Got a chance to run through the mod myself and really enjoyed my time with it!
Episode adaption mods are definitely starting to become a more popular idea and the execution here was pretty great. I actually thought the episode choice in question was a brilliant one. We've had the living Lard Lads mascot in Hit & Run since...the game itself released back in the early 2000s. A whole mod based on the rivalry between Homer and Lard Lad is a novel idea that translates pretty well into gameplay. Got a pretty great kick out of seeing the custom Lard Lad vehicle drive around wrecking havoc on Springfield.
The mission variety was pretty great while going head-to-head with the big man himself. While the mod itself is a bit on the short side as stated in the original forum post, it also means that each mission has around 2 or 3 objective types and none of them repeat. Each one feels very distinct which I think is an important thing to emphasize with a mod like this. Racing the Zip Boys feels fairly different from stopping the media from drawing attention towards the mascot, and each concept from the episode itself is translated pretty well into gameplay.
Outside of gameplay, there are some other things here that I felt were really well done. The decision to use vanilla Evergreen Terrace to make it more accurate to the original segment I thought was a smart choice. It's a nice break from the more typical horror aspects and color schemes seen in Evergreen Terror. Not only that, but there's some clever touches with the ruined debris adding up as the mod goes on. It actively makes you feel as if there's a threat terrorizing Springfield rather than the mod just stating there's an issue and leaving it at that. Said debris also creates a challenge as shortcuts you're normally familiar with are quickly taken away from you, which forces you to think on your toes. It's all rather refreshing even though it's probably the map players are super familiar with at this point!
Despite my praise for the episode adaption, I do feel as if there were some things that got a little messy in the translation to a SHAR mod. For instance, in
Quittin' Time, the Colossal Donut that Homer goes to get and sort of sparks the rest of the mod isn't mentioned until a cutscene. It ends up coming across as slightly confusing for those who might have not seen the original segment or had forgotten some of the story beats of it. I feel having some mission stage text or changing the mission briefing so it mentions you're heading to Lard Lads to get the Colossal Donut alone would make things slightly nicer.
I also felt
Zip It dragged out for a bit too long unfortunately. While I get the concept and the adaption is done well, I feel having to circle the map twice with little to do inbetween hurts the mission replayability as I didn't find it super engaging. I think having the race between the Boys being cut down a bit would help. This issue I think also kinda applies to
Just Don't Look as well, but I personally think the bigger variety in objectives kept me a bit more entertained, but it might be worth trying to see if that mission could be split in half somehow as well?
I also noticed two things regarding Donut of Doom I wanted to bring up just so they might be fixed in a later revision since they appear to be oversights?:
Other than that, I definitely enjoyed my time with this! It was a fun short little adaption of a nice Treehouse of Horror segment with some great dialog and great ideas made in such a small time span. Really hope to see more updates to this!
