Behind the Scenes Making a New Immersive World
Building ☣️Hazard City☣️
Welcome back to the third entry of our Behind the Scenes series, this time focusing on creating the new immersive world that is Hazard City. Our inspirations have been clear, City 17 from Half-Life 2 and Episodes, along with the more recent Half-Life Alyx from Valve Software. Along with other indie developers who have inspired us, such as the Industria series by Bleakmill. Plus the great game world's such as Rapture from BioShock. We want to ensure that Hazard City is immersive and captivating to explore.
Our last update showcased these areas in basic whiteboxes with no skybox or textures, just creating the first initial starting point Hazard City will be built from. Since then, we have been busy establishing the mood, setting and tone we want players to feel when exploring this dystopian world.
While Half-Life 2's City 17 took inspiration directly from European cities, in Eastern Europe to be more specific, we wanted our take to come from the almost random nature of architectural styles you find in a North American city today. We did on site research and photography in one of the largest cities in Canada near us to establish inspiration for this.
As you can see in the photograph above, you can see so many different architectural styles in one corner, from European influences to modern and in between. The diversity of buildings and neighbourhoods will be a big part of your exploration through Hazard City, reflecting a North American city like this one. Below you can see some of the inspiration for the randomly tall and unique buildings you can find, towering over areas, with us wanting to do the same, reminding the player of how small you are on a regular basis.
If you haven't seen our previous Behind the Scenes development updates checkout the links below to meet our teams and learn more:
Behind the Scenes #1 - Development and Building a Team
Behind the Scenes #2 Making a Half-Like - World Creation and Level Design
Everything shown today is work in progress not complete and has entire areas missing textures, lighting and more. Please provide feedback to help make it better while keeping this in mind!
Immersing all the Senses
To create this North American dystopian city, we have ensured to think about every sense we can activate in as many ways possible as you explore Hazard City. Lighting alone makes a huge impact, so we have been working with a robust lighting system that interacts with the clouds and weather.
Hazard City's name is for a good reason, regular chemical storms will cause you to have to wear your respirator at times, and we have created a dynamic particle system for these storms. This allows the city we are creating to feel alive, with every particle adding to the atmosphere, quite literally. All of the weather and storm systems also have proper sound effects and we aim to have a proper soundscape for the city at all times.
Along with sound effects, music is a big part of activating a player's senses and immersing them further into a game's world, and we are now working with popyx who will be creating the majority of the OST for Chemical-Burn. We have been working with this amazing composer to bring you a soundtrack that is heavily inspired by the work of Kelly Bailey for Half-Life 1 and 2. Take a listen below and enjoy the track called Whispers of the Past!
Finally it all comes together to create a world we can't wait to work on each and every day, adding more details and thinking of new gameplay test boxes to push development in new ways. Watch the short gameplay tease below.
RIP Tillie aka Buddy
The story of Chemical-Burn will slowly be revealed but the mystery and "hook" is what we want to focus on for now, you are Cindy with the last dog on Earth Buddy, surviving day to day. You and Buddy have recently been relocated to one of the last cities left on the planet, Hazard City. This first person adventure will take you in and out of Hazard City as you slowly learn how the planet got in such a state and what Cindy's goal is. The game will be a "snapshot" taking place just over 24 hours with the adventure never taking a break.
Buddy is based on my dog Tillie, who unfortunately passed away this past June at the young age of 5. She was diagnosed with cancer not too long before and it rapidly spread with not much we could do about it in such a short amount of time. It was an incredibly heartbreaking couple months but we are so happy to preserve her memory forever in game! We used her fur for textures, barks for sound effects and more so we can't wait for you all to meet them in game! And yes, you will be able to pet the dog! I had the art above done just before her passing, and got it shortly after, it is a great piece and I hope you like it!
Experimenting with more "Test Boxes" | Playing with Gravity
As we mentioned in our previous Behind the Scenes development update, we have been reading, researching and experimenting with level design theory and crafting to ensure 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 its expansion Phantom Liberty, has been an amazing source of knowledge and inspired the "Test Boxes" method we have been using and that we outlined in previous Behind the Scenes articles. Max will be a consultant on our levels as they enter their final phases, which will be a pivotal moment for each and every level and their iterations. Congratulations to Max on the recent release of Mafia: The Old Country, which he played a role in developing.
The latest "Test Boxes" we have been experimenting with focuses on gameplay that is unlike anything we have played with so far. These tests have taken place inside the towering citadels you have seen in the various screenshots. Inside these towers players will take on gravity bending mechanics where there is no longer any up or down and you must make your way through, and this includes Buddy! These areas have been fun to experiment with and test, and we are leaning more into Portal in how these areas will play out in the final game.
Enemies Inspired by other Timelines
As we mentioned in our previous Behind the Scenes development updates, we are not shy about our inspirations for this game and why we even make games. Half-Life is s huge inspiration and we are looking at enemies that never became reality from our favourite franchises and bringing them to life ourselves. Below is one of the latest enemies like this, which is entering the final phases of texturing and touch ups.
Thank You for the Support!
Thanks again for joining us on another Behind the Scenes development update with City 1 Studios for our upcoming Half-Like Chemical-Burn. The support has been fantastic and we cannot thank you enough!
Thank you so much for over 4000 wishlists and counting on Steam! We are on our way to another milestone of 5000! If you want to help shape the game and talk to the developers of City 1 Studios, please join our Discord server, with the invite link found below:
Join the Chemical-Burn Discord Server
