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[Alec S.]

Man, this is looking really nice.  I really like the concept behind it.   I look forward to seeing more.

[Alex Vostrov]

Disclaimer

I’m a bit hesitant to reveal game mockups, for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, the art in the game could change and end up looking quite different.  I don’t want to set up expectations and disappoint anyone.  Also, the mockups are quite rough.  They’re meant to give Carlos and myself an idea of what we’re aiming for.  People might look at the art and conclude that the final game is going to look worse than it actually will.

Finally, I don’t know how fair it is to Carlos, our artist.  I bug him to complete these things very quickly, so they’re not really reflective of his talents.

Fun Stuff

That said, I think that you guys understand how things work.  We’re doing open-heart surgery on the game right now and it’s not pretty.  If all you want to see is the finished product, you should probably check in a couple of months.  On the other hand, if you’re curious about the intermediate steps, come along.

Here’s the original mockup that Carlos made for me a month ago:



I like a couple of things about this picture.  The interface is much better than the original game.  The mockup also shows one of the cool things about the game – huge swarms of baddies.  Finally, I like the idea of breaking up background monotony with randomly scattered objects (circles in the picture, but maybe rocks and debris in the final game).

As you can see, the walls and the colours were still being worked on at this point.  In fact, we still haven’t decided 100% completely on the final look.  Let’s look at the latest mockup:



As you can see, the colours are quite different, and Carlos has removed the outlines to go for a more “natural” look.  There are several things that are great about this picture.

I like the internal texture of the rock walls and the idea of having little crystals stick out of the side.  The gray “rock” floor adds variety to the background.   I’m thinking of how to code it up right now.  The red thing in the middle is supposed to be dead enemy blood, but I like to think of it as a wall too.  It almost looks like cooled volcanic rock with those spikes.

There are a few things that we still have to figure out in the picture above.  The colours still need some experimentation, in my opinion.  The plain gray may become too boring over time.

Summary

Overall, I really like the picture above.  There’s still tweaking to be done, but it gives me a good idea of what I have to code.  The next step is to actually implement it in the game.

I try to be flexible when I translate mockups into reality.  I like to provide hooks for the artist to play with the art assets.  That way the mockup is just a launching point for exploration and not an ironclad specification of how things should be.

[Alex Vostrov]

Today I’m tackling the topic of micromanagement in RTS games.  It might surprise you that I’m working hard to scour all traces of micro from Infested Planet.  That doesn’t seem to go well with the “arcade strategy” idea, does it?

I strongly dislike micromanagement in RTS games.  Maybe it’s because my fingers aren’t particularly nimble, but I find it to be more of an annoyance than anything else.  Consider the history of micromanagement in strategy games.

Origins

Historically, most RTS games have had an atrocious user interface.  Think of the first popular RTS – Dune 2.  You couldn’t even select multiple units together.  The player had to command each one of them individually.  Into this world came games with spellcaster units.  The first Warcraft is a good example of this.  Because game designers of that era couldn’t care less about UI, the spell abilities were naturally manual.

This is the real origin of micromanagement in RTS games.  It was not a feature, but rather a by-product of the designers’ laziness.  The trend continued with Starcraft and was capped off by Warcraft III.  By that point, even Blizzard had tacitly conceded that things needed fixing.  They added the ability to automate certain abilities.

Purpose

Let’s step back a bit and ask ourselves why we play RTS games.  Surely it’s for the strategy component.  Many other games do twitch and reaction gameplay better.  You could build an interesting game focusing on unit managment, but that game would have to focus on that single thing.  Compared to FPSs and fighting games, RTS micro is laughable right now.

On the flip side, if the game is about being a commander, like Infested Planet, why do I have to babysit my troops?

Infested Planet

Because Infested Planet is a Real Time Strategy game, I’m thinking long and hard about the unit management.  For example, an early version of the game asked the player to toss individual grenades.  After playtesting, I decided that this was way too fiddly.  I didn’t want the players to worry about every single grenade toss.  I merged the grenade tossing into a general “Heavy Weapons Area” that allowed marines to go nuts with heavy weapons.

This is the approach that I’m taking to the whole game.  Your role is to make command-level decisions, not to babysit your units.

[Alex Vostrov]

So here I am, working on the game, minding my own business, when I see THIS.  Since when is Valve interested in space marines?  I thought that was Blizzard’s turf.

Of course, the graphics are gorgeous and it’s free.  Bleh!  How am I supposed to compete with this?



Is this the untimely doom of Rocket Bear Games? <dramatic music in the background>

To be honest, I’m not too worried, for a couple of reasons.

Awesome Name

Ok, this one is only half-serious.  I feel that “Infested Planet” is a lot more creative.  Carlos came up with that when we were brainstorming.  Of course, I also had to talk him out of using “Swarm” somewhere in the title.  Whew.

Time

By the time my game is finished and released, Alien Swarm will probably be a long-forgotten memory.  People will be hungry for more alien-zombie killing action!

More Enemies

I think that the first level of my game has 10x more enemies than what their videos show.  I doubt they could draw the gigantic crowds that I do with the fancy graphics engine of theirs.

Less Strategy

There’s nothing wrong with action games (I love TF2, for example), but Infested Planet is definitely an RTS.  Alien Swarm seems to be an action game with minor tactical elements.  You can see this in how they talk about it (4-player co-op).  If you watch the videos, the game definitely looks to be on the twitch-reflex side of the fence.

No Mutations

Of course, I don’t know this for sure, since the game comes out tomorrow, but I doubt that Alien Swarm has my mutation system.  That’s what makes Infested Planet fun and replayable.

Campaign Mode

I crush Alien Swarm in this department.  They seem to have focused on multiplayer, and neglected any sort of single player.  That’s too bad, because most people don’t play multiplayer.

Infested Planet will have a replayable campaign mode that you can run through multiple times.  I have all kinds of neat ideas for it.

Summary

In summary, Infested Planet and Alien Swarm are two different games.  Heh, who would have guessed?  I’m going to be checking the game out tomorrow, and you should too if it looks interesting.  You can’t beat the price.

Who knows, maybe this will even help me.  I’m going to be stealing visual effects from them, and maybe there will be a surge of interest in killing large hordes of baddies

[Alex Vostrov]

Over the last two weeks, we’ve been working hard to improve the visuals in the game.  One reason is that I want to release a trailer to let people know about the game.  It’s a lot easier to show the game off if the graphics look good.

I’m not done making the graphics better – we’re maybe 50% of the way there.  Still I thought that it’s interesting to show you where we’re at right now.  First, I’d like to remind you of what the game looked like originally:



Yay for programmer art!  I thought that I did ok with AotPZ, but it’s not nearly well enough.  Let’s fast forward to today (keep in mind that a lot of the art is still unfinished, like the bottom bar):



Just yesterday, I put in a lot of the new sprites into the game.  Carlos has been working hard on them for the past week.  You can see the new hive and tower images on the above screenshot.



I’ve made so that you can have different types of walls.  It really makes the game more lively.



If you look carefully, you’ll see that there are shadows under the buildings and units.  This was something that I threw together in an hour yesterday, just to see how it looks.  I like it quite a bit, actually; I might spend more time to make it look better.

Well, that’s what I’ve been up to for the past week.  After I finish off the map graphics, I’ll move onto effects like explosions and animation.

[Alex Vostrov]

I’m back!  One of our competitors – goes by the name of Blizzard – tried to sabotage my productivity with a cunningly designed piece of software.  Thankfully, I’m all over it now and back to working on the game.

One of the fun things about Infested Planet is mowing down huge crowds of enemies.  Playing off of that,  I decided to make things a bit more over-the-top.  A couple of days ago I added a decal system that allows me to “paint” the floor of the level.



Now dead enemies don’t just vanish in a red puff.  This allows you to see where really big battles happened and makes the game look a little bit better.

[KM]

This game really reminds me of Crimson Land, which was a very fun indie game where you survive wave after wave of Spiders and Dinosaurs (yeah, deadly combination). You could level up and try and last as logn as you possibly could. Good times.

This game you're making looks like a bunch of carnal fun. :D

By the way, who's doing the music for the game?

[ZereoX]

As I was reading through the thread, I saw this picture. I just went . The first thing that popped in my head was PixelJunk: Shooter. This game will be awesome.

Thanks, Alex Vostrov.

ZereoX.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Infested Planet is a pretty unconventional real time strategy game.  Compare it to something like Starcraft.

- You don’t produce units
- You don’t have to gather resources
- You fight hundreds of enemies with only a few units

are you sure this isn't a "RPG" rather than an "RTS" then? i mean, from your description here and in your posts it feels more like a RPG to me: you have a small party (5 marines) and you buy them upgrades and fight hordes of monsters. that's exactly like most RPGs, and very different from most RTSs. what are the RTS elements of the game? e.g., why is this an RTS and not an RPG? i know that genres don't matter so it's somewhat of a stupid question, but i'm just confused about why you are calling this an RTS game when it seems designed much more like an RPG.

[iPope]

I think its much more of a Tactical RPG with RTS elements, the acronym now being TRPRTS. It stands for Tactical Role Playing Real Time Strategy.

[Alec S.]

As long as we're throwing out genre names, I'd say this is probably real time tactics.  The fact that this sounds like a series of scenarios/maps (correct me if I'm wrong on this count) rather than a narrative (note by narrative, I don't necessarily pre-scripted narrative, but a narrative form) progression suggests it's primarily a Real Time Tactics game with RPG elements, rather than the other way around.

[ness io kain]

-It's in real time
-There is strategy

...Real-time strategy. RTS.


Anyhow, this looks like it's coming together nicely.
I feel like there should be differently colored floor areas to go with the different walls; it would make it seem more like a full environment... Right now it just looks like... Well, some level in a game (which, yes, is exactly what it is).
Also, the blood on the ground seems to clash with the rest of the style. I feel like it's overdetailed... Maybe that's just me, though.

[Alex Vostrov]

Thanks for the thoughts about the graphics.  I'm still wrangling with the art, so the style looks all over the place, naturally.

With regard to genre, if you were to corner me, I'd go with real-time-tactics.  If you've ever played World in Conflict or Ground Control, that gets you into the right neighbourhood.  I wouldn't say that it's an RPG because it's missing almost everything that defines RPGs.  Character building, narrative or dialogue.

[KM]

Technically every game is a RPG. If you play a role (A Deity, a Solider, a Plumber) and it's a game, it's an RPG. :D And man do I love my RPGs!

(Don't take it too seriously, it's a joke. d:)

[Alex Vostrov]

I haven’t posted an update in a while.  Part of the reason is that after the SC2 release, my schedule has been turned upside-down.  Thankfully, I think that I’ve recovered this week.

The other reason is that I’ve been working on various graphical improvements to the game.  Let’s go over them so that I can brag.

Explosions

Before, explosions used to be just puffs of coloured smoke, like this:



I spent a couple of days last week tweaking how they look.  Now I have a nice fireball, sparks and shockwave effect.



Lighting

I wanted the game world to have more variation in brightness, instead of being the same tone all over.  I already had a simple shadow system hacked in, but I also wanted lights.  Thankfully, I played around with something like this in a previous (unreleased) project.



I also added the small detail of muzzle flashes for the marines and turrets.  They help make the firefights more alive.  Notice how the areas around the cannon and the explosion are subtly lit.

Background Texture

One thing that’s always bugged me about the new art style is how flat the background was.  I was also worried about the colours – grey just seemed bland to me.  We’re still working to improve the colour – that’s why I’m experimenting with blue – but I think that I’ve solved the background problem.

I did two things to make the map more interesting.  I added textures to the ground and I also added extra texture around the walls.  Check out this zoomed-out view.



Future Improvements

As I’ve mentioned, there are still a couple things to figure out.  I still think that the colours of the game need an overhaul.  Carlos and I are working on that right now.  I’m shooting for a darker, more grungy look for the enemies.  The second thing that I want to do is to make the walls more interesting.  I’ll probably use the same technique that I did for the background.

Once I have those two things out of the way, I’ll probably release a trailer for the game.  That won’t mean the end of graphical improvements, but at least the large parts of it will be complete.

[KM]

I am so looking forward to this. :D

[mokesmoe]

I really like the new colours. The light grey floor always looked like snow to me. Having the base colors of red blue and yellow helps everything stand out. I agree that more realistic looking enemies would go well with the realistic lighting, explosions and blood splatters. The players would look a bit cartoony in comparison, but this would separate them from the enemies, and make them seem more like the good guys.

Also, genre-wise, wouldn't this be an arena shooter?

[RCIX]

-It's in real time
-There is strategy

...Real-time strategy. RTS.

Us RTS players are quite picky about what gets "RTS" applied to it. The most reasonable definition for RTS versus RTT is that RTS games let you build units and apply them to a large overall plan of attack, whereas RTT games often don't let you produce units and deal with a lot more of the individual unit command levels and micromanagement of those units.

Anyway, about the game:
Interesting looking, i don't go for games with a lot of blood and gore, but the art style is interesting and in fact reminds me of PixelJunk Shooter for the PS3.

[Alex Vostrov]

Anyway, about the game:
Interesting looking, i don't go for games with a lot of blood and gore, but the art style is interesting and in fact reminds me of PixelJunk Shooter for the PS3.

It's a bit sad, I know.  I'm compensating for my lack of art skills with red decals. 
I may make it green or something before all's finished.

[Alex Vostrov]

What's with the visual obsession?

Some people have mentioned that I seem to be focusing on the game aesthetics a lot recently.  The reason is that I'm pushing to release a trailer, and I can't do that unless the graphics are fundamentally settled.

What's the big deal?  About a month ago, after I announced the game, I started talking about it to the gaming press.  The response was very muted.  Michael Rose from www.indiegames.com was awesome and interviewed me, but other than that nobody seemed to care.

My suspicion was that it was due to the game's shabby, cobbled-together look.  At the time, I didn't invest any effort into graphical improvements.  I decided that I had to get the game noticed early on, or it would disappear into the void of the 'net.  That's why I'm doing so much visual stuff lately.  Once the trailer is out of the way, I'll switch back to improving the gameplay.

Alien Blood

I've been working on alien and building death graphics for the last couple of days.  That means large clouds of alien blood.  I'm actually a bit divided on putting this much blood in the game, but I'll talk about that later.  For now, here are some exploding hives.



One thing that felt off about the game is that hives dying didn't feel satisfying.  This was a major turning point in a round and it was flat.  I made them explode in a big way now, with red streamers and everything.



The other thing that was bugging me was the hive damage response when they were still alive.  They would show no sign that they were hurt.  I added squirting jets to show the damage.



Too Much?

As I've been working on all of these death effects, I've started to wonder if it all might be a bit too violent.  There are certainly reasons for concern.  Firstly, I've noticed that I'm trying to compensate for my lack of art skill with large amounts of red decals.  That seems a bit questionable from the art direction perspective.  Also, the grungy look of the background and effects is starting to conflict with the simplified look of the marines, aliens and buildings.  I'll need to find a unified art style somehow.

The other concern is quasi-ethical.  I doubt that anyone will go on a killing spree after playing my game, but I find spectacular violence for its own sake somewhat distasteful.  Not to mention that all the exploding blood is starting to be distracting for the player.

The other side of the argument is that this is a game where you mow down large crowds of mindless drones.  That's not too erudite however you consider it, so the graphics are appropriate for the subject matter.  Perhaps I should just roll with it and make it as ridiculous and over the top as I can.

In the end I might do several things to deal with the issue.  Firstly, this is probably the high point of blood in the game.  I'm done with death animations, so it's not getting any more graphic.  I might tone down the art for the effects, making the blood more cartoony or changing the colour to be more muted and non-red.  The other option is to provide an "extra blood" switch in the game for people who want the spectacle and make it toned-down for everyone else.

What do you think?  Does the game look too gory now?