Three guys sit in a Buick estate in rural America, escorted out of town by the local police, hoping they’ll bring some normalcy to their small town. This Buick is special. It has ten microphones strapped to it: three on the outside and seven on the inside. The gaps near the windows were taped to reduce unwanted noise on a hot summer day, and there was no air conditioning in the car.
This is the story of the development of a neat little game called Pacific Drive, which we previewed on the site last week. During the aforementioned preview, in addition to the gameplay demo, a few anecdotes trickled out about the team working with a real American wagon. As it turns out, the team went to great lengths to replicate the feel of a much-loved car.
“My parents bought a Volvo station wagon in order to have the safest car for their teenage son. It ended up being the car I drove from the moment I could until much later, ’” recalled Alex Delacorte in our follow-up interview. “I have so many great memories growing up in Portland, going to the beach, going to a lot of great places in the Pacific Northwest, it’s a big deal.”
Lead game designer Seth Rosen had a similar experience, albeit from a completely different part of the country. There was less road trip culture in California, but both have fond memories of listening to an old radio show called Car Talk, hosted by the Magliozzi brothers, where they would humorously talk about cars and answer incoming calls.
Later in life, just before development began, Alex would buy himself another station wagon – this time for exploration, personal photography, and rediscovering that nostalgic feeling. The station wagon, the Buick Estate, would go on to be the primary reference vehicle for Pacific Drive’s early development.
“We wanted to really capitalize on the fact that we had a station wagon, so we referenced a lot of [photos] For our foreground artist Jacob. When you look at a car visually, it’s very complex. It’s not like a barrel or a box, or other basic objects you find in video games. Given the level of interactivity in our game, it required a level of realism to have the car as a piece of geometry in the game, where you could visually see it from all these weird angles. “
This hands-on approach also applies to audio. Dracot and two sound designers hopped into the Buick and embarked on an hours-long road trip into the middle of nowhere. While outside, they capture as much audio as possible.
“From what I understand of the big car games, they’d take the car to a dyno and record it there. We didn’t have that, so we drove it on dirt roads in eastern Washington in really hot weather. soundproofing the parts because it’s an old car and it’s very noisy. So we put gaffa tape and duct tape on the window liners around the car.”
“The high point of the day was when we stopped the drive side of things and moved to impact. We were out there like ‘look, I found this stick, let’s hit the car with the stick’. We found one with some Leaves on a big branch, and try swinging it around the car.”
And then, of course, there’s the clash with the police. After parking in a small-town parking lot for lunch, the group came to the attention of a police officer on duty at the four-way intersection. Armed with microphones, packed with dudes and audio gear, people focus more on the car than on the road.
“We told them we were recording audio for a video game and were told they would be a distraction. People weren’t looking at the road. So they were escorted out of town. The car had a distinctive look. It had gotten people’s attention, so When you strap a bunch of stuff on it, it starts to look a lot closer to what you can make in the game.”
Subaru Outback bill bwaggins. According to Rosen, when you jump on the roof and start moving around, the team needed a realistic sound. The result is this harrowing video of an audio designer gingerly jumping over her own car, stomping a few times into it, and sliding down the side through gritted teeth.
So why does all this matter? Why are these interesting or important, other than getting funny videos and great pics of gasoline heads. There’s a lot to be said about creating “real experiences” in video games. Whether it’s brilliantly replicating a Japanese city in Yakuza, or making gunshots and handles feel like the real thing, yes, making a vintage American car feel as loved and reliable as the real thing.
This is a lot of work, much more than you might imagine. Clearly, Pacific Drive is more than just the car you ride in. The entire story revolves around the supernatural Pacific Northwest, with tons of love pouring into the world around you, and the gameplay should be a real treat to play. But if you’re going to spend a few hours inside your trusty station wagon, the doors have to look right. The paint needs to peel off like it does in real life. When you turn on the wipers, it has to sound like plastic on glass, not some generic car sound .mp3.
Big thanks to the team at Ironwood Studios for pissing off a police officer and putting their own ride in jeopardy. Who doesn’t love a standalone story where a developer climbs into his car, picks up tree branches and bangs them into things, and pipes a mic to things? It’s a great insight into what people do to make cars feel like cars.
