in which you receive them. Pages are also numbered.
- Allowed the "no monster" spawnflag on some doors again.
- The Ammo1 and Ammo2 categories in pawn-o-matics are now merged.
- Cycling through your arsenal is now slot-based rather than weapon-based. In Kingpin, to go from the pipe to the shotgun, you'd have to cycle through pipe, crowbar, pistol, silencer and finally shotgun. Now, you will cycle through pipe (or crowbar), pistol (or silencer) and shotgun (with standard or acid shells). You can rotate weapons in a slot like you would in Kingpin (selecting the same slot multiple times).
- All pawn-o-matics will now randomly comment on your health (it used to only work in Skidrow and Poisonville; yes, I'm as surprised as you are).
- Sharky won't let you buy ammunition for weapons you don't have.
- The original pawn-o-matics stocks have been modified slightly so you can use the acid shell mod, pistol accuracy and slowburn mod in the original game.
Fixes:
- The silencer used to eject two shell casings per shot and made no sound when reloading.
- The shotgun would play one too many times the reload animation if you ran out of shells before the weapon was maxed out.
- Attempting to buy empty slots in the pawn-o-matic no longer triggers a response from Sharky. Those empty slots no longer have a price attached either.
- The "give X" cheat code wouldn't apply a cap on ammunition, so you could request more ammo than you can carry.
- There was a tiny bit of code missing for cast_shorty when they are equipped with the Heavy Machinegun.
Last words
I could see myself working on this thing for the next ten years of my life, but it's really not my intention (no one should have to bear endless "early access" development time). Some content was cut to finish on time and new ideas had to be put aside, but it doesn't matter. The whole unit works from start to finish, is stable enough to be released and polished enough to be fun (huge thanks to the play testers for pointing out the most glaring issues, I hope we got 'em all). It is very unlikely a patch will ever be released, unless a completely game-breaking bug is discovered (on the plus side, the sources are available so you're not entirely out of options).
As an added bonus it should be possible to play the original campaign with the new mod features: open the console and type "map sr1" to start the game as usual. A modification was made last-minute regarding enemies opening doors; it shouldn't break compatibility... at least I hope it doesn't (ran out of time to test it).
I think that's about it. I hope you'll enjoy the mod at least as much as I enjoyed working on it. Have a good one and take care!
- ACC
It's happening
NewsFull mod coming soon. Meanwhile, please study this list of tiny changes that were made to the original game. There'll be a test.
Files
Barren Meadow - Patch 1.2
PatchFixes compatibility issues with the base game, tweaks a few maps, fix the rushed ending. See change log for more info. !! This patch breaks saved games...
Barren Meadow
Full VersionBarren Meadow for Xatrix' 1999 FPS Kingpin: Life of Crime. Full release, includes complete source.
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I had so much fun playing this. Great work!
I wish there are more Kingpin single player mods like this.
Me too.
Just got around to finishing it and it was a great trip! Nice to see a break from the usual slums for a more spooky atmosphere! Loved the Satanic enemy but I wish we got to see more backstory of how they came to be.
Otherwise, the design was great! Felt a lot like "They Hunger" at times despite some questionable enemy placement and the final boss being rather tanky.
I sincerely hope you get around to making another great map-pack in the future! That Acid Shotgun ruled! ;)
Thank you very much! Glad you liked it.
Wasn't expecting this! Hope there is more in store for us in the future! Kingpin seems to have a Multiplayer centric community so it's great to see a SP Campaign come out every once in awhile!
Thanks! Most stuff I did for Kingpin up until now was Deathmatch maps and conversions. I scrapped several tests before finally completing this unit and while I do have a few ideas, they don't click together yet. I'd like to do another campaign, I just don't know when if ever.
I am at the cemetery now. Damn, this feels so polished. I really liked how you dealt with the "loop" in the mansion. When I first entered, I wondered about the floor above me being broken with planks covering the hole. At the end you used it to get to the beginning-floor quicker. Very clever. A true game-designer. Exploration is always rewarded with a little (or 75 bucks) secret. (like the one behind the painting)
Really having fun so far. Loving the oldschool spooky atmosphere of the engine.
Amazing lighting aswell.
"You're leaving Barren Meadow. We'll miss you!"
That was a fun experience. Loved it. The secrets, the atmosphere.
I am not sure if this was a bug or I just missed something, but at the part where it tells you to find a lift in the "Shack", there is no "lift" there for me, so I used noclip to get through a locked door there to "VAlley of no return".
I am not sure what I missed or what I did wrong. Maybe because I found the oil before going to the Shack? No idea.
Hi there, glad you liked it. "Give someone a lift" is just an expression, it means "to drive someone to a particular location." You just had to talk to the bartender again.