Hey everyone,

 

First off, thanks again for your feedback and comments the first, of no doubt many, AI related blogs.

 

So what has been going on lately with Dark Void….what haven't we been up to?!?!

 

The team has been working hard on getting our levels locked down and into the art pipeline. This has been a super collaborative effort between the design team, art team, team leads, etc. At some point we’ll do a full blog or two on our level design philosophy, but I’ll share a small smidge right now.

 

Everyone following Dark Void by now has seen the gameplay footage that came out during the E3 time frame. Although we’re very proud of our demo for E3, that’s just what it was, a demo. As such, we made a very structured flow, with a deliberate pace to show off each and every one of our mechanics, one after another.

 

For those that missed it, it went like this. (Now with animals!)

 

Shoot enemies on the ground

 

 

Hovering Death from Above

 

Shoot enemies on the ground

 

Vertical Combat Awesomeness

 

Shoot enemies on the ground

 

Jetpack dogfight Awesomeness

 

UFO Skyjack

 

 

Sneak Peak Archon boss fight

 

These images made funnier if you know the demo…check out the video online

 

www.gametrailers.com/game/5681.html

Ok, so the demo was cooler than that flow makes it seem, way cooler, but not as cool as if we had made it using animals as our characters (can you tell its Friday?).

 

All in all, I felt the demo did a great job at hitting our goals. But being structured such as it was, I think it gave the false impression that our game was going to be a very linear progression of those gameplay elements through our level flows.

 

Very far from the truth!

 

Now, we are by no means an open world game, but that demo flow is far from what we consider the ideal way to celebrate having a very cool character, with an extremely cool jet pack, kick ass and take names in the Void.

 

The jetpack really provides a lot of player freedom, as such, making sure our levels support that freedom is crucial. Making sure we are creating an experience that can cater to those that like to run and gun,  cover users, people who take to the skies to rain death from above, and those that love it all, well…that is the real trick, isn’t it. I think we’re getting closer to the goal though.

 

Right now, after taking  a bit of time to let Will get settled into The Void, it’s not too long before we put the player in the driver’s seat and let them try out their favorite tactics (as for myself, I am partial to “Death from Above”

 

Hey, while we’re on the topic of levels, and to help put to rest some of the things I’ve read about D/V being nothing but Grey’s and Brown’s on the color spectrum (somewhere there is an alien joke in that last sentence, I just can’t find it). Here is a concept piece from one of the level’s we’ve been working on lately.

 

 

 

 

Hope you like it! Feel free to ask some questions about what you are looking at in the comments sections, I’ll share what I can (apologies ahead of time for cryptic answers).

 

 

 - Morgan