Along with many Shackers, the staff here has been hoping for a theme park campaign for some time. In fact, we even asked Valve writer Chet Faliszek about it at E3.

"Are you guys taking pictures from our office or something?" he said in response, laughing. "Um... there's some stuff we'll be talking about later."

Fast forward to PAX, and we've got our hands on a theme park campaign in Left 4 Dead 2, the wonderfully off-beat Dark Carnival. Surprise!

Unfortunately, it wasn't all fun and games with Faliszek this time around. In fact, there were a few tears. And it's all your fault. But he doesn't want your sympathy--just a chance. Read on for some talk of the game, and an explanation of this goofy tease.

Shack: I have to tell you, just after Left 4 Dead was released last year, there was a thread on Shacknews that someone started asking what people wanted next from Valve as far as new levels. One of the first responses was a theme park campaign, and the second response was me agreeing.

Chet Faliszek: We did it for you.

Shack: Yeah? That's really what I'm asking.

Chet Faliszek: We saw that and said, "How can we not deliver?"

Shack: Well, thanks! But seriously, what was the inspiration behind this campaign?

Chet Faliszek: So, we mainly kind of designed the whole set of campaigns as, it was really first New Orleans, Savannah, swamp, then we started looking at Georgia. We were like, well, we could either do some rural city things, or let's just kind of do a little... goofy one. And what you're playing here doesn't have the games you get to play, you haven't gotten to ride any of the rides yet, you haven't seen the finale yet, which is an odd finale. In a way, it's kind of like, you know how in the X-Files they have those one-off episodes?

Shack: Yeah.

Chet Faliszek: We went a little goofy on this one.

Shack: Hall of mirrors, perhaps?

Chet Faliszek: No hall of mirrors.

Shack: That'd probably kill your processor.

Chet Faliszek: Yeah.

Shack: So what's coming in the rest of this campaign? Will we see new enemies?

Chet Faliszek: So the new uncommon common for Whispering Oaks is the clown.

Shack: Right.

Chet Faliszek: And once he starts walking fast, or running up to you, his shoe squeaks. And if there are any common infected out there, they'll all come following after him, so you want to shoot him quick.

Shack: And the Jockey is in there.

Chet Faliszek: Well the Jockey is for everything. He's a special infected, and he jumps on your back and pulls you into evil, evil places.

Shack: So when a player is playing as the Jockey, how does that work? Do you have minimal control? Can you shoot people?

Chet Faliszek: No, no. As a survivor being Jockeyed, you have some control, but you have less control than the Jockey. So the Jockey can start running you this way, and if you try to push back, he's going to win because he has more control. But what you can do is lean to the left and the right, and kind of steer that way. And so you'll see a good move is, jump on the guy, get him around the room, and around the corner so you can't be shot off. You'll see the AI and human players run people into Witches.

Shack: Ugh.

Chet Faliszek: Fire, throw them off cliffs, or into the Spitter's goo. So all of those tiny mechanics in there... the survivor's trying not to go there, and the Jockey is trying to lead you there.

Shack: After playing the swamp section here, and parts of the theme park, it seems like you're going for a much more open approach to the outdoor areas.

Chet Faliszek: Some of the campaigns have that definitely. The first campaign is a little more tight. The parts of New Orleans that we haven't shown much are a little more tight. But we wanted to get some variety. In Left 4 Dead 1, the way the director worked, and the way the world worked in there, some of the outdoor maps were much harder. I think the beginning of Blood Harvest is really, really hard, because [the zombies] are so close to you. So we wanted to take what we learned there and make the outdoor fun as well. Players tend to like a more open area and define how they want to travel through the area, but even then we want to keep choke points because in Versus the other team needs to know where you're going to go.

Shack: Are there divergent points?

Chet Faliszek: Oh yeah, often you'll have multiple paths where you can go around. They'll always lead back to the same place, because you have to go to the same safe room. But in a lot of different ways, things can get interesting. But And then of course we'll have choke points that leave you open.

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