With Ion Fury coming out for PS4 tomorrow, we wanted to give everyone a look behind the scenes by stepping into one of the game's most important aspects, its unique design philosophy!
Every powerful Engine Game has a Level Building philosophy and a set of rules. One of the most important is: "Always start with BANG!"
The key feature of every developer game for the Engineer is their appreciation of the memorable first level.
Duke Nukem 3D: Restricted to a burning ship on the roof of a building.
Blood: Caleb wakes from the dead from the grave hungry for revenge.
Warrior Warrior: Start at the dojo with the zombie ninja jumping in from the window, allowing you to spit in half with your katana.
Ion Fury is an exception to this rule, so we had to start the game in an unforgettable way, which set the tone and showed the players that this could mean walking the park!
Let's take a look at the launch of the Ion Fury Campaign preview: Heskel systems crashed the truck at full speed at the GDF entrance.
The GDF Garage was the first level of our preview campaign (Demo of sorts). The game is now starting somewhere but this particular event is still being filmed somewhere in Ion Fury.
Level Building Process
Basic idea
First you must have a basic idea of what your locations will be like.
This may come from the story itself or the story may change at your level. In our case we had a basic guide on the subject and created a plan in mind. Once we knew which locations our game would be in, we assigned each location to a different developer.
Construction games are well-known for their progress and usually show the next level jumps and exercises for a long duration of continuous flow.
We wanted to pay less tax on this and get through. Ion Fury will be one campaign that will flow unlimited from one level to another with brief encounters between each major chapter.
Truck collision sequence
Returning to our example of a truck collision sequence, here's how.
1. Sketch and Blockout
Original drawing by level designer.
First of all, we started with some basic types to get a sense of scale, we could even throw in some light and make different types. Even if you make a basic room it is important that you look at the beauty part of it, and make the room look cozy in every room if possible. This is probably the best time to plan what level plans will have (most of the time strategies change during production). In this case, we know that we want the truck to come from the streets out, straight to the player, so the launch point has to deal with direct entry.
It is good to try different perspectives and perspectives. Every big block, you protect too much information in this section.
2. Describe geometric shapes
We are currently looking for most of the level geometry and structures in their almost identical final way. To ensure that the structure is aligned closely with each other, departments have their proper structures, columns of the right size, etc. In this photo, we see some decorative light additions added to get a better idea of what the final look will be like. The side rooms behind the glass are just storage areas, but when you look at the fireplaces we know that at the same time we want the rooms to be in a damaged condition.
Once the basic blocking is completed, it is time to improve the geometry and align the texture function.
The rooms behind the windows are made to repeat steps 1 and 2.
The truck was built for this game by Fox Martins, our professional car builder.
3. Light work
We now continue to add the final touches to the lighting work of this novel, placing every wall individually to get a “real” feeling about it. For now, it's great to combine sets of different colors to make it look good but at the same time it can be seen in other places. It is important that all levels have a distinguishing mark.
The GDF garage is now beautifully finished and ready for a doomed sequence.
4. Access information and bring the world to life
When everything “works,” it's time to make the place feel alive. In our case we used various options such as the following:
- Neon flashing lights
- Rain, thunder and lightning.
- Smoke comes from vents, grates, pipes, etc.
- The particles are useful when trying to display broken equipment with sparks, splashes when entering the water, then blood from our enemies entering, etc.
- To have things that work it should. arcade equipment, rolling toilets, jukeboxes, etc.
- Adding the sounds used and interacting in different places is essential to making the level of Ion Fury feel alive.
Eliminated the scene from another Ion Fury level. Neon lights, water washers, smoke from vents, blurred signs, etc. Some of the ways to bring this world to life.
5. To create a crash sequence
This is where most of the new additions and enhancements of the construction engine come into play. With a new set of effects it's possible to create anything in the Ion Fury world. These results were created in collaboration between Jonathan “Mblackwell” Strander and Max “Oasiz” Ylitalo for the use of every level designer involved.
The truck accident sequence is as follows:
- The player steps into the garage and the main gate of the GDF is destroyed by a kamikaze truck coming at full speed.
- An emergency foundation system is in effect, with the door shutters and window curtains closed.
- The truck then hit the locked metal doors and still deals significant damage to the entrance and surrounding area.
- The lights go out for a moment, the alarm goes off, the emergency generator activates, it lights up the place again. Window curtains raised.
- The curved iron door is visible, the destroyed rooms are now on fire.
- The side doors open and enemies enter; time to kill some invading cyborgs.
And this is just one of the many cool sequences you'll find in Ion Fury.
We hope you liked this blog entry to give you a little insight into the game's creation process, Ion Fury, available tomorrow on PS4. Until next time!
Table of Contents
