PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant News

[h2]Hello and welcome to our sixth devlog![/h2]
I’m Lander, I’m an artist and I help out Raffa with making PVKK look pretty. Contrary to our previous devlogs that dived into the philosophy and approach of different aspects of the game, I’ll be diving into a slightly more nerdy technical direction, but not to worry, I will share eye-candy throughout this post as a treat for you enduring my unsolicited rambling!

I’ll show you a little bit of the recent work I’ve done for the game, and with that I’ll share some (surprising) insights on how the game is rendered.

[h2]It’s all totally real, I promise[/h2]
Because we want to build a world that you can completely lose yourself in, this world needs to feel truly real. Immersion and believability have a big impact on how a player may experience the game and make decisions, especially when those decisions have impactful moral connotations. Making things feel real means making things like switches and buttons and gears feel like they have weight, and it means making an environment that looks like it could exist in the real world.

Beyond incredible audio and a great story, visuals of course also play a big part in making this world believable.

[h2]Actually, everything is fake and nothing is real[/h2]
Just like in audio (See Devlog #4: The sound of PVKK), there is a distinction between believability and creating things as they are in real life. In the world of game development we’re always battling against a mountain of technical limitations that are rooted in making sure games run nice and smoothly. We want things to look pretty though, so we need to find solutions to these technical constraints. Often these solutions take the shape of something akin to optical illusions: We make something look real and believable through a bunch of tricks and hacks.

Rainy mood in PVKK.

For example, when it’s raining in a videogame you might see hundreds to thousands of raindrops fall down every few seconds, but simulating each and every raindrop would make your computer not-so-happy. We need to fake this somehow, and one way to do so would be to place a few transparent textures of raindrops in the level that continuously scroll downwards, add some fog, make surfaces look more shiny, add a droplets texture to the windows, and there we go: we have the illusion of rain. Instead of truly simulating each raindrop, like rain in the real world, we fake it in a way that makes it look believable and convincing.

That is a fairly specific example of course, but this concept in general is a huge aspect of the art of game development: finding creative solutions to circumvent technical limitations.

Now, with that in mind, I’ll let you in on a little secret: The bunker doesn’t exist in the same world as the world you see when you look outside of the bunker.
In a very similar way to “real” flight simulators (And the immersive PVKK experience we’ll be bringing to Gamescom 👀), where a physical cockpit is built and surrounded by a projection of a virtual world, when you look outside the bunker you’ll see a projection of the outdoor world.

You can imagine this as the bunker being completely surrounded by a greenscreen, and much like greenscreens in movies, a virtual world is then projected on that greenscreen.

Illustration showing how the bunker world is separated from the outside world.

Screenshot from the bunker, in reality it isn’t literally a greenscreen, but this helps to illustrate the idea. :)

There are a few reasons we do this. Firstly it prevents effects like explosions (such as the one that happens when you press the button that makes the cannon go pew), rain, fog, etc…, from clipping through the walls and windows of the bunker, since all those effects happen on “the greenscreen”. Generally it is tricky to prevent these types of effects from going through glass or walls without big performance costs, and this approach works very nicely in our situation to mitigate those issues. If we didn't, the bunker would essentially leak.

Leaky bunker. Not very cozy…

Secondly it gives us a lot of control over effects like lighting in the bunker. Each lighting scenario we have in the game is meticulously created so the bunker feels cozy, having the interior separated from the exterior helps us a lot with this.

[h2]Let there be light![/h2]
Just like building a real optical illusion, we need to make sure there is nothing breaking the illusion, and until recently we did have some issues breaking it.

Due to our approach of separating the indoor and outdoor into separate scenes, the bunker doesn’t automatically receive light from the exterior, and in some situations things look… Well… How do I put this delicately? Not quite right:

Bunker exterior light progress screenshot 1/3.

In this image the sun is behind the mountain, and we can see the rest of the facility itself is not in direct sunlight, so logically there should not be any sunlight hitting the bunker walls and the window.

We needed to create a secondary lighting setup, one that mimics the light from the outdoor scene (Remember the bunker and outdoor scene are separated worlds) so the exterior walls of the bunker receive the correct shadows and light.

The first step towards resolving this was making sure the mountains in the outside scene cast a shadow on the bunker.

Bunker exterior light progress screenshot 2/3.

That fixes a big discrepancy, we don’t see a strange highlight on the window frame anymore, and the direct sunlight on the outdoor wall is gone, but now the wall turned pitch-black, which is also not what we want. We need to take the ambient light from the outside world, and apply it to the bunkers exterior:

Bunker exterior light progress screenshot 3/3.

… and there we go, the bunker feels grounded and like a part of the rest of the facility, while at the same time we still retain complete control over the lighting and mood on the inside.

[h2]Ok, that’s cool and all, but sometimes you gotta remove the light[/h2]
Another element taking up a big chunk of your screen's real-estate in the game is the landscape. While the landscape looked quite nice already, there was one big issue with it making our lighting options very limited: The landscape texture had shadows embedded into it. This meant that we’d have two sets of shadows, one set that’s baked into the texture, and one set created by the in-game sun itself.


We mitigated this issue up until now by positioning the sun in such a way this was not very obvious (i.e. so that the in-game shadows would sort of line up with the terrains shadows), but this was definitely something that needed fixing as it severely restricted our freedom with how we could light the scene.

I took this as an opportunity to rework our landscape shader, placing the outdoor visuals in a much nicer and more versatile spot compared to before.

A before and after screenshot of the landscape improvements.

The in-game lighting is the exact same in these before and after screenshots, but it looks very different:

• On the right side of the image you can see how in the before screenshot the mountain-side is unusually dark, it almost looks like it was scorched. That’s that shadow baked into the texture. Notice how in the after image we can see the sunlight nicely lights it up.
  
• On the left side of the image, around the city, we can see a bunch of little shapes of light show up. We can actually see the sun hit mountain ridges now, and we can see the sunlight reflect on some wet patches of land.
  
• The snowy mountain tops interact much more realistically with light now, making them brighter and stand out more against the darker terrain.
  

[h2]That’s all :)[/h2]
I hope this shows you that we’re taking a lot of care to make this world feel real and immersive, so you can live out your deepest and most primal desire of becoming the best Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant there ever was.

Keep in mind that everything I’ve shown you here is still a work in progress.

Now, before I let you go, I’ll give you one more screenshot, just because you’ve managed to endure all my rambling. You deserve it.

Screenshot of a nighttime mood.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this. I hope you found some of the bits I shared here interesting and that you managed to stay awake reading this.

And I hope you have a very lovely day!

- Lander :)

Ps: We have a Discord server that you should totally join if you’re not there yet.

We've got some exciting news to share today - PVKK is once again part of this years Games Forged in Germany Showcase! Check out our latest Community trailer below, featuring a detailed system designed to make your experience as immersive as possible.

But that's not all! Next month you'll be able to try a really special version of PVKK at Gamescom. This is only possible thanks to PVKK's new publisher - Kepler Interactive. We are really happy to have them on board, to help bring you the best version of Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant.

Catch all the additional info below! 👇

[h2]Games Forged in Germany[/h2]

As you may already know, PVKK allows players to upgrade their cannon and it's capabilities via the use of the Teleradio. Progressing through the campaign will uncover different needs for you and your bunker, so staying one step ahead of the aggressors is paramount! These aren't just point-and-click upgrades though, you'll need to order the part and install it yourself if you want to get that edge over the enemy.

Check out the video below to see this feature in action.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Gamescom[/h2]

We'll be showcasing the game at the Indie Arena Booth, and bringing along an immersive experience for those at the show!

Now, the console isn't assembled yet, but the render below should help give you the gist.



[h2]ICYMI - PVKK x Kepler Interactive[/h2]

You may have missed the announcement, but we'll be working with Kepler Interactive on bringing the game to you all. They're best known for their recent titles Clair Obscur: Expeidition 33, the recently released Rematch, along with last years hit title, Pacific Drive!

We're super excited about the coming months for PVKK, and can't wait to share more with you all soon.

Thanks 👋

[h2]Wishlist Now[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2956040/PVKK_Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant/

[h2]Hello and welcome to our fifth devlog![/h2]Hey, I'm Olivia, and I'm working on the narrative design/writing aspects of PVKK. I don't speak German, I still can't perfectly spell the name of the game without looking it up, but I'm starting to be able to pronounce it without any visible wincing from the rest of the team.[/p][p]Writing this blog is actually a kind of weird privilege for a games writer. So much of what we do sits hidden behind NDAs or strict marketing plans or fears that fans might go on wild rampages with the information… that actually being able to pop my head up from behind a screen is both exciting and mildly nerve-wracking. Getting to do this isn't the only cool thing about working with Bippinbits. The team has a very agile (in both the product management sense and the normal sense of the word) approach to working together, meaning that things iterate fast and collaboration is close – ideas bounce around the team till they feel right, and we don't have to invest months before discovering whether they actually work. At the same time, there's breathing space – the time to be both thoughtful and playful, meaning that throwaway comments can be dug into for the meat of the idea, and interesting-if-unexpected ideas can be seriously considered. [/p][p]It's really good fun, and has made me even more excited about what the game could be. (I saw the trailer video before I even knew they needed a writer-designer. I had the game wishlisted before I ever spoke to René!)  [/p][h2]
Storytelling and videogames and PVKK in particular[/h2][p]Writing for a videogame is like getting a bespoke suit fitted. You pick the cloth, and the colour – checking the colour actually suits you. You discuss the style, what cuts are in fashion and what cuts would suit your body shape. Then you get initial measurements taken. After some time, you go back, and try on the suit. It's roughly stitched together, the sleeves aren't even attached to the rest of the jacket. There's no lining. But if you squint at it, and you know what a finished suit looks like, you can see that it's probably going to turn into something great. [/p][p]More measurements are taken. You go away again, and perhaps this time you come back to a finished suit. Or maybe a few more small adjustments are needed.[/p][p]I use this analogy because I think if I said 'I'm (still) working on building the worldbuilding and main storyline for the game', some people might worry that barely any progress has been made. But it's normal in games for the worldbuilding and storyline to be adjusted and tweaked continually throughout development pretty much all the way to the end – just with each change getting smaller (and more granular) over time. [/p][p]This is the 3rd version of the timeline since I've been on board, and it's one update out of date. Hence the post-it. [/p][p]Story-wise, PVKK is well past the first fitting. But because we want the design and narrative to be bound tightly together, we have to make sure changes to one ripple all the way through the other. If we introduce a new attack ship, for example, we want to make certain that it makes sense within the narrative for this technology to have been developed, and that the timing of its arrival feels right. [/p][p]
I've done a 'worldbuilding pass' a few times now, each time addressing a logic hole, or pulling in ideas from design that have to spread across the whole timeline to make sense:[/p]

• [p]Who does it make sense to have attacking us? [/p]
• [p]Why aren't they (or us) suing for peace? [/p]
• [p]If you're trusted with such an important role… why are you locked in the bunker? [/p]

[p]Sometimes it's more practical: working out what we can put in the first mission without risking overwhelming the player, and then finding the fictional justification for it. It's about answering questions like:[/p]

• [p]If shooting the enemy is so important… why are you (presumably) new to this in the first mission?[/p]
• [p]Why wouldn't a clever enemy launch all its ships at you in the first mission while you are less good at working the cannon?[/p]

[p]Each time we find a narrative answer and weave it into the main story, we get closer to the final version. Some things have to change. Others get pinned down as 'truths' – and we gradually pin down other things around them.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]What is 'narrative' in a game like PVKK and how do we build it?[/h2][h3]In general:[/h3][p]For me, the core appeal of PVKK is getting to use a really satisfying set of controls to shoot a big \[profanity] cannon. But there's already the bones of narrative there: the existence of a huge cannon, the attacks from space… it already implies a story.[/p][p][/p][p]A good narrative for PVKK grounds the gameplay in a world that feels real, provides explanations for changes across the missions and for things just getting harder as the game goes along. It shows that the work the player does has an impact – there is a reason for them to be shooting that cannon beyond saving their own skin. Building up a world that supports all this also creates mysteries for players to dig into, and offers us (as designers) inspiration for other aspects of gameplay. It provokes questions that we may or may not answer in game, but will have answers. And if we're going to create 'escape room' elements for the bunker, we can only create ones that feel right for the game world if we understand what that world is. [/p][p]
(I am always disappointed when a piece of media establishes fictional rules for their world, and then later breaks these because it wants to tell a story that wouldn't work without them \[Yeah, I'm looking at you, Venom 3.]. I think it ruins immersion, and it can speak to a lack of planning. By getting the details down now, we can avoid this.)[/p][h3]
In specific:[/h3][p]Nearly every part of PVKK is part of the narrative – 'even' the sound design tells you something about the world. Every person who works on this game is a storyteller in their own field(s). Part of my job when I came on board was looking at everything that had been done already and working out the narrative implications of what was there – whether that be the weapons the player has access to, the aesthetic design of the bunker, the landscape surrounding the bunker, or the perfectly ordinary cup of tea. [/p][p][/p][p]From there, I started testing the foundations – was there one coherent story that made sense of everything already in the game? Could we extend that story in a way that matched the gameplay arc and came to a satisfying conclusion? Was it interesting enough to us? Did it feel real? Things don't have to make perfect logical sense, so long as they make real-feeling sense. People are imperfect actors, governments are inefficient. Mistakes are made. But there is a difference between that and introducing something illogical just for the sake of plot – I think that's just bad writing, and knocks people out of believing in the story. And you avoid it by asking questions like a bored toddler of every aspect of the design and story, early on. Why? But why? How? Why!?! [/p][p]For basic worldbuilding, this means I asked:[/p][p]Is this on Earth? (No. There are two sibling planets.) What are the planets like? Why are they fighting? What was the trigger for this war? Why hasn't one side already won? What would it take for one side (or the other) to win? Would this victory be long lasting? Would it be a pyrrhic victory? Would, eventually, both planets be happy with the outcome?[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]
Developing characters and mapping out their relationships is important (and fun). We need to work out who serves the story and who serves the gameplay, and bring those things as close together as possible. I pull on concept art – how could I resist this guy being a person of importance?  [/p][p](Art that elicits an immediate emotional reaction is exceedingly useful to me…)[/p][p][/p][p]The process repeats, responding to other people's work. It'll be a continual adjustment till we have something the whole team is certain we can pull off in a satisfying way.[/p][p]It can sometimes feel like you have to make the whole game to be able to make the whole game. Pulling together the narrative can feel a bit like this:[/p][p][/p][p]Have a look at this: Is there really much difference?[/p][p][/p][p]Then, there's the Final Difficulty: Choosing how to convey the world to the player[/p][p]We (the devs) have to have a full understanding of the world and the forces and culture in it to stay consistent in every aspect of our work. But the player only gets to see a fraction of the work we do. [/p][p]We need to make sure the player understands enough about the world for it to make sense, for them to follow what is going on in the game, for them to believe in the set up and characters enough to care about what they do. But we can't just give them a lore dump of what they would already know if they actually existed in the world – that breaks the immersion of actually being the character.[/p][p]Trying to give them a catch up exposition dump rarely works – it never feels natural, and speaking straight to the camera only works in 4th wall breaking farces (which PVKK isn't). [/p][p][/p][p]A Touch of Cloth: Charlie Brooker's best work and I will die on this hill.[/p][p]For the sake of immersion, what we directly reveal in the game will be that which the character in the game would see and experience over the course of the events of the game. If you choose to explore, to dig into what's going on, your character will learn more. But we need to make sure that if you're being a good soldier and asking no questions… you still have a clue what's going on. That's a hard balance to strike – but I'm confident, with this team, we'll hit it. [/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for reading all this![/p][p]-Olivia[/p]

[h2]Hello and welcome to our fourth devlog![/h2]
I'm Torbjørn and in this devlog I’ll dive into the sound of PVKK. I will talk a bit about the general philosophy of the audio design, some systems and some insight into how some of the sounds were made :)

You can read all the details below, but I thought that obviously a devlog on sound design should feature something you can hear. For this, I made a video for you, showcasing some sounds in the game but also how I created them.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Interactions: Game feel and fun[/h2]
We have the mindset that if there is something in the bunker that looks like you can interact with it, you can. A big part of this is of course the audio. By using audio you can tell if the switch you just flicked did nothing, turned on a light or overloaded the whole air vent system causing a leak.

The audio is used to both compliment an interaction and in some cases be the feature of the interaction itself.


[h2]Realism vs Believability[/h2]
If a sound should be as realistic as possible or pass as believable is something that's put a lot of thought into. Our goal for the audio is to make it feel as cool and satisfying as possible. You are going to be pressing a lot of buttons and flicking a bunch of switches so it has to feel good for a long time!
This is why in most cases the sounds have been designed to be believable rather than super realistic. Some examples of this are the cannon fire and the ships exploding outside. The sound of the cannon firing contains layers of cannon fire, explosions, a volcano erupting and various synth sounds. All of these layers serve as building blocks to make the cannon sound as big and powerful as possible. It's not realistic, but I think it's believable!

Little insight in how I layer sounds, not playing every layer at the same time gives the sound more dynamics and movement

As we know sounds travel at around 340m per second, so when we see an explosion 3km away it would take around 9 seconds before we hear the sound. In PVKK we fire at ships that are so far away that if you don't know about this or don't pay attention you could miss it, think it feels weird or think that it's a bug. Even though it's realistic and cool we chose to make the delay much shorter to get a faster response. We think this still makes the effect feel believable, but avoid the risk of people missing the effect or thinking something is broken.

[h2]Ambience: The machine lives![/h2]
We want the bunker to feel like there is a lot going on under the hood. Things are not only happening inside your room, you are part of a larger facility.

You are going to hear machines working, running pipes, creaks and various sounds coming from all around you in addition to the weather outside the bunker.

Ideally you should be able to stop at any point anywhere in the bunker and just listen for a bit and you will hear something interesting or feel like you really are a part of a big living machinery.



[h2]Audio systems: Gameplay driving audio[/h2]
As mentioned earlier we focus a lot on making the interactions feel good, and that is why we have made some custom audio solutions to trigger audio based on how you interact with things. All levers and wheels are checking both the velocity and how far they have moved to trigger sound that makes sense. If you pull a lever slowly you can hear it subtly tick and creak or if you send the wheel spinning you hear rapid gear crunching.
When you sit down and zoom into the console we move the player a bit forward and closer to the sound source. This makes it easier to focus on what you are doing and filter out your surroundings a bit.
Systems like these combined help make all you do feel more real and helps with focus and immersion.

[h2]How it's made: Recording is fun![/h2]
As many sounds as possible are made from my own recordings, be it whatever sounds cool in my apartment, synths or random things I stumble upon when walking outside.

The recordings are then tuned, tweaked and often run though some effects so they work and sound like they fit in the game.

The sounds of the teleradio is a good example of this. The source for the button press sounds are recordings I took of my friend's old radio!

Writing this made me realise I never turned it on, I should go do that

This old tape recorder is also a source for various different sound for multiple devices in the bunker, the teleradio and some upcoming ones! Turning, tweaking, pressing and generally playing with things like this in ways it was not intended can result in some really interesting sounds that can be really unique :)

Doesn't really matter what's on the tape (as long as it's not copyrighted ofc), you can usually always get some cool results by messing with the speed and playback controls

[h2]And that's it[/h2]
To summarise, there is going to be a bunch of small intricate sounds to listen out for and some big ones that will hopefully make you go “oh yeah”!

The audio work is far from over and most of it is still subject to change as we keep exploring and developing the game further :)

Think that's enough rambling for today, but if you want to know more or ask some questions or come with ideas and inspiration, head over to our Discord, we are all active there!

Thanks for reading all this, hope you got something out of it :D

-Torbjørn

[h2]Hello future Kanonenkommandanten,[/h2]
PVKK officially has a publisher now, Kepler Interactive!
You might know them from some amazing games like Scorn, Pacific Drive, Sifu, Windblown, the recent mega hit Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 or the upcoming Rematch.

Last year after announcing PVKK, a lot of publishers showed interest. While initially not planning to get publisher for PVKK, we quickly realized how much PVKK could benefit from having great people take care of the publishing side. This means we have more time and resources to focus on the game, and at the same time can go much stronger with marketing and more platforms than PC. Simply put, we'll make a better game together, and do more cool "side activities" (more on that this year).
We actually started working with them about half a year ago, and it has been a great experience so far.

To kick it off, I spoke to Matthew from Kepler for their Creator Series. The Creator Series gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of making games, exploring the inspirations, stories and perspectives of the creators behind the games.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

PVKK is also featured on the Kepler Publisher sale, right here on Steam :)
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/Kepler2025

I'm happy to answer any questions around this. Also, the next devlog will come very soon, and should be a really fun one!

Best Wishes,
René