Development Update #1 - Behind the Scenes at City 1 Studios
Development and Building a Team
City 1 Studios includes 4 members of the Half-Life Alyx NoVR Development team, but we needed a bigger team to put together the game we wanted to create. Inspired by our love for the Half-Life series and many other classic first person shooter franchises, we put together our new studio to take on this large task of creating a brand new IP, world and game.
Check out our newest teaser trailer below!
We spoke with TheGamer and PCGamesN to talk about this process, what it was like moving away from the Source engine and more, check out the links to both articles below.
TheGamer - Half-Life: Alyx NoVR Team Is Making Their Own Half-Like Shooter
PCGamesN - The legendary Half-Life Alyx NoVR team is making a new Valve inspired FPS
We are very excited, the team is highly motivated and we are learning a lot as we enter full development of a retail game versus modding a game. It has been a learning experience and we appreciate the feedback along the way as we ensure we have an amazing team at City 1 Studios ready to bring you the best Half-Like indie game you will ever play!
Our Real World Inspiration for Buddy - AI and Programming
Say hello to Tillie! She is our real world golden retriever inspiration for Buddy in game, Cindy's trusty dog that will be with her every step of the way. Buddy is also one of the few fully biological dogs left on Earth, making Buddy easy prey for bounty hunters around Hazard City.
The most important part of having Buddy in game is ensuring they will be able to feel like a real dog and not create any friction or issues with the player. Everything should work smoothly, Buddy will wander when idle and find things for you, you can command buddy to grab items that are out of Cindy's reach, which will be used in various ways like puzzles and other unique scenarios. Buddy will engage in battle with Cindy, helping distract enemies while Cindy focuses on taking enemies down one by one.
Something is our programming lead and has been focused on the custom FPS engine and AI. He has been working hard to ensure Buddy can do everything we want them to and ensure they feel like a real dog at all times, both in and out of combat. We are using Unreal Engine 5 but are using a lot of custom work and we are fully focused on using more traditional and alternative techniques to ensure the game performs on a wide variety of systems from low to high end. Our target specs right now are a Steam Deck, and no ray tracing will be required.
Our Talented Team of Artists
We wanted to thank our other amazing artists Artvader_AF, Yehor Perepelytsia and VenomWalter_art. We have an amazing team of artists from all over the world making Hazard City and its inhabitants real!
We love the amazing art Artvader_AF created for us of Cindy and Buddy and wanted to show off the alternate version that some in the community grew fond of in a gritty hand drawn style! They are working on more art for the game, this time an action scene.
Artvader_AF has created a ton of amazing art of some of the first person shooter greats! Check out their account here for even more amazing art: ArtVader_AF on X/Twitter
VenomWalter_art has been amazing to work with to help realize the concept of Cindy and her dog Buddy, action poses, style and more. They specialize in art that honours the work of the amazing Yoji Shinkawa of the Metal Gear Solid series. They continue to work on new art and concepts and will be creating our final game art when the game releases.
VenomWalter_art has created a ton of amazing art of some iconic characters in that Metal Gear Solid art style! Check out their account here for even more amazing art: VenomWalter on X/Twitter
Cindy is being voiced by the amazingly talented Sarah Nightingale! They have done amazing voice work in the industry and we are so proud to have them on our team.
Follow Sarah on X/Twitter: https://x.com/SarahNightVA
Animation and 3D Modelling
We have a fantastic team of animators and 3D Modellers including Jawa, CptCrates and Wi'am. They are creating life from nothing as they create 3D models of various kinds, rig them and animate them into the world of Hazard City. This includes weapons, enemies, player arms and hands, Buddy and much more!
Jawa has been working hard on animating our weapons and is our animation lead. Jawa is also our lead first person animator, focusing on weapons, hands, arms and other animations you control as the player. Our first set of weapons are directly inspired by Half-Life 2, with our unrevealed set of weapons leaning into the sci-fi/cyberpunk setting.
Follow Jawa on YouTube here: Jawa on YouTube
Wi'am has been animating our Cynthetic Zombies, inhabitants of Hazard City who have taken too many Cyber-Chems, drugs and more. The main antagonist in the game, Chemical, manufactures and distributes Cyber-Chems in all parts of Hazard City.
Follow Wi'am on X/Twitter here: Wi'am on X/Twitter
The Chemical Troopers seen above, were created by CptCrates, they modelled it, rigged it and animated it, bringing our main enemy force to life. Clearly inspired by the trans-human Combine forces of the Half-Life series, they are an army being led by Chemical himself, the drug lord and crime boss that controls most of Hazard City and supplies everyone with Cyber-Chems.
Follow CptCrates on X/Twitter here: CptCrates on X/Twitter
Building the World
Our biggest inspiration when building Hazard City and the world of Chemical-Burn is the Half-Life series, for the city itself like the arrival train station and more are very much taken from Half-Life 2 (as seen in the bottom screenshot above) but given a futuristic and cyberpunk twist. We use, purchase and license a lot of assets from Fab, Cosmos, Sketchfab and other great services to get great assets quickly; some of which are only used as placeholders for now as well. We are also working with various support studios and independent developers and artists to make Hazard City reach our vision.
We are working with the amazing Scurvy Studios for environmental design, level design and much more! They are a small indie team just like us. Providing support to our team.
Learn more about Scurvy Studios and their own games here: Scurvy Studios Website
We are also working with Anil Isbilir who has provided a lot of assets and work. Anil is a fantastic artist and developer who has worked with Hangar 13 Games on Mafia Definitive Edition for example.
More of Anil’s amazing work can be found here: Anil on ArtStation
Not only are we building a world that looks amazing, but also making sure the levels are properly designed to lead the player into proper combat and exploration loops. Max Pears, a level designer who's credits include Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty, has been an amazing source of knowledge. With Max working on another franchise that has been an inspiration for us, it was a perfect match up for the type of open wide levels we want to create, similar to Cyberpunk 2077's bespoke mission areas. Max Pears will be assisting us as a consultant on our level design, providing feedback and more.
Please check out his website for all the amazing courses and tools for level designers: https://www.maxpears.com/
Music and Audio
Our amazing audio and music team is led by SatouVA. and SweetAngelOdeth, who are creating original tracks for the game. This track called "Metropolitan" is very work in progress, its high tempo and rhythm is the perfect musical soundtrack to the first boss Cindy and Buddy will encounter in the game.
Check out some more of SatouVA.'s work on their YouTube Channel and subscribe: SatouVA.'s YouTube Channel
Thank You!
We cannot thank you all enough over the last couple weeks since we first revealed Chemical-Burn! We have hit over 2000 wishlists and cannot express enough gratitude for the support and feedback. We have made some stumbles along the way but we never would have learned about some serious things without your help and it has been well worth revealing the game even in its very early state of development. We revealed the game as a New Year's Resolution the team had going into 2025 and we are excited to continue this journey with you all as we lead into release next year!
If you want to help shape the game and talk to the developers of City 1 Studios, please join our Discord server!
Join the Chemical-Burn Discord Server: Click Here to Join