How’s the Game Now?
What I’ve Been Doing
For a duration of almost a year I’ve been working in the backgound of my free time on a very special game that was supposed to take only 3 months of my life to make, but after seeing the potential and fun on a game where the player is introduced to a factory inside The Zone and impotent against the enemies and needs to handle the harsh changing environment or figure priorities.
But why take a year? How complex or how hard is to make this game?
The initial plan was to make a hide and seek game. Simple and straight to the point, where I wanted to to a fast game on a new engine (Godot) to learn the tools and have a completed launched game.
This was the plan
The Roadmap of the game is linear by order of essential starting points like the game map or the game logic up to end-of-development polished features like the main menu, additional features like the music to add a desired vibe on the context of what’s happening in the game.
But I wasn’t satisfied and decided to add new ideas and complicate stuff
What Is It Supposed To Be?
Inspiration
One of my favourite books is Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugastky made in 1972, incredible science fiction authors from soviet times who also made other great books like The Doomed City or Hard to be a God.
Roadside Picnic later became higly acclaimed and known worldwide, having references in other media like the game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R, a game that I love also known to have a difficult development history due to Russia’s invasion on Ukraine and the struggle of the ukranian developers. Or the movie Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, a long, hard and slow movie, but I love it for its social commentary of one own’s search for their wishes against what it takes to sacrifice and the conflict between the Zone against human nature.
But also others references like Pacific Drive made by Ironwood studios (2024) nominated on The Game Awards for Best Debut Indie Game, also Metro 2033, game based on the novel with inspiration from Roadside Picnic. And so much more.
Personally, I find interesting the style of a forbidden area, undisclosed and uncharted, but holding valuable treasures and wishes that can define Humanity’s future fueled by greed and curiosity at the cost of unknown danger with life at the hand of an unforgiving force of nature out of this world.
Also I’m curious about the dangers of the Zone from the book. Dangers like mortal spider webs barelly visible, concetrated hidden gravity fields, blazing fire in the air that burns intensely.
Also, I live nearby some abandoned factories that I've explored and see them eerie atmosphere filled with untold stories and forgotten machinery.
Goal
The player will face an unknown danger in an abandoned factory searching for incomprehensible riches to sell.
The objective is to carefully wander through the factory area and find hidden randomly artifacts. But there will be hidden mischiveous traps and enemies that will be around the factory. The start of the game is around sunset where the environment is still easy to navigate, but the player has until midnight to get out. As time passes, difficulty will increase.
There will be wandering enemies and random traps.
If the player doesn't leave until the time ends, difficulty will be higly dangerous and enemies will be aggressive.
Content
First Version
When I started this project I already had some experience in making games, but not only did I try a new game engine, I also challenged myself from making 2D games to a complex 3D games. One D too many.
Luckly for my, I’m already lightly experienced in level design and map-making, so making a greymap is not so time-consuming. That’s what I would say if I didn’t change the tools to design levels to TrenchBroom. Weirdly, also the same tools used on the surreal game Cruelty Squad.
What I’m lacking is getting enough 3D models and props to fill the game and add special content. My ability is enough for a simple graphical game, but the decision to try to make a realistic-enough game is making things difficult.
What I want to say is, my moddeling skills are trash.
The answer is trying my hard to find 3d models with 0 copyright and accessible to me.
Enemies
For now I just have one wandering enemy, where I’ve tried to create so many features to make it smart and unpredictable. I call it Ghost. After changing the game plan, the Ghost will not have such a big part of the gameplay and I might change its appearance or objective in the long run, but for now it serves as the foundation and essence of the game, how I want to envision one of many.
Environment
What I want to focus is on how the surrounding area feels, its vibe.
For this I’ve used many techniques like Volumetric Fog, so special to the scene to add visual impact and feeling that completes the factory. Complementing also is Ambient Occlusion for darkness.
Also Cloud Shaders that actually slowly move and helps define the night ambient. Although it’s not up to my expectations of how the night sky should look like, that’s why there’s reference images to inspire.
much better, creepy vibe. me like
FAQ
Can you elaborate on the game’s objective?
Don’t get me in details. I’m still figuring things out.
Why make a new 3D game?
I got better. I have time. I have coffee.
Why make a blog post about the development?
I love to follow my own progress to see how far I went. Also I love the goofy, incomplete game screenshots mid-development, like this
The first attempt at making a tree in the map. Thankfully not a problem anymore thanks to the one week of just fixing this problem.
What software do I use?
Godot 4.2.2, Trenchbroom, for assets there are Laighter (portable), Tree It and Blender. Also Git for a local version control. Obsidian for planning, todo and ideas. Audacity and FL Studio for audio.
I use cgtrader.com, ambientcg.com, opengameart.org, godotshaders.com for assets and other resources.
