Games DUSK - A game about the 2nd US Civil War

5-2-15 Update:

[DUSK] - Worked on more of the cabin exterior. Spent some time modeling and texturing tree variations that aren't being used at the moment.



I wanted to share a community page with everyone where I am sharing information, images and videos about a PC/Mac project named DUSK. I am also building up tutorials and resource links to some pretty neat stuff usable with Unity and in any other game engine. This week was really about getting the site up and running, getting a logo done and not too much on the art asset development side. The coming weeks will see a much more rapid uptake on the art content production side.

Here is the page I wanted to share:
http://www.facebook.com/LevelEightGames


Here is a preview image of one of the assets I finished up this week.

 

And a quick preview of the main character progress

 

The Colt M4 first person model is ready for the build. It's current polygon count is around 3,700 quad polygons, with 2048 x 2048 diffuse, spec and normal. Nice and efficient for game play. There will be a lower LOD version for the AI characters carrying these around.

 

Completed the initial topography map of the environment for DUSK. It's a little under 7km of playable area, so a terrain of about 4.3 miles in distance. The blue areas are bodies of water, and small rivers. The beige patches are areas of dirt, or matted grass. The thin beige lines are footpaths that are widely taken through the terrain/woods/rural areas.

 

Gorgeous! I can't believe I am first to comment. :] Will be following this!

 

How did you make the map?

 

@TVE - Thanks bud! Hoping to make this something worthwhile to look at for a while. More importantly down the road, something worthwhile to play

@captsmitty77 - I used Photoshop, it's a 1024 x 1024 pixel image. I used cloud fractals to make the dirt areas and then adjusted the histogram to clip off most of the dark fractal areas and leave lots of open green expanse. For the "trees' or what appears to be forest sections that was a layer of low monochromatic noise, I then added in Lighting Effects to give it a bumpiness look to it. I referenced Google maps for all of the roads and road layouts, bodies of water, etc. I basically referenced Google Maps and did my hand painting of everything in Photoshop. All of the roads and stuff are Smart Objects so scalable without loss of quality. I intended on using this to produce a start to my terrain heightmap since all of the hills, roads and lakes, rivers are already there.

UPDATE (5-29-14):
This is the very beginning of the main female companion to our protagonist (his wife). There are no normal maps or sculpting done yet for all of the details, folds, etc. This is just the base diffuse pass as seen in the Maya viewport. Please overlook the "moire" pattern on her shirt...high freq details that will be covered eventually. Maya's hardware renderer doesn't like it. Last note, that's not her final hair either.

 

I completed her rigging in 3ds Max today, got the FBX exported into Unity and hooked into the Mecanim system. This was my test idle animation.

 

It all looks great, you do nice work, keep it up

 

Thanks! My first post in the brand spanking new forums!

 

Looking great!

 

Hi James,
I think that the work you have shown looks really great.
However, I would love to see more of the general concept art for the game.
Can you tell more about the game mechanics?

 

This is good looking. But can you tell some more about the story of this game, how does this war starts and that sort of things. Maybe you can add some raw art or someting like that.
(Sorry for my bad english i'm from the netherlands.)

 

It's looking really awesome so far. I would love to hear more about gameplay too!

 

Hey guys. Thanks for the feedback. I'm working on concepts as we speak. I put the cart before the horse and did these character prototypes. I have an idea of what they all look like and I kinda wanted to flesh some stuff out rapidly. I did do the map concept seen up above and that's going to be a solid helper in establishing the terrain. I have a ton of source images of what the structures should look like in the world. I'll keep this thread posted when new stuff is completed. As for the story I have that in a document right now. It's a high level concept I wrote down on my iPad so I could remember the gist of it all. I want to be careful with what I say and release in regards to story. In the past I have talked openly about every aspect of a project I've worked on. I want to keep this one a little closer to the chest, since I truly believe this a very unique take on the whole post apocalypse/survival genre. I will release some story elements, once I can abridge what I want to release about it. Thank you for watching this thread and your interest

 

I did grab a section of my GDD and made it into an image. This has some tidbits so far, but no real backstory or mechanics.

 

Since it is a civil war, what two sides are at war and does each side have a different term for the war. The south calls the civil war "The War of Northern Aggression", so that may give the game more depth if each side views the war differently.

 

Here is an early look at the family's cabin. Now take in stride that this is the very first pass. No details, wear and tear, foliage or vegetation overgrowth, no props or things that make it look lived in. This is the empty, undecorated shell.
Considering I don't have the entire story solidified yet. I spend my time now working on things I know will populate the world regardless of story details.

 

Good work, keep going !

 

That Sid Meier quote... "A game is a series of interesting choices." 'So... do I got left, right, up or down? Those are my choices." I'm playing Pac-Man.

It's funny how that quote fits even the simplest and earliest of games.

 

This looks nice.

 

Wow I am really loving the feel and theme to this game. The rural "wild west" feel mixes with the, not so much steampunk, but, industrious modern feel quite well. I have to say I am very excited for the future of this game. The quality of textures, animations, models, and everything is quite surreal! You do amazing work, sir! But really, from what I have seen this game has true potential! You might be looking at the new fallout or borderlands! I don't quite know what mechanics you are shooting for, but It looks good nonetheless. I'll look out for this on steam or a console.

 

I'm in, keep it up man.

 

this looks very cool, although that fire doesn't look safe in the wood cabin

 

To be honest, the nuclear apocalypse thing has been done so much right now, that it is becoming a cliche really fast. Why not have people slaughter themselves the old fashioned way or come up with something more fresh?

 

Great work on the lighting effects and reflections! I like what I see so far man, keep it up!

 

Almost everything has been overdone, except for zombies. What devs need to do is put their own touch to make it different. Believable characters that players connect to is the only way games like this are going to be special in my opinion.JamesArndt plan sounds good. A flawed protagonists is a great plan.

 

I agree. Let me give you guys some insight into my thought process right now as I'm writing up the story treatment. Initially I wanted to go with the nuclear attack premise, so I did some research and read up on existing and past stories about this. Turns out, it's really overdone and not very unique. I decided to move on to another scenario. I looked up information on the super volcano in Yellowstone. I toyed with societal collapse as a result of this volcano erupting, disrupting the food supply to our nation, and basically ruining the economy and basic ability for people to buy food, water, etc. I soon discovered this was also an overdone story idea, i.e. the film 2012 and several other movies, or stories about it. It also presented the issue of destroying our ability to even physically live, perpetual winter, dust clouds blotting out the sun, ash falling from the sky constantly. I finally landed on an idea that sat well with me. I discovered something called a Carrington Event, or massive solar storm that works like a world-wide EMP. Here is a neat link describing what an event like this and what it can do to a nation.

http://thetruthwins.com/archives/af...-event-will-plunge-us-back-into-the-dark-ages

I found this isn't as nearly as overdone as some of the other apocalypse scenarios. I hate to use the word "apocalypse" to be honest. This isn't complete destruction physically so much as it's the destruction of our way of life, economy, social structure. I gives me an ideal platform to keep our world physically the same, remove technology, remove most of our advancements as a culture over the last century or so. This allowed me to regress this world even further back than the first civil war. My story and the interaction of the characters need this setting to expose their flaws, and to help them overcome them. I want to show a world where the norm has collapsed, most will die off due to being too dependent on the way the current world exists. The strong survivalists will hang in there, former military, criminals….people mostly accustomed to a harder life. I want to tell a story of a government that in earnest tries it’s best to maintain order and control, and in doing so makes themselves the enemy of most of the populace. People band together and form large militias, finding renewed strength in their numbers. Due to opposing points of views, these militias clash with the existing US military and it turn it results in a civil war.

This is the overarching large view of our story. Most of this game will focus on the story within that story. The survival of this family and their connection to both sides of the war. The main protagonist is a former US military veteran, and has always been loyal to what that represents. Under the circumstances of this new existence, this ideal falters and is no longer what it had always been. Our protagonist is torn between two loyalties, that of his family and that of what was once his country. First and foremost is his family’s survival, second is the quality of that survival. The larger government forces want to sustain control, and in turn relocate most of the remaining populace to internment camps. In this story, the setting was intentional in placing the family in a rural area of Georgia. Most of the war hasn’t touched this family yet, so most of the threat doesn’t appear in the beginning of the story. This allows me to establish a few things..how our family grows food, hunts, gathers water, etc. It also allows me to set up each of the characters as they are in relative “peace” time, how they feel about what’s going on for the rest of the country, how they prepare for the inevitable (which is an eventual military presence).

I’ll also dive into some hard topics that hit home for me personally (I’m a US Marine veteran and a father). Most survival games out there today focus on the player looking out for themselves. They don’t have to concern themselves too much with having family or children dependent on them for their survival. In turn, the game becomes less about personal survival and more about the survival of people you love and care for. I wanted to explore the “liability” of having children in an apocalyptic scenario and ask hard questions. Would you sacrifice one child to save the life of another, how would you remain stealthy with children so young, how would you deal with the loss of one of your children, how would you move from point a to point b with children? These are basics that a single person wouldn’t give a second thought about in a survival scenario. I also wanted to have multiple protagonists for this story, mainly in the form of a husband and wife. Either character will be playable. If our father/husband is killed during the story unfolding, you will immediately take the place of the wife/mother. It will be jarring, it will be unusual, and it’s expected that it would be. How does someone take that loss and maintain control and move forward? From there, clearly the story would be altered and it will be interesting to see how the player will react. Will they abandon their children, and give up after such a loss or will they rise above and take the role of protector? How will this change the dynamic of gameplay, given that our two protagonists have very different skillsets (the father/husband is a veteran and survival expert and his wife functions in a mother/caregiver capacity). This has the potential to flip the story on it’s head and put the female character into a definite aggressor role. I do want to add, she will grow as a character regardless, and will always be an equal, if not more powerful force.

 

I really like everything about the last paragraph above. It sounds interesting from both an emotional and a gameplay perspective.

I remember that there were some early concepts of Kratos from God of War where they had a baby strapped to his back and I always thought it was kind of a shame that they abandoned that angle.

 

That sounds a LOT better than nukes. I'd be careful with a husband and wife storyline. I don't know what audience you are aiming at, but since most gamers are fairly young, they might not go for that angle.

 

For all interested in following development updates (and folks who use Facebook)

https://www.facebook.com/LevelEightGames

I'm close to releasing more info from the GDD on character story arcs. Stay tuned

 

This looks legit, super excited for this.

 

Since this project was very early (DUSK) I decided to port assets over into Unity 5. I haven't done any polish on lighting, etc and it looked pretty decent out of the box. I'm pretty excited for the visuals I'll be able to get out of the new lighting system.

 

This not only looks great so far, I'm very excited about the direction you've decided to take with it. As a soon-to-be-father, I think addressing the issue of children in this kind of scenario is fascinating.

 

Congrats on soon becoming a father.

I do agree. Having the emotions of life and family is something that almost every other games forgets about. With it the game can make you feel the most incredible happiness and/or sadness. So it is a great direction.

 

Thanks guys. I thought this was a potentially compelling story as well. I'm a father of two myself so the thought had crossed my mind many times.

I framed up a nicer scene with the work-in-progress idle animation playing.