2014/11/30

Story time!

Hi! We're going to share some information about the game's world. It's going to be a bit technical so bear with us. The next story post will be focused on the actual story and the characters.
So... here we go.

The story takes place on Koronite, a world made up of irons. Along with this iron based world there are other kinds of matters on the surface which make life possible. Water is rare to find, clean water even more so as the seas contain lots of iron mixed in with mercury.

Magnetism is what makes the continents, mountains, air and water move. The planet has such a high voltage that it could shatter on its own, but the energy is contained by resistors (gigantic natural poles).


The atmosphere is slowly eating away the hills and mountains by oxidising them. Millions of undiscovered minerals lie hidden deep inside the planet’s inner layers among with organic living irons.

The reason why life is possible in this world is because of the plants as many of them are able to extract iron from the air as well as other sources and incorporate them. They then give off the materials they don’t need -  the ones that are needed for humans to live.


The life forms here are either based on iron or have evolved to survive in this environment. The people living on Koronite essentially adapted to the planet, their bodies able to process some of the iron. As such, they are heavier and sturdier but they regenerate less and more slowly. Their fur is strong but prone to rust if it’s not taken care of regularly. Breaking one of their bones may take tonnes of force but once broken, it stays that way. They can also have parasite-like irons consuming their bodies, or living with them in symbiosis. 

The planet tries to get rid of outsiders on a daily basis, these are the more recent inhabitants who haven't evolved to process iron, yet they are determined in surviving at any cost.

The surface is varied. In some places the ground is hot and sandy, elsewhere it is cold with crumbled metal. There are endless oceans that look like large mirrors and also seemingly never-ending are the chasms, floating mountains made of dust and slowly moving damp cubes of metal.


While life is everywhere in its own stubborn form, the inhabitants are fighting an endless war against nature using steam and sparks. After centuries they can finally say the surface is theirs. The problem is, the surface is not the only layer the world has.

Before conquering the surface life only existed deep below it. The creatures were primitive and less able to adapt to changes. Their large bodies remained as caves between the layers of the planet. As it moved and changed, the surface became more stable than the other layers. Water carved long caverns that became the home of simple and more complex creatures alike. So while the surface keeps changing, under it, chaos is the only natural order.

The average inhabitant stays far away from the deeper levels - they have enough trouble on the surface already - yet there are people who use the caves to remain hidden, to do things under everyone’s feet. They have to fight other creatures or nature itself for these places, so it isn’t very common.


About one and a half centuries ago, it became forbidden in most regions to work, develop and transport under the surface. Only mining could be continued and even that was kept under close supervision. Recently there have been revolts across the world. Leaders came and went, laws faded and became rewritten. Nations changed names and conquered new lands.


These new, neutral areas of land - or as their inhabitants called them, “free terrains” - were captured by hired mercenaries. Without a flag or a name the conquered lands could become inhabited to form a new nation of their own.

In this unstable world, to survive, beggars can't be choosers.

Our protagonists’ lives start out from the village in the valley of Maron.
They separate for a while after but their past and goals ultimately causes their paths to collide soon enough.


names not final

2014/11/01

Post-Halloween post!

Happy Halloween!

Here's a video that we just made (still warm). Prepare for spookiness!
You can see a brand new map and lots of new foliage and effects. We realised we focused solely on gameplay mechanics, so the environments.. kinda sucked. So we were working on creating foliage. And we're showing them off right now. Enjoy!



Here are some bonus pics of the map in daylight. You can see the foliage better this way.





P.S.:

It took us about 8 hours to export the frames from UDK, then convert them into a video, then convert that video, then edit it, and then export the edited video (the first edited export took 3 hours. Turned out it was 4:3, small and disfigured. The second export took about half an hour. It was also edited twice.) And THEN it turns out that the quality is faaar worse than the original exported images. Comparison:


So if we ever have the patience to try video editing again, maybe we'll fix it. But right now, we just want to take a break from this weeklong, nonstop video preparing and editing.

P.P.S.: At least the vid is 60FPS though.