March 9. 2007

Developer Diary: The Making of Organic Ships for Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade

“Making a game that introduces new ideas and elements is a double-edged sword”

Arrogance has never been a trait that the human race is deficient in. So when a “savior’ arrives, the humans take it as a sign that they have ascended into a divine state – which spells bad news for the rest of the universe.

The game is Genesis Rising, a real-time strategy game from Metamorf Studios and Dreamcatcher. The title is slated for release in mid-March (check out GameZone’s latest preview ).

According to the official storyline:

“Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade takes place in the very distant future, three thousand years after what humans believe was the arrival of “the savior.” The human race has conquered most of the Universe. They consider themselves a divine race, and think of all aliens as inferior; those that do not obey are punished or destroyed. The dominion of the human race was insured by organids - genetically designed organic machines, easily adaptable to any enemy strategy. Only one part of the Universe remains unconquered. It is the galaxy where the Universal Heart, an enigmatic entity that spawned all life and matter into the universe, is hidden. At least, that's what the humans believe… The player will take on a role of captain Iconah, a battle-hardened fleet commander and a brilliant genetic designer, sent on a quest to explore and conquer the Universal Heart.”

Game features include:

• Revolutionary 3D engine that allows real-time morphing of gigantic spaceships

• Unique setting in a world of genetic engineering

• Modification of organic units on the fly

• Incredible variety of units and freedom of strategies

• Cross-genre mix of the best elements from strategy, RPG and adventure games

• Fast-paced, almost arcade-like gameplay with intense, close-up combat Engaging interactive cinematics with charismatic alien characters

• Real-time diplomacy and trade

• A real-time strategy appealing to non-strategy players

Want to know a little more?  So did GameZone and Goran Rajsic of Metamorf Studios was generous enough to provide us with a behind-the-scenes look at the title, and at one facet in particular.

Genesis Rising Developer Diary: Creating Organic Ships

Making a game that introduces new ideas and elements is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, new ideas give the game an edge needed to survive in the ever-growing games market. The bad part is you have no examples to follow on.

Creating a universe that deals with organic ships was both challenging and rewarding.

But, it did not start out well.

Organic ships have existed around the sci-fi scene for some time, but they were usually presented as mysterious alien vessels that attacked humans. Meanwhile we had an entire civilization that used organic technology.

One of the closest examples of how the organic units could look was the "Zerg" race in Starcraft, but that didn’t go far since the "Zerg" do not use organic technology, but instead are different kinds of animals used in specific situations e.g. flying vessels, ground to air beasts etc. We wanted the organic ships to be machines that have no feelings, not animals manipulated to be vessels or buildings. And these had to look cool, but everything that we came up with looked either like a textbook monster, or even worse - like a vegetable.  On the other extreme, ships came out looking too familiar and not organic.

So what makes a machine look like a machine, and what makes an organic life form look organic?

It turns out that it's not as simple as it sounds.

A good example of successful organic machines can be found in H.R. Gigers work, a guy who is obsessed with biomechanics and has brought us the design seen in the "Alien" movies. Just copying the style was not something we were going for, and it wasn’t the exact look we wanted, but the direction we were heading was similar.

The main difference between our concepts and Giger's was repetition of details. Take any organic looking detail and duplicate it side by side in the exact same way repeatedly and you get a manufactured feel to the fabric. This way you get to use organic shapes and textures while keeping the mechanical feel to it. For instance, if we used a disgusting intestine-looking detail, by repeating it in a row side by side, we got a part of the ship that looked like a race car engine made out of meat. That hit the spot.

The next step was creating shapes of the ships. Instead of going for animal shapes or classic ships, we combined the two and blended it together with the above-described technique. We now had machines that had their own style and while keeping a familiar appeal to the ships.

Our troubles were not over. We now had a specific design for ships, but how do you tell different fleets apart?

One of the first suggestions was color, but this failed as soon as we tested it in the "realistic" game environment. The specific lighting on levels nullified this effect, and besides, viewed from a distance, color is hardly noticeable when game effects start firing all around.

We applied two solutions. We added armor plating to parts of the ships for the player’s fleet, while keeping the enemy fleet "naked". This gave the player both a visual difference and a feeling that the fleet is protected and strong. The second solution was creating different types of shapes for enemy ships. The player's fleet is consisted of pleasing aerodynamic round shapes, while the enemies have spikier and rougher contours. This way, the enemy ships were not only different in shape, but also appeared to be more sinister looking.

Finally, the organic machines were ready to fly.

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