Exclusive Sword of the Stars Developer Diary – Part 6

“It's definitely been inspiring to work with a team that I can see really loves this game to the bone.”

Space may not be the final frontier when it comes to the video game genre, but a well crafted space game is certainly a thing of joy.

Sword of the Stars, a PC title, is planned for an early summer release and looks to be counted among the well-crafted space games, opening vistas to the imagination while giving players an entertaining and challenging gaming experience.

Features include:

• 4 races - Human, Hiver, Tarkas and Liir - each with technology advantages and disadvantages.

• Each race has a unique mode of transport between star systems, creating very different styles of play, depending on what race you choose to control.

• Slider bar controls and simplified interface to avoid the confusion of other games without sacrificing depth of gameplay.

• Over 150 distinct technologies to research on a dynamic tech tree that changes from game to game. While the core technology of the tree is consistent, certain offshoots are random from game to game. There is no perfect path up the tech tree to memorize and exploit, because the path keeps changing!

• New technology reflected in detailed ship models, weapons and combat effects. Over 40 weapons from six different weapon classes, in various size classes, from point defense, turrets, and massive spinal mounts!

• Players can design and build ships from three size classes - Destroyer, Cruiser, and Dreadnought - by mixing and matching ship sections (command, mission, and engines), then outfitting them with armor and weapons to suit their preference.

• Up to 8 players can play against the AI and one another over LAN or online.

• Choose from a variety of scenario campaigns to play alone or with friends, each adding more color and depth to the Sword of the Stars universe.

But to truly understand the game from the inside, it is better to go inside and what better way to do that than with the developers chronicling what they are bringing to the game, as well as detailing the state of the development.

In this exclusive GameZone feature, we turn to the Kerberos team for an up close look at the making of Sword of the Starts. For a look at early entries in this diary, please see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

Kerberos Productions Development Diary
Sword of the Stars – Entry 6

Developer’s Journal: The life of an artist
By TJ, Kerberos artist

It’s really starting to sink in for me in the last month just how close we really are to finishing this game. Granted I haven’t been around from the very beginning, but in the time that I’ve spent here, I’ve seen such incredible progress.

I’ve been out of school now almost a year, and though from the very beginning I knew that I wanted to be working on video games, I had no idea where I would end up or what exactly I would be doing. I never gave a second thought to whether or not I would make it, most likely because I was completely engulfed in finishing my demo reel on time. It was the hardest endeavor I’d ever taken on of my own will and with all the long, late hours spent working on my greatest creations of that time; I hardly knew how I was unknowingly preparing myself for the inevitable crunch of the industry.

I was told by many people already in the industry that “who you know” really is the key to getting the door open for you. It’s not the only way but it sure was an enormous help for me with my shy nature. Successfully landing my first junior position at a company in the field I wanted to be in, was incredibly exciting for me. I had no idea what to expect, but somehow I knew this was going to be a great place to start. Taking the initiative was definitely a huge part of having the opportunity of working for Kerberos work for me.

I was a little scared when I was introduced to the team. There were only eight people in the office at that time, I would be the ninth. Almost everyone there had been working together since the birth of the project; some has been working together years before starting this one. It was definitely intimidating, though once I got into the flow of everything; everyday seemed to get more and more comfortable. My being the only woman working in the office full time, day to day, wasn't something that fazed me. Kerberos Productions already had a woman as lead writer and I grew up in a family full of headstrong independent women that never used the gender card in their favor. Nearly all of my friends through high school and thereafter were men as well, so I always just considered myself one of the guys. I realized fairly early on, that for this arrangement to work well in such a small space, everyone had to be pretty cool. Everyone had their jobs to do and didn’t mind going out of their way for me when I had a question or two or 10 about how things were supposed to work.

When I got to Kerberos everyone had a fairly specific portion of the game that they were working on. On the art side of things there were two main 3D artists and one 2D artist, so I was wondering where I would eventually fit into the scheme of things. I started on fairly small tasks. A good portion of my first few months was spent working in Photoshop building up the vast array of tech tree icons. It lasted much longer than I anticipated it would, however I didn’t mind. It was the first time that I had really been able to see a difference in my skills from some of the first icons I completed to the last few I finished. It was very neat.

Around the end of my finishing up the icons was one of the first times I got to sit down and play Sword of the Stars. We had a few hours of play testing near the end of the day. They wanted to give it a go for a few rounds to see how everything was working. How did it go?  Well, what can I say, it was amazing. I mean here I am, barely begun my new career, playing a game that I’m now working on, AND I was absolutely loving it. I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to play all night long. I went home that night and raved. It was really inspiring.

The next few months were really interesting. I began to learn more about the way things were set up in the game. I started working on low poly 3D models and making texture maps for game-sized resolutions. That was tricky; it took a lot of mistakes to learn what worked and what didn’t. I was so proud the first time I got to see a model of mine floating around in the game. It was a really unique sense of accomplishment. Thereafter every time someone cursed my name because my creation obliterated a fleet of their ships I couldn’t help but smirk a little, or a lot as the case may be. What was also really neat was I wasn’t only doing the 3D and 2D work. As I started to make the models I was also taught how to edit the scripts to get them hooked up in the game. I even ended up doing a bit of voice acting for one of the trailers. That was definitely an interesting experience.

As great as most of the time has been here the experience hasn’t entirely been a bed of roses. As the game plowed on and we were getting closer and closer to completion, the inevitable crunch came on. Not completely unexpected I just wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had briefly thought “the crunch” might be a rumor of the gaming world to scare the newbies; unfortunately it was not. Slowly but surely hours stretched a little longer every week, frequently into weekends. Humor around the office began to fade into tired eyes. I now hear stories from everyone I keep in touch with from school. It seems that across the industry, the crunch is fact. So what of the crunch? It ends, and with the end of the crunch comes the release of the game and a lot of emotion. Anticipated by everyone at Kerberos, it’s a high with a little sadness and a lot of relief. It’s what we’ve all worked so hard for.

Everyone has given up a piece of their lives to see this project through. It's taken a lot of work and dedication. It's definitely been inspiring to work with a team that I can see really loves this game to the bone. Every piece of the game meticulously thought out with the most particular detail put into every aspect.  I haven’t been a part of this crew for very long but I have definitely been here long enough to feel privileged to work with all of them. It really has been an awesome experience so far. I don’t think I could’ve wished for a better way to start out my career than with this group of exceptionally talented guys, on this extremely wicked game.

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