RetroSpace News

We asked Dávid, one of our illustrators and concept artists about the process of dreaming up the visuals of a location. We were impressed by how thoroughly he researches things before he gets started, so we thought this might be a quite fascinating topic to share. As an example, we have taken an important location from the game, which for the time being we'll just call the "garden area".



[h3]1. The first steps: [/h3]
So, When I receive a task like this, I get a brief description of it, and understanding what I need to do is one of the most important first steps, so I read it several times to make sure I get it. Because if I don't and then I make something random that's gonna be awkward. :) Therefore, once I read it through, usually I already have a form of concept in my mind, so with that in my mind I can go on the internet, and do the next important step, which is research!

Let's do something like this, but in space, and make it completely different!

[h3]2. Researching: [/h3]
I really like this part because I enjoy researching interesting topics, such as that lengthy NASA article about a study that stated what plants grow best in enclosed spaces like on a spaceship, or what plant produces more oxygen... I didn't have to do this, and no one asked for it, but I still did it. After doing probably too much research into mostly useless topics, I simply go on Google or Pinterest and search for images that might actually be useful in the process of inspiration.

Plants in space!

Some delicious architectural references

[h3]3. Sketching: [/h3]
After the research, I start to create a "vision board" in Photoshop from the pics I found, in this case, old '60s and 70's mostly malls and botanical gardens. Once the mood board is finished, I just start making small sketches. After I'm done with the sketches I send them with the "vision board" for feedback... and that's it.







[h3]4. Final piece: [/h3]
I make a new sketch with the corrections I got from the feedback, and then, I begin working on the final piece. In this concept, I created a central, spacious area because that's how botanical gardens typically look, but I really liked the malls of the 1960s and 1970s, which I thought looked really cozy and looked like a great place to hang out, so I combined them! The final piece begins with a sketch, followed by colors, shadows, and lights. The last step is simply adding textures and filters to it, and that's it. Then I created a second version of the final piece on top of it that captures a more overgrown scene.



One of the main halls of the "garden area" shown in two different timelines

[h3]5. Afterlife...[/h3]
Once Dávid has submitted the designs and the team and creative lead have agreed that this is the direction we are looking for, our 3D artists and level designers take the helm to finalize the vision. (through a long iteration cycle of course)

Below is an initial (and very early) look at how we tested the vision and mood laid out by the concept art in a small area - to then roll it out nicely across an entire level.



[h3]Meet Dávid:[/h3]
Dávid is a very talented young artist who was approached to join our team mainly - but not exclusively - for his amazing Bioshock-inspired pieces. The way he creates atmosphere and the thoroughness of his work has impressed us from the start, so we are very proud to have him as part of our team.





Check out his work on Artstation:
https://griefgreen.artstation.com/

We'll be back with another dev blog post soon, until then remember to take care and play a lot!
If you haven't already done so, please, Wishlist RetroSpace! ;)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2067820/RetroSpace/

The Wild Gentlemen

RetroSpace team makes no secret of the fact that certain games have had a strong influence on us, and at first glance, most people would say that is System Shock 2. There is truth in that (plenty of it), but there may be some other titles whose influence may be more surprising than that and need some further explanation (and exploration).



But with RetroSpace, we want to deliver something with an impact, an experience you will never forget, so we've taken our biggest favorites as inspiration and added our wildest ideas to the mix. Meanwhile, we knew full well that making a soft-rpg immersive sim horror that includes stealth mechanics and slick gunplay is a gamedev hellhole, but we felt that if we were honest with ourselves, we had to do this and do it this way!

[h3]The Thief series:[/h3]
It probably doesn't need much explanation, but still... The Thief series (especially the first two games) has left an indelible mark on us and the gaming world. Our heroes were vulnerable and fragile as perhaps never before, but by developing our skills to control them to a master level, we became truly master thieves and in the meantime, the player became an integral part of the world. This is perhaps the most important lesson, both the sense of helplessness and the immersive nature of the world, with its meditative music, amazing (and sometimes insanely funny) voice lines, and noirishly dark but deeply developed lore, that simply absorbed the player into itself. Along with the manipulation of light and shadows, intricate level design, and environmental storytelling, these are the reasons why we decided to make this series one of our main guides. The key here is that as soon as the player enters the station (as the hero aka. the nameless janitor), they are instantly "hit in the face" by the mood of the environment and sucked into the game. And an important goal is to have a twist in RetroSpace as big and crazy as the one Garrett had when he delivered that particular artifact to those two particular clients...





[h3]Half-Life:[/h3]
While it's not an immersive sim, nor soft rpg, in many ways Half-Life made the deepest impression on us (especially the first game). The "workday gone wrong" plot, the enclosed space of chaos, the beautifully constructed tension and horror, the scripted cinematic scenes, the hazard suit, and the stunning design of the enemies all made a big impact on our team. We also drew a lot from it in terms of art style and the nature of the execution. So yes, you just can't mention Half-Life! In fact, it was because of the Half-Life's example that we decided to make our game show the day-to-day life of the station before the big disaster hits. We've always loved this kind of episode in games, but unfortunately, we see it less and less often.



[h3]The Shock games:[/h3]
As we mentioned in the introduction, we were primarily influenced by System Shock 2, which most people will immediately notice from pictures or videos. We're proud of that because we really want to achieve a very similar feel in terms of atmosphere, narrative, and a deeply immersive and customizable player experience. The fact that the player could build completely different builds for themselves and be an action hero, tech guru, or psionic "mage" became a "lighthouse idea" for us that has guided us throughout the initial preparation phase of the game. And speaking of lighthouses...



We can't go without mentioning Bioshock (especially the first two games) because, although those games had moved away a bit from the immersive sim genre, it's undeniable that they created a world and atmosphere that very few games have been able to do since. The setting for our game, the floating station of Aurora 5, is dreamed up in a similar way to Rapture, with the difference that our game will have much more traversability, openness, and backtracking. But the spirit of Rapture and its dense, almost tangible atmosphere are clearly an important influence that cannot be denied. We want to create areas that the player will never forget once they've been through them, and that represent completely different atmospheres, while still forming a coherent whole.



[h3]Void Bastards:[/h3]
Perhaps one of the most exciting, but unfortunately rather underrated games of recent years. While we weren't 100% sold on the roguelike aspect of the game, basically everything else about it completely enchanted us. The design of the opponents, the atmosphere, and most importantly, the captivating humor of the world, the weapons, abilities, and various debuffs that the player can get made a deep impression on us and we implemented some elements of this in our own design. We mainly drew on the system of death and rebirth and the negative effects (debuffs) coming from that, and of course, we mixed that with other influences and a lot of unique ideas to come up with something that (probably) hasn't been done before. We really hope it will work as well and be as surprising as we plan. But until then... play Void Bastards, folks, it is AWESOME!!!





[h3]Other mentions:[/h3]
There are quite a few other games that have influenced us in one way or another, but this blog post would be endless if we went into detail. So just to list: Deus Ex (2000), Prey (2017), Arx Fatalis, No One Lives Forever, Dishonored, Dead Space, Blood West, Gloomwood, I Am Not a Monster, Powerslave/Exhumed, some Soulsborne and Metroidvania titles, Alien Isolation, Gunman Chronicles, Ultima Underworld, Star Trek Elite Force, and CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth, not to mention the many book and movie inspirations, but we'll cover those in a separate blog post!

Blood West Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Gloomwood I Am Not A Monster

[h3]Concluding thoughts:[/h3]
Reading through this blog post, it's easy to think that only something really chaotic could come out of all this clutter. On one hand, it's true, (controlled) chaos is part of the design, but on the other hand, much to our own surprise, elements from our favorite games start to come together in a fantastic way to create a real and totally unique mix, bound together and filled with soul by our own (often crazy) ideas.

Of course, we don't want to promise too much and we also don't want to always compare ourselves to other games, because whatever you say, in the end, the most important thing is that everything we do should be FUN to play. That's how we've approached the process of drawing inspiration: what are the best, most memorable, and most recallable parts or mechanics in the games? Why are they so good? What makes them work? What makes them so unique? How can we achieve a similar experience but still make the end result completely unique?

We hope that soon we will be able to introduce you to the crazy-ass disco-punk space-horror world we have created...

If you haven't already done so, please, Wishlist RetroSpace!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2067820/RetroSpace/

The Wild Gentlemen

RetroSpace today bears almost zero resemblance to the first prototype versions, but the vision and philosophy were solidly in place from the get-go. Let's look at how it all started...

THE VISION:

What was the starting point? Well, we just imagined a convoy of ships heading for a new home with the rest of mankind in their belly. The journey is long and dangerous. The destination and the success of the mission are rather questionable, but humanity simply has no other choice. This is 2177, and the Earth has become uninhabitable... So, this was the initial idea, or more like the seed of the idea, the basic situation. The next step - which is still an integral part of the story - is that one of the ships (more like a space station with gigantic engines) breaks off the convoy and gets lost in the infinite vastness of space. And then comes the madness... and the mutants... space-time jumps, and so on.
You know the drill.



In the original idea, we envisioned a kind of soviet, space-age, communist utopia, but in the end, we felt that the American science fiction world of the 60s and 70s - with its cheap TV series, great movie classics, and pulp science fiction novels - would be a much more exciting and (literally) more colorful setting for our story.

screenshot from the first prototype version of the game

some inspirations

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY:

While the world and specific narrative of the game were (and still are) slowly being polished, we found the style we wanted to follow and which we later will call "Disco-Punk", so the next step was to lay down the game design philosophy.

The immersive sim is a rather elusive and hard-to-pin-down genre, but it's the direction we've been shooting in from the start. Mainly because we LOVED games like the Thief or the System Shock series, games where you can live and breathe with the environment, where the world is amazingly immersive, sucks you in, and won't let you go. We felt it was most important not to create a linear game where the player could only choose which weapon to headshot the opponent with, but to give a more open, free-form experience where you can answer each problem with multiple solutions. - it was crucial for us from the start that avoiding enemies, sneaking, or using traps will be just as valid, as shooting or ripping your opponent's head off with a tentacle hand.



However, we want to present all of this in a way that keeps the story and narrative at the center. By the time we had laid out our core ideas, it turned out that we were actually making a narrative-driven immersive sim single-player first-person shooter game with Metroidvania and soul-like(ish) elements. So... we've got our work cut out for us...

FIRST STEPS ON AURORA 5:

First, we had to sell the idea to the team. So we started to create a loose prototype to ensure that the project was worthwhile. Because after our first game, Chicken Police: Paint it RED! (a noir satire adventure), we started to brainstorm and prototype several projects, in several genres.

a small part of the team is brainstorming in our first office, circa 2020

Even though the first prototype was almost nothing like the game looks like now (which is still not the final form!), this version already had some scripted story scenes, hacking, audio logs, computer terminals, turret avoidance, basic enemies with a basic AI, three simple weapons and of course a relatively open space, which presented a linear story, yes, but the player could already decide the progression order and gameplay-style in which they wanted to play through the demo.

screenshot from the first prototype version of the game

This was huge for us, and the team loved the idea! Of course, making an immersive sim game is quite challenging, but we like to challenge ourselves with near-impossible goals, and we've managed to grow our team from 6-7 people to almost 20 in two years, which has allowed us to experiment more and even work on several projects at the same time.



screenshots from the current (still not final!) version of the game

The next highly important element was humor. We definitely wanted to create an absurd, sci-fi satire, but in a way that the humor never overwhelms the horror elements, which we also have big plans for. This delicate balance and sharp contrast is another risk that we added to the mixture, but by the time we finished the next version of the demo (an internal pre-alpha tech demo) and started implementing our own assets (with the new look and feel), everything in the project just clicked and seemed to work perfectly. This was probably the moment when it became clear to everyone on the team that we were creating something special and that we had to see it through!

concept art for the game

So we had a style, a genre, a vision, a philosophy, and even an initial prototype. It was time to get serious and take the plunge. And so "RetroSpace" was born, which at the time had a very different name and went through a series of iterations before it was given its final title...

...but that's another story, which I'm sure will be covered in a future dev blog!

If you haven't already done so, please, Wishlist RetroSpace!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2067820/RetroSpace/

[previewyoutube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdZROhrwMjQ&lc=UgxeSFnP4JGQKeYBdPd4AaABAg&ab_channel=TheWildGentlemen[/previewyoutube]
See you next time, cosmic voyager...