Finn's Blog

GAME IDENTITY:

Post-apocalyptic/doomsday scenario based survival game which is set in and after the 21st century.

DESIGN PILLARS:

Fully immersive survival experience, forcing players to explore the wastelands resulting in them having to scavenge in order to survive.

Designed and based off of the abandoned ghost towns of Chernobyl’s disaster zone years after the fallout occurred.

Players need to feel isolated in this now destroyed wasteland.

GENRE, STORY, MECHANICS SUMMARY:

Genre: Post-apocalyptic, open world action-adventure survival game.

Research for story – possible apocalyptic scenarios. NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST

Nuclear holocaust, A nuclear apocalypse is a horrific scenario where nuclear weapons cause widespread destruction and radioactive fallout, collapsing all civilisation, making some or all of Earth uninhabitable. Casting any survivors into darkness, with complete government shutdown and nationwide riots in whats left of the streets.

Consequences of nuclear warfare; Firestorms, these are very intense and destructive fires which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system, this would be a direct result of nuclear bombing. Nuclear winter, a severe and prolonged global climatic cooling effect which will occur after the firestorms. The idea of a nuclear winter comes from the hypothesis that such firestorms can inject soot into the stratosphere, resulting in it blocking any direct sunlight from reaching the surface of the Earth dropping the temperature rapidly. Radiation sickness, is a result of over exposure to ionising radiation. This radiation then damages the stomach and intestines, blood vessels, and bone marrow. Most people who die from radiation sickness are killed by infections or internal bleeding. Temporary loss of modern technology would also occur as a result of electromagnetic pulses.

Story perspective: Based in Eastside Seattle, Washington.

Based 10 years after the nuclear fallout and firestorms caused by large-scale nuclear warfare spreading across most of the western world, those lucky enough to survive the initial bombings are now cast into darkness as they’re forced to live amongst the aftermath. The streets of Seattle are starting to become more overgrown and run down. The first phase of riots which occurred in the first days after the fallout left most of the city ransacked by raiders. The now collapsed skyscrapers and burnt-out suburbs have been divided into territories, creating a mini-scale civil war amid the gangs and private armies who live in whats left of the Seattle streets. Due to the total shutdown of all government services and buildings law has been thrown into the hands of the citizens. In the wake of the oncoming catastrophe everyone left without second thought leaving behind whole lives and businesses its in these places where the resources needed to survive must be scavenged. The highways leading out of the city are now littered with vehicles as people rushed for a chance at safety in the surrounding Evergreen forests.

GAME MECHANICS:

Mouse Dexterity – The player must move the mouse in a specific way without making errors. Unlocking locked doors and crates in game.

Scarce Resource – There is an easy way for the player to fight enemies, but ammo and medical supplies are scarce, making sure the player balances their resources and uses them effectively.

FEATURES:

Use of a Geiger counter to detect locations of radioactive sites and enemies, louder and more frequent the crackling the bigger danger risk there is or the stronger the enemy(s).

INTERFACE

research into similar titles in game interfaces:

NEONAKIS, A. (2014) – UI DESIGNER

How We Made The Last of Us’s Interface Work So Well

https://kotaku.com/how-we-made-the-last-of-uss-interface-work-so-well-1571841317

” There were eight months left in development of The Last of Us and while some of the UI elements had already been roughed out, an overall design of the HUD (heads up display) had not been established.”

Due to the short time frame it was challenging to have a ful UI developed in time, therefore details such as the user interface, because of this in the end of development Naughty dog took on a second designer.

” The pipeline we found worked the best for us was wireframe, implement, iterate, and then style and polish. “

UI design roadmap for The Last of Us 

ORIGINAL DESIGN

This original design was used for the official E3 release demo.

WIREFRAMES

When Neonakis built the wireframe her main focus was on how the UI felt and functioned and didn’t focus on how it would look until it was perfected.” If you can get something to feel right, then you can dress it up however you want later.” Her reasoning for this order was due to common complaints about games UIs as people mainly complain about it cluttering the screen, and/or that it feels clunky to use.

ONE OF MOCKUP DESIGNS

“Early mockups showed a menu system where the player could swap weapons out and also upgrade them. I initially wanted these systems to appear together on the same screen. My reasoning for this is that when additions like upgrades are designated to their own screen, I have a tendency to ignore them until I absolutely have to use them.”

Implementation

Later on after weeks of implementing designs back and forth on photoshop the following was added.

The upgrades tab was then moved over to the other tab, removing any cluttering of the screen.

Final Design and Skinning

“The final design would require separating upgrades completely from weapon slotting, but I was fine with this because it wasn’t worth keeping them together if it meant compromising how it felt to play the game”

For the user interface of my game a similar design to The Last of Us own final user interface would be suitable, although changes would be made to allow for a 3rd tab to be used as a “bank” for a players items they collect as the scavenge across the open-world.

The game will be played through a first person perspective, giving players a hands on view over the resources they hoard and craft with, this will also improve gun play/combat i feel as personally i prefer first person games rather than 3rd.

SOFTWARE

Cinema4d, unity engine, logic

ART STYLE

My end goal is to a achieve a similar aesthetic to titles such as far cry 5 which arguably has one of the most recent high end photo realistic cinematics and graphics.

AVERKIN, A.

Andrew Averkin – Far Cry 5: Bar Scene

In-text: (Averkin, 2019)

Averkin, A. (2019). Andrew Averkin – Far Cry 5: Bar Scene. [online] Andrewaverkin.com.

https://andrewaverkin.com/projects/mGbny

Renders from the Mary May cinematic (Far cry 5)

“During the process of creation this scene, I decided to use day lighting in order to easily make bunch of tests and to see how everything – objects, lighting, small details and materials will react on each other and work together.”

“At the end, Blur team made big magic at look development stage and made beautiful night lighting which you can see in final cinematic.”

Renders before Blur team.

FINAL CINEMATIC (2017)

However Far Cry 5 is built on the same engine behind the last few of its previous games, the Dunia engine.

Photo-realistic games built on Unity engine.

Escape from tarkov, build on unity 5

PLATFORM

PC/MAC