Lisa's Email 👧💌 (Campaign Mod)

To start with the positives, the story was a pretty wild trip and I genuinely had no idea where it was going past the first scene with Marge and Cletus. I was just kind of endlessly fascinated to see where it was going and somehow grew more shocked and confused with every mission I passed. I wanted to see it all through to the end, and my night is more interesting as a result of having seen it. I don't think I've played a Hit & Run mission that got emotions out of me in the way this did. There was some relatively colorful language (at least for Fox censorship standards) that caught me off-guard and got a good chuckle out of me.

The chuckles didn't just stop at the writing and I was also pretty pleasantly surprised by some of the animation work you did for the mod. Animated cutsenes in the form of FMV files are always a treat to see, but I was mainly curious about the 'black void' cutscenes initially shown in previews. They're really cool conceptually! I think they do a pretty good job at getting around the more limited animation Hit & Run provides and I can tell you had fun posing the models for a couple of scenes. Stuff like the squash and stretch in the Bonus Mission when Homer does a double take at Cletus' Truck is great. The framing of the scenes can also be pretty entertaining. It'd be super easy to just cut to a shot of Homer holding the phone with his other hand on his hip as he's speaking to Marge. Seeing something more goofy like him climbing on top of the Trailer Park sign is much appreciated and adds a strong sense of visual identity that I think a regular dialog stage wouldn't have had:


There's also an interesting since of identity with the mod's progression system that seems intentional. After the player begins Mission 1, they're essentially locked into a bunch of back-to-back missions that tells the rest of the mod's story. A player can 'Cancel' a mission, but they're usually immediately forced back into the Mission Briefings anyways. In a weird way, I actually kinda dig this and think there's something here! The Mission Briefing cards in this way serve as breaks for each one of the mod's major plot points. The mod is rather short anyways and checkpoints are frequent in the missions, so failure isn't super harsh and it's pretty easy to jump back into in most cases. Perhaps another mod could also experiment with this format to have some sort of branching narrative with optional missions acting as alternative endings to the experience (which is where I initially thought where the mod was going).

On the topic of the mod being short, I will say it's short length surprised me quite a bit! While I don't mind the 5 Story Mission count, I was pretty taken back by the game ending after the funeral and figured there was going to be an additional scene after everything that happened. I don't necessarily mind the downer ending. Character deaths are pretty common in the Treehouse of Horror segments and I think that was the vibe you were going for here. I'm not going into specifics details for those who haven't played it yet who are genuinely curious, but it felt rather abrupt all the same. I suppose some of this can be attributed to a scene right after the funeral being included in the screenshots? I think I was expecting a reveal that one of the characters had survived (again, intentionally being vague here to spoil too much). Seeing there wasn't had me feeling I had missed something (I technically did and did not do the Bonus Mission, though this didn't provide the closure I was expecting with Homer's character).

Said missions also kinda suffer from some odd difficulty balancing. I'd probably go as far as to say that Mission 0 is the trickiest mission of the bunch and it's the first one the player is likely to interact with. While it borrows the same premise and track layout from Level 1's Checkpoint Race, the large lap count and timer make it tricky to do in one go, with a pretty significant setback if the player were to fail on Lap 6 or 7. Mission 1 combines the vanilla game's This Old Shanty with minimal changes with several entirely new segments that feel significantly easier in comparison. Mission 2 is the first entirely original mission, but it's mostly enclosed near the School/Courthouse area so the timers presented aren't difficult to preform in time. Mission 3 sadly doesn't seem to have much in the way of failable conditions, and Mission 4 I only failed after accidentally driving too far away from Bart and Lisa (I'm not entirely sure if failing the mission from driving too far away from them should be a present failable condition). It seems there's a heavier emphasis on story near the end of it's run, but I think this comes at the cost of gameplay. I really think some additional objectives might have greatly benefited the missions . When I state this, I'm mainly referring to Mission 3, which is more or less a glorified cutscene with little that can be done to change the outcome. Perhaps something that has the player avoiding holes in the Matlock Expressway? This ties into the Highway collapsing later and feels like something the player might encounter with the dismantled sign, but it's currently a straight drive until the collapse occurs.

The Expressway is also where Cletus Spelucker and Kent Brockman have a pretty lengthy conversation at the end of the mod. I bring this up because I'm already slightly iffy on the usage of AI assets to this extent, but the voices for both characters...don't quite sound like the characters themselves. A similar issue also comes up with Lou earlier in the mod in M3 as well. I do notice that Mission 4 does briefly switch to using the 'locked' messages to deliver character dialog for Cletus:

I presume this was mostly done due to the pause the 'locked' messages provide making it easier to deliver information that wouldn't be overshadowed by the music/car driving the player has to do later on. However, I kind of wish this method for dialog had been used more often throughout the mod. The change in dialog presentation this late into the mod comes across as a bit jarring because it ends up coming in so late. I also think I'd prefer to read the dialog since it's easier to understand.

• Mission 0 (the Checkpoint Race) seems to have a slight bug with it's audio where the music does not properly loop. I presume this is due to the track loop being set up properly in the .RMS. I would recommend adjusting this, as the length and difficulty of the mission makes it likely the player will notice this.
  
  
• I'm not entirely sure I understand why the Bonus Mission is optional and isn't part of the main mission lineup. It not only gives the player the collectible the mod is named after, but it sets up Homer's motivation for doing the events in This Old Shanty. What was the reasoning behind this design decision? I'm very curious!
  
  
• Mission 2 has a really odd meter present on the drive to the 'Marriage Place'. It took me a couple of replays to understand what it's for. The meter appears to act as a danger indicator for returning back to Springfield Elementary, but none of the stages or dialog really warn you about this. I'm not entirely sure if I would deem it as something necessary since the player has no reason to go back there anyways and I think it's presence would just confuse a majority of players.
  
  
• On the topic of Mission 2, I feel I'd remove or rework the segment where Robot Wiggum arrests the player and brings them to Cletus' Shack. The AI is likely to bump into things and leaving the vehicle crashes the game. I think most players would be okay with (and likely prefer) controlling Robot Wiggum as you drive to the next destination instead (akin to L3M5's Slithery Sleuthing).
  
  
• On the topic of Robot Wiggum, what was the story behind the character? He strikes me as odd since he's the only robot character in the police force and his introduction is pretty sudden.
  
  
• The Wager Race replacement is pretty cute. I actually kinda dig the idea of the Wasp Cameras being regulated to optional missions where combat is the entire focus. I think it makes them slightly less obnoxious to hunt around the map and Hit & Run is a bit lacking when it comes to combat-oriented missions. That said,a lot of the platforming in the mission is very tricky. I initially thought you had to jump over the fence after you got onto the Lard Lad's Donut...It took me several tries to realize I instead had to use the lamppost to climb the rooftops! The scenery is pretty surreal here and the buildup to the Dream Land N64 stage port is great, though the camera is extremely uncooperative and errors is easy to make, forcing the player to start from the beginning. I struggled a lot with the section right after jumping on the doorknobs and the giant tree. I sort of wish there were more ways to 'quick travel' each one of the sections, even if it would trivialize the platforming. I really enjoyed the mission when it was regulated to the boxing arena and the Dream Land port. The stuff inbetween is too tricky to navigate with surprisingly harsh knockback for failure.
  
  
• Strangely, the Level Progress screen makes mention of a replacement for the Street Races called 'Wrestling'. As far as I can tell, these missions...don't actually seem to exist at all in the finished mod. I double-checked the contents of the mod to confirm I simply hadn't been mistaken. I think I'd recommend trying to rework this screen to remove mention of these missions. I assume the Wager Race ended up taking their place?
  
  
• Choosing 'The End' from the Mission Select screen after clearing the mod's Story Missions crashes the game. I think creating a m5sdi.mfk with a 'dummy' objective to alleviate this issue would be preferable, as the player is not warned ahead of time this will cause a game crash. There's some documentation on a 'dummy' condition in action here and it's physically impossible for the player to complete without cheating.