Hey everyone. In today's featured mod article, we're highlighting the first Joint Talos project to be showcased here: The Last Prisoner . This campaign comes from two familiar faces in the community — RFC and Phoenix, who previously worked on puzzles for the "In The Beginning" episode of The Talos Principle: Reawakened.
The Last Prisoner features 10 puzzles, carefully balanced to match the difficulty of the main Talos campaign, making them accessible to most players.
The mod also weaves in a compelling narrative: the simulation has ended, but you remain — a soul trapped in a fragment of reality that’s slowly disintegrating. Your only chance is to solve all the puzzles before the final piece of the simulation disappears… along with your very existence. Don't forget to subscribe to the campaign and also read the basement chat! View game page
BASEMENT CHATS WITH YASEN
Hey there, folks!
Great to have you both down here in the basement. You’re both long-time veterans of the Croteam modding community, having worked on projects for Serious Sam as well as The Talos Principle.
⚪To kick things off: when did you each join the community, and what inspired the shift from creating action-packed Serious Sam mods to contributing to this excellent Puzzle Pack for Talos Reawakened?
RFC: We've been following Croteam's games since 2014, but only became active in the community around 2020, during the pandemic. That’s when we joined Croteam’s Discord server to get more info about the launch of Serious Sam 4. At the time, we had no plans to make mods for the game, until we discovered the Serious Editor. From there, we started "messing around" with it and ended up creating a custom campaign for Serious Sam 4.
Phoenix: Even though it was a lot of fun, that campaign was made purely out of dedication and a desire to learn, since we had zero technical knowledge about game development back then. It was only after releasing the campaign that we really started to study the tools more seriously. I took a 3D modeling course, and RFC kept diving deeper into the Serious Editor.
RFC: A few years later, we began working on a sequel to that campaign, this time set in Egypt, and much bigger and ambitious. But due to the busyness of everyday life (and the fact that we're moving because we're getting married, Yay!), we had to put the development on hold for now. During that time, we got the chance to test The Talos Principle 2, and let’s just say we “got the hang” of puzzle design. Not long after, we were able to put that experience to good use by creating 6 puzzles for the new DLC “In the Beginning”. We still used the Serious Editor to prototype them, since the Talos editor wasn’t available yet.
Phoenix: Not long after, once we got our hands on the new editor, we realized it was way simpler and more user-friendly than the Serious Editor. So we decided to make a mini campaign for the game, since it wouldn’t take nearly as much time as our other project, mostly thanks to how much easier the new tools are to work with. And here we are!
⚪Working as a team on a puzzle-focused project like this — would you say it made the process easier or more challenging? How did you divide the work between the two of you, and would you recommend that other modders consider teaming up for similar projects?
Phoenix: I prefer working as a team, since we can split tasks and playtest each other’s puzzles. That really helps us get a better sense of the difficulty and pick out the best ones.
in “The Last Prisoner”, I designed a few puzzles and focused on the level design, while RFC handled other puzzles and did the prototyping.
For anyone looking to create a bigger campaign, teamwork really makes a difference, not just for the internal feedback, but also for the support during development. And of course, community testers are still a key part of the final polish.
RFC: In the end, you start to notice that everyone has their own “puzzle style”, and mixing those styles in a campaign makes it feel much richer, with a wider variety of challenges, since each person has their own way of thinking. So yeah, in my opinion, working as a team is definitely the way to go.
⚪Did you use any community testers for your map? If so, how did their feedback help shape or improve your puzzles?
Phoenix: Yeah, and it really helped. Even though we did a lot of internal testing, there was always something that slipped through, either a puzzle was too boring (or totally broken). With proper feedback, we were able to improve the overall experience for the community, cutting down bugs and making the campaign a lot more fun.
⚪What advice would you give to someone just starting out with puzzle design in Talos Reawakened?
Phoenix: I’d say the most important thing is to focus on how fun your puzzles are. Just try to make puzzles that are genuinely enjoyable. And maybe throw in a creative or out-of-the-box idea, that kind of thing can really stand out.
RFC: My advice is to think about your “target audience” and try to keep things simple and fun. We tend to design our puzzles with more casual players in mind, so we usually avoid mechanics that punish players for making the wrong move. Some people might prefer the opposite, and that’s totally fine, it’s hard to please everyone. But having a clear audience in mind is a good starting point to figure out what kind of puzzles you want to make.
⚪Thanks again for taking the time to join me here in the basement. To wrap things up — feel free to give a shoutout to anyone you'd like!
Phoenix: I want to thank all the testers who helped out and gave us great feedback, and everyone who’s been enjoying our mini campaign for Talos Reawakened. Thank you so much!
RFC: Thanks for having us here in the basement! And about that Siberian Mayhem mod we’ve had on the shelf.. we still hope to finish it one day, so hopefully we’ll have news on that in the future!