Friday diaries: Quality control

Hello there!

A big part of game development is refining stuff that you've already created, be it code, sound effects or graphics. Sometimes it's also taking stuff out permanently, bits and pieces which don't fit the narrative or overall story.

This week we'll take a peek into what's been left on the cutting room floor, and what features or assets have been altered during the process. Of course we'll be talking about the highlights, not every single thing that has changed during development. 

Background art

The home road scene from one of the first builds, circa February 2015.

Comparison shot from one of the background assets.

Especially the early scenes, which have been there from the start, have gone through many iterations. The graphical style has been re-hauled a couple of times, and that has required  some drastic changes. At first, we created the environments in this very fantasy-like fashion, with crazy lights and mostly prerendered stuff. 

During the spring of 2015 we moved to a more serious tone with the background art, and revised the areas to look more realistic. Trees looked like they could belong in the real world, and ground looked more realistic. Of course there's still this comic-book style flavor to the assets, but now they at least  represent actual real-life scenes, instead of this very abstract and game-like environment. 

The third version of the background art came when we decided to set the game permanently at night, or at the hours of dusk. All the lights would be pre-set in the locations, and the sun would never come up. An eerie fog rolls over the scenes, and there is an ominous glow to some areas. Most of the areas look very different, than they looked during daylight. 

Art style 

Original design of the big house on the left, and current version on the right.

Screenshot from the current version of the game; the abandoned gas station.

This is partially related to the earlier point, but this one is about the big picture. In the very first draft our game was designed to feature a fully top-down view. Then, we tried to create a sidescrolling concept, but that lacked all the fun and engaging gameplay that we wanted to achieve. After that we settled on this slightly slanted bird's eye vision. It was supposed to function like a top-down game in the code, and reveal a bit more about characters and environment, but it soon transformed into this isometric type of deal. Now we have to deal with things being behind other things, walls to become transparent once you're inside the building, and avoid player overlapping things.

When we finally got past the initial birth pain, I took some time to sketch stuff out, and think about how I wanted the whole game to look and feel. In the spring of 2015 I had recently watched the Nirvana documentary Cobain: Montage of Heck, which featured these beautiful hand-animated sequences. Those became one of my main inspirations in creating the look for this little mid-nineties Finnish town. 

Another key inspiration at that time was the wonderful artwork done by Simon Stålenhag. He has created some really unique vistas, which perfectly capture the bleak and beautiful nordic atmosphere. 

Enemy design

The old enemy design in motion. This build is from the summer of 2015.

The evolution of the Bruiser design.

One character asset, which has gone through most iterations, is the 'Bruiser' monster, also known as 'The werewolf monster'. The very first version was this demon-like hairy blob of flesh, which was inspired by Warhammer chaos miniatures. Then, we took the design to a more standard humanoid / werewolf form, which is more streamlined and clear visually. 

The writing 

One of the more grislier bits of Kalaban, seen in the current version of the game.

Oh yes, even the core of our storytelling has changed quite a bit. Kalaban was originally set during the winter, in some generic American little town. The town was overrun by demons and monsters, but we then decided to make the story and setting more personal. The date was set to be in 1995 in early development, and frankly it could've been set in -94 or -96 as well during that time. Somehow just setting it in the smack center resonated with us, especially with the cultural transition happening during that time. For example, the album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins, and films like Se7en coming out that year.

All the dialogue and interactions in the game are written by either Tuukka or me. We've discussed about the tone and the themes endlessly. If something needed to go, it was axed. If something had to be added, we worked it into the game. Earlier this year we did a huge re-haul to the story, and decided to add the NPCs into the game, with their own little side quests. Now, it would be impossible to think about the game without those characters. They are an integral part of the experience. 

User interface

Original UI from early 2015, where inventory bar was always visible and in real-time.

Comparison between the old icons, and the new.

The UI in Kalaban has been through a lot of changes. Originally, we started the game as a purely horror-themed adventure game, and then moved more towards action adventure genre. We needed to add the inventory screen to the game, so that players could manage their hotbar and the items they're carrying, all without interruptions. 

This gave the game more action RPG type of flavor. The changes and reworks took a long time to refine. We started planning the new inventory in October 2015, and at first it was going to be a drop-down menu like in the early Fallout games. We then opted for a more standard grid-based view, but that meant scrapping the previous system entirely. 

Not only have we redesigned the interface over and over, but we've also thrown away the old icons. They were created in the early stages of our development, and they no longer represented the overall visual fidelity of the project. The current ones are better in line with the present art style.

Initial sketch art of the drop-down style inventory, with old icons as placeholders. 

Current version of the inventory screen, with ammunition counters and the classic paper doll. 

But it was the right call, and that choice gave the inventory a lot more clarity, without having to scroll through the whole list, and sub-tabs. Ease-of-use and speed are everything when you're creating the UI, and that's what we went for. 

Now you can drag & drop items to your hotbar, like the health items and weapons, and equip them in real-time. The inventory screen pauses the whole game, so you don't have to worry about enemy attacks, as you read through the flavor text. 

 Sound design

We can't present you the current sound fx, so we present some moving pictures.

The original sound design in Kalaban was godawful. It was just a bunch of freeware and stock effects cobbled together by me. They were only meant to give you a general idea of what you might hear in the game. For the longest time, we did not have a real sounds for any of the inventory items, or effects for the UI. Those details were only recently been added to the game. 

The enemy sounds in the game were particularly awful in early development. The werewolf monster taunts were recorded by me, and I made them as total placeholders, so that they could be replaced at any time. Now, finally after a long wait, our audio mastermind Eetu re-designed the mutant sound effects. And my god, they're a thousand times better than the old ones!

Combat with the Blow-up mutant. 

In other news

Our game was finally launched on Steam Greenlight on Halloween. Some people have missed the point of our very retro intro cinematic, which is not that surprising. I do understand, that for those people who have not grown up with PC games of the nineties, that cinematic can be really confusing. Some people thought that it was just laziness to create such visuals, or that perhaps we don't care enough to put more effort. 

But in fact, the cinematic looks pretty much exactly like we wanted it to look. We wanted to faithfully re-create the cgi videos from the mid-nineties, and all the details in that animation was done with this in mind. The game in itself is done with a quite serious tone. We wanted to have a bit of fun with the trailer, and show our love for the old cinematics, and their wonderfully cheesy nature.

I think people have different kind of ideas about nostalgia. A show like the Stranger Things is set in the 80s, and takes story cues from the old Stephen King stories and Spielberg movies. But at the same time it has very modern visuals, with CGI effects, and all the frames looking polished and perfectly lit. That's what viewers today expect, not the authentic retro quality, which would actually represent the era truthfully. And that is totally fine. We've been taught to expect the certain kind of visuals, no matter what the subject.

Anyways, our game is on Greenlight right now, so go give it a thumbs up, and help us fulfill our dreams: Kalaban at Steam Greenlight.

Friday diaries: Creating the Greenlight trailer

Hello there!

On Halloween we're going to put the game up on Steam Greenlight to be voted into the store. We're currently rushing to get the intro cinematic finished. It will be featured with the in-game footage.

We envisioned this cinematic to be the cheesiest and most glorious retro nineties piece we can create. All prerendered graphics of course. So first we began by sketching out the look for it. We had something like the cg cutscenes of Command & Conquer (1995), the intro video to Dungeon Keeper (1997) and the introduction to Diablo (1996) in mind. The scanline effect, the hammy post-production effects and jerky animations were a must have.

About three weeks ago I learned how to create this very retro-looking, but kinda awesome fog effect in 3D Studio Max. The moment I saw that on screen, a lightbulb went off in my head. It looked almost exactly the same that I had seen in the first Command & Conquer many years ago. Now, looking back, that game and Red Alert (1996) had awesome in-between mission cinematics, done with top level computer graphics at the time. When I saw those cutscenes for the first time, I was genuinely impressed, and I had no idea how they animated them.

All of the scenes in this Kalaban cinematic however, have been created in a frenzy. We only had about a week to create the whole animation, due to the fact that we also had to make the game look commercial before the trailer. The character animations proved to be especially tricky, the monsters in particular. They're the same models used in the in-game sprites, and because they were never properly rigged, I had to get crafty with their animations.

I'm personally a sucker for all things nineties, especially the video game cinematics of that era. The live action FMVs (full-motion video) are my absolute guilty pleasure. The ones in old Command & Conquer titles are one of the best that I've ever seen. These days of course you can run photorealistic graphics in real-time, but back in the day developers had to resort to animations or acted out scenes to achieve that cinematic feel.

We still haven't done live action cutscenes at Rayhouse Productions. That's because building the sets, getting the props, the costumes and hiring the professional actors requires a lot of money. Even a half-decent cast requires some dough, not to mention a place to shoot the scenes in. Since Kalaban is strictly a low-budget indie game, we can't afford those yet. Who knows, if this game is successful, maybe you'll see some live action cutscenes in the future.

Be sure to check out Kalaban, once it goes live on Steam Greenlight, and be sure to give it a thumbs up!

KALABAN at Steam Greenlight

Friday diaries: Games that inspire us - Part 4

Hello, readers!

This week we will be wrapping up with our line of 'Games that inspire us'. There might still be one possible future recommendation after this, we'll see.

Honorable mentions

So, basically there are just way too many games for us to even count, which have inspired us during the years. I personally got my first computer in 1997, and during those first couple of years I played A LOT of games. I mean, I tried every possible demo and shareware I could get my hands on. Sports games, racing titles, boxing games, turn-based strategy games, you name it. Back then I was just so amazed by this new interactive medium (for me) that I wanted to try 'em all out.

A point worth mentioning is that we didn't have an internet connection when I started my gaming hobby. Nope, the games came on demo CDs, or on some friend's floppy disks. If I would've instantly had a decent internet connection, downloading and trying out games would've been so much easier. In my youth, we either bought magazines which had these CDs on them, or swapped existing ones around. So that way I never had this surplus of games, that the kids today have.

And also, at that time not every PC ran every PC title. Even if your computer was brand new. Our first computer had an integrated 2MB graphics chip, which didn't allow hardware acceleration. That would've required buying an extra graphics card, which we couldn't afford at the time. So, my first 3D shooters were all software rendered.

Quake II (1997) with software rendering VS. with hardware acceleration. 

1. id Software games

 

 Keen 4 on the left, and the first scene of Kalaban on the right.

At first I was going to mention Doom (1993), because that game has had such a huge impact on PC gaming in general. But come to think of it, most of the 90s id titles have inspired me as a game designer. You can look at the overworld screen in Keen 4 (1991) for example, and see that it looks similar to the overhead perspective in Kalaban. I used to play that game a lot with my big sister, and I think we once got the whole game beat. The game also had this open-ended Zelda style design, where you would unlock different parts of the map, or access them once you've acquired a certain item.

The influence of Quake (1996) also cannot be underestimated. The game has a very strong Lovecraftian horror theme, and the sound design is to this day nothing short of fantastic. The game takes place in alternate dimensions, which are really nightmarish and gave me night terrors for years. Gameplay-wise it's a classic old school shooter with highly tactical combat, and it really takes the players to their absolute limit. The opening area in Quake is also really clever, starting immediately ingame, and letting you choose your difficulty and episode while getting used to navigating the 3D world.

2. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995)

 

  Comparison of the horde in Warcraft II, and the one in Kalaban.

This one is a bit more specific. I first encountered Blizzard's Warcraft II on a demo disc, and I hadn't played the first one at that point. I had only seen the first one on my school's computer as a shareware. Some of the older boys from my school had installed it on the machine at the back of our classroom. We used to play Warcraft and other shareware titles in between classes on that computer.

But back to Warcraft II. I remember instantly falling in love with the hand-crafted animations in this game. The design on the characters and the world is masterfully done, and you can see that the developers clearly put a lot of time and effort into it. In my mind, the graphics still look pretty neat today. I think that the art style in this game has stood the test of time better than some of the more photorealistic titles of the same era. You really get the impression that you're controlling miniatures, which have come to life on a real-time battlefield.

Also, a thing worth mentioning is that when we began creating the character animations for Kalaban, this game was our main starting point with the look and the perspective. It's not a straight-up imitation of course, but something we drew inspiration from. Warcraft II has this slightly slanted topdown look, which isn't really isometric. Bonus mention goes to the wonderfully cheesy cutscenes, with some fantastically overdone voice-acting. Everything in these early Warcraft titles (and often Blizzard games in general) feels epic, and everything is so grand that even the voiceover feels in place. The story in itself is quite serious, but the game is filled with comedy.

 3. Blood (1997)

 

In comparison, neither one of the games shy away from gore and horror-themed settings.

To anyone who has seen Kalaban in motion, this is should not come as surprise. Cultists, masses of undead minions, a gothic-themed 1920s setting and of course, tons of gore. This classic horror shooter from Monolith Productions has it all. This game is personally one of my favorite FPS games of all time, and not just an inspiration for Kalaban. Growing up, this game was both haunting and exciting, but to be honest, it never got into my head like Quake did. I might've had dreams about it, but not nightmares. Maybe it's the more cartoony violence and sprite characters, but even as a kid I was perfectly able to distance Blood from reality.

I think the level design in the game is superb, and it was done with the same engine as Duke Nukem 3D (1996). The theme in this game is well-presented, and it's consistent, although the game makes many pop culture references, to both horror movies and written fiction. The easter eggs and secrets in the game are wonderful, and always a joy to find.

The protagonist in Blood, Caleb, is an undead gunslinger and without a doubt an antihero. We wanted the action to match the craziness which goes on in Blood, just from a topdown perspective. Storytelling-wise the games are quite different, as Blood is an old school shooter, and its levels are basically 3D monster mazes.

4. Diablo (1996)

 The first boss in Diablo, and the aftermath of a battle in Kalaban.

The loot, the monsters, the creepy and shadowy environments. Ah yes, where would we be without Diablo? Like Warcraft, this game was also developed by Blizzard Entertainment, but by another team called the Blizzard North. I do have to confess that Diablo II (2000) had a much larger impact on me than the first one, but it was a necessary step in evolution. The game still has a fantastic atmosphere, and I like that they've taken the hardcore idea of roguelikes and put it into a mainstream game.

The game was a modern, realtime take on the role-playing and dungeon crawling. There had been a few similar titles like it on the PC, such as the Ultima 8 (1994) from Origin, but none of those were done with the same level of quality. Diablo truly is a "gameplay first" type of game, where it lets you get right into action.

The game has a branching storyline, and when you start the game, you can never know which one the game is going to choose. In addition to that of course, the environments are procedurally generated. Advancing towards Diablo, the main antagonist in the game, is pretty straightforward, as you descend to the hellish dungeons beneath the cathedral. When you've reached a whole new area in the dungeon, an exit appears on the overworld, through which you can travel back to where you were.

Diablo really sticks to the wisdom that simple is beautiful, and it doesn't hold back important information from the player. Everything in the UI is simplistic and straightforward. The chance for a better loot drop makes you wanna replay the game, time after time.

The misconceptions

 

A lot of people have told us that Kalaban reminds them of Postal (1997). Maybe it's the art style, the perspective or that both of the games feature brown-coated men as protagonists. I don't know, to me it seems a bit weird. Sure, I have played Postal 1 and 2, but neither of those games have inspired me in creation of this title.

The abandoned gas station in Kalaban.

Kalaban is more of an open-ended story simulator, where Postal games are like Carmageddon: you can choose to complete the challenges, or play around killing NPCs for fun. They thrive on shock value, and that has not been our goal. Sure, our game has a lot of gore and horror elements, but it's all done in a story-oriented manner.

I think the closest analogy of our game would be topdown System Shock, with a retro alternate history theme. Sure, the gameplay is a bit different and our game has NPCs instead of emails and audio logs, but the goals are similar. The game has RPG style mechanics, but without leveling up and gathering experience. Some might call it "Metroidvania", others would compare it to Zelda, but the official genre of course is "action adventure".

Friday diaries: What inspires the writer

 

Hello people of the internet! 

I decided to give Harri a day off from these and ramble for a while about what inspired the writing and atmosphere of Kalaban and what I aim to show you in the game.

A small introduction. A Finn born and raised, I was told my name is Tuukka, but I adopted "Kaarlo" as my handle ages ago and tend to most go by it. It's a Finnish name still, I just like the ring of it better. I've been writing as a hobby for what feels like forever. My only published works are some handfuls of lyrics for a band called Syncfactory (Finnish electronic industrial band).

So what inspires me to write? Mostly games, actually! Them and Terry Pratchett. I'm not big on watching movies or series, I take my entertainment from books and games. Biggest influences in my writing for Kalaban would be older PC games. Story does have some Evil Dead in it, with all the  twinkle in the eye stuff and all, but my biggest inspiration is an older PC/Amiga game called DreamWeb (1994).

Sure we are not creating a cyberpunk world filled with corruption and mystery, but there you have it! Looks I definitely directed Harri to create in the way of Finnish games close to my heart (all of which are worlds apart from each other, naturally) called Notrium (2003), Tapan Kaikki (1995) and Driftmoon (2013). I highly encourage everyone enjoying survival games to check out Notrium and all that like Pratchett style writing and lighthearted humor in RPG games to check out Driftmoon.

I'd say "try Tapan Kaikki series" but... it may have not stood the test of time that well. But it's still worth a look. Other inspirations are too many to idly list here, but there is still one thing I shall shamelessly plug here! Gone with the Blastwave! http://www.blastwave-comic.com/  An awesome webcomic about life after apocalypse that does not take itself too seriously. Its style of writing and art direction have seeped into our little game thanks to me and that is no accident!

Most of the atmosphere is created in tandem with the rest of the team, with some ideas thrown in by our friends, the best of which we've implemented. Most important thing I wanna portray personally, is a world that is in a way believable, but also alien. I want to toy around with the Finnish tropes but not make the game too entrenched in Finnish culture, I want everyone to be able to enjoy the game as it is! I want it to be a dark, grim world you see, but with a healthy sense of "not taking itself TOO seriously"

 

 

And how I write? I write whenever, while having a late night walk, wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, I'll just jot it down or actually get up and blast a full dialogue for a new character, why not! Since when inspiration strikes, you will have to write write write and get it out of your system, otherwise it'll be gone forever since I lead a busy life with many distractions. So the next time you'll pick up our game, you can be sure the dialogue came from heart, written when inspiration strikes and not just readymade fluff...

Even though the prose might not win any awards ;)


Written by: Tuukka K.