Kickstarter

It has been just over a month since my last update and we have been making progress on many fronts. The designers are all working at full steam and generating a wonderfully diverse set of ideas that are well written, nuanced, original, and sometimes creepy. There will be no lack of originality and deep game play in Wasteland 2. The team has risen to the challenge of making a rich world that will capture a post apocalyptic atmosphere and provide a unique experience for each player that dives in.

We are nearly complete with our backer web site which will consolidate our backer database with Kickstarter and PayPal and eventually allow backers to upgrade their tiers or more easily change such things as shipping information. A soft launch is imminent and then we will roll it out for all.

We also have our first pass at a Wasteland 2 screen shot to share that is running inside the Unity engine. The process up till now has been in getting up to speed with Unity but also much discussion about look and feel. Our environment art director Koy Vanoteghem has written a nice piece below on our approach and process.

Releasing a screen shot this early in the process is a new concept for me as we typically want to hone in every element before we show it. But based on the requests and our desire for fan input, we are doing so to solicit feedback on the basic look. Please keep in mind that we have not put in the particle effects and post-processing which will have a dramatic effect on the scene, and this represents just one of the various environments for Wasteland 2 so expect to see other quite different locales. Also, this particular camera angle is on the low end of a range that the player can adjust upwards to a much more top-down view, for those who prefer that style during game play.

I am frequently on twitter sharing my thoughts, soliciting opinions on various subjects and highlighting interesting projects and technology. You can follow me at @brianfargo if you want to stay tuned into such things.

Again I thank you for allowing us to create this game the way it was meant to me made. We’re going to make you all proud.

Brian Fargo

See the full size image on our Facebook page at Facebook/Ranger.HQ or here.

In our effort to establish the appropriate look and feel for the re-launch of the Wasteland franchise, we sifted through a variety of media types available on the market for inspiration. Among all of the similarly natured games, CG film shorts, and various documentaries, it became increasingly clear that the modern day conception of a post-apocalyptic world has diversified.

Of course, the desert-oriented wasteland devoid of life was still there. But a newer and more compelling version which highlighted nature's reclamation of vacated places took hold of our attention. This new conception gives us the opportunity to generate a variety of environment types while staying true to the narrative. It also allows the location and geology to dictate the flora and fauna, as well as the manner and state of decay. From the dry deserts and icy mountaintops of Arizona to the coastal conditions of LA and larger southern California region, each region generates its own flavor. You saw a bit of this in our early concept pieces we had commissioned. Because the early part of the game, where our development is currently focused, takes place in Arizona, this first screen shot depicts (surprise) a desert scene.

As we moved into prototyping game-play scenarios and in-game environments, we wanted to keep in mind the long-term strategies we had been talking about in the press. With our small team structure and the expectation of a significant integration of contractor and fan/backer based assets, we wanted to consider the efforts that would be involved in synthesizing those contributions into a consistent style and theme. The Unity engine has this wonderfully integrated asset store, full of props, environment sets, FX and tools, and it seemed the perfect proving grounds for our first pass at this new approach of game environment creation.

Certainly, purchased or prefabricated assets are nothing new; a variety of sites are out there selling "game-ready" props, and like most developers, we are familiar with that opportunity. But Unity's Asset Store had a few distinct advantages that we found appealing. The store, being accessible from within the editor itself, along with the purchase, downloading and importing of those packages, made this surprisingly painless. Packages containing not only the models and textures, but also materials, particle attachments, and animations were ready to use and then modify immediately upon purchase. And so our goal was to purchase a variety of packages, modify them to suit our stylistic needs, and put together a scene by combining them with assets and textures generated in-house.

The big exception to all of this is of course characters, which we are developing primarily in house. RPGs have always generated strong relationships between the player and the characters they craft and breathe life into as the game progresses. And to this end, we will be working to create characters that can be read cleanly with our camera angles. Strong silhouettes and bold colors in costuming and accessories, and their animations and poses working with a camera angle (that is still being tested), seemed a tall order for this approach, and so in this shot a few examples of that effort are present.

We will continue to develop the style and look of the game, undoubtedly that is something that will evolve as we move forward and branch out with other environment types. As we become more familiar with our new found friend Unity, and the technologies that are available to us for lighting, shadowing, and material set-up/execution, we hope you'll enjoy seeing it evolve along with us.

Koy Vanoteghem

The progress on Wasteland 2 continues on at a healthy rate. Not a week goes by that I am not in a conversation with my team here or with other development groups about how wonderful this experience has been and the gratitude for the opportunity to work on a game under our terms. We are so much more efficient this way, and the game's development has a more organic process to it. Nothing in the world beats out the tinkering and re-iteration process.

I can't imagine a better way for Wasteland 2 to be created. We have your trust and a symbiotic relationship that will have us learn from each other. We are not afraid of the transparency of our process and thinking and intend to share it along the way. Our detailed reasoning of our choice of the Unity engine is just one example.

Today we are publishing our vision document for Wasteland 2 which details the sensibilities of the game itself. The ideas in this document come from things that worked in Wasteland 1 and are expected, things I have communicated previously, and suggestions/opinions from the fan boards. The role of a producer is often misunderstood and sometimes done poorly, but my role is to help shape a vision for a game, hit the right touch points and then watch it become bigger than any one person could make it. No one person can take credit for games of this size and intricacy, and for me it all starts with the vision document. My role is not to hammer on spreadsheets and task oriented management but to instead create a team that is excited and understands the totality of the game. I have been using this method since the beginning and it continues to serve me well. In the past I have had to rely wholly on my instincts but this new paradigm helps me to limit the surprises.

I would not expect too many surprises in the vision document, but it does answer much of the detail for those who might not be up to speed on many aspects of the game. We will have a section set up on our forums http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2333 for comments and we'll read them all as usual.

Also you will note that Andrée created another gorgeous piece of art for the game that will be used for the packaging. Those who fondly remember the original Wasteland 1 box will appreciate the handing of the baton off to this new look and camera. Our next update will be to move away from the conceptual and into reality with early screen shots and camera angles...stay tuned and enjoy the vision document read.

Here is the link:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxMevjNSr2EjbDBpZ2ZMdmNnc28

--Brian Fargo

We recently announced the choice of Unity as the game engine for Wasteland 2 development.  Many of our supporters are curious about why we chose Unity over multiple other options, and whether Unity is able to meet the requirements of the project.  In this post I will talk about the factors leading to our decision and how Unity addresses the needs of Wasteland 2.

Background

Before diving into specifics I’d like to take a step back and talk about inXile’s approach to game development.  We are decidedly not a technology development company.  We are a game development company.  We pursue game ideas first and then decide what technology to use to best realize our ambitions for the game design and our business goals.  Consequently we have used several different game engines and multiple third party tools and solutions over the past decade.*  There is inevitably some engine-level work that we do to tune the engine for the particular game we are making, but we try to make initial choices that minimize that risk factor.

From a lead programmer perspective, my goal is always to enable the designers to most directly implement their vision by providing tools that keep me out of their way.   That requires analyzing the game design up front, and with budget and time in mind, deciding what technology I should license and what I should write.  I want to license enough and develop enough that the designers have all the tools they need, but without wasting money on overkill solutions, whether licensed or developed.

Wasteland 2

So along comes Wasteland 2 and we began the familiar yet always unique process of identifying the requirements so we can evaluate game engines and tools that will get the job done most efficiently.  The original Wasteland was party-based and turn-based with a top-down POV that relied heavily on text-based story and drama achieved through deep connections and consequences between story and character.  

For Wasteland 2, with the help of our Wasteland fans we decided to keep the focus on story and character, retaining the party-based and turn-based mechanics.  The top down POV would remain as well but we would go with a full 3D render to bring it into the modern graphics era.   During our Kickstarter we also promised to deliver on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, and to provide support for the modding community.

With those broad strokes on requirements, we began evaluating engines and tools.  

The Influx of Support

It’s been a great pleasure to feel all the support from fans of the game during Kickstarter, and that has continued during our engine and tools evaluation.  Multiple vendors who also supported the Kickstarter came forth with their products, not just to hawk their wares, but to offer genuine encouragement and generous offers of custom support.  Among them were prominent engine vendors as well as specialized tool vendors.  We necessarily must decline some generous offers as we let the game requirements drive us to single solutions in each category, but we do so with great appreciation for the genuine good will expressed in the offers.

There was a broad enough offering just from the vendors that came to us that we prioritized our evaluations to these products first, hoping to find our solution amongst the ones making generous offers and hence help devote more resources to the game.

Development Requirements

Besides the items mentioned above, high on our list of requirements for an engine was ease of use by the artists and level designers for getting assets into the game and editing levels.   We are a small team and must be able to work very efficiently.   This became a first-pass filter when evaluating engines.  Also very important was ease of development for the promised target platforms.   Following a close third was amount of support from the vendor and general availability of expertise for crowd-sourcing, contracting or hiring.  Putting it all together we came up with a list of engine requirements that looked like this:

1.       Ease of use by artists and designers

2.       Targets Windows, Mac and Linux

3.       Support and expertise available from vendor and in community

4.       Adaptability for player modding

5.       3D rendering, pathing, AI, physics, character animation tools

The 3D rendering and other game systems at the bottom of the list are very important as we plan to make a great looking game with physics and effects.  But these things, at the level we need them, are commonly provided by full-fledged engines, so they end up lower on the list in terms of differentiating factors.

Given the top down POV and camera height required to show a party of characters and enemies, it would be overkill to spend too much of our resources on detailed character models and all the cutting-edge rendering and animation techniques associated with that level of detail.

If we plan well, then we can put just the right amount of resources into modeling and animation so that it looks great from our camera POV without wasting effort on detail that will never be seen.  Then we can spend more time working on other enhancing effects that will be noticed from or POV, such as physics for ragdolls and flying debris, and the fire, smoke and particle effects for the gunfire and explosions that cause those ragdolls and flying debris (hopefully for your enemies and not your party of rangers). 

Unity

Unity Technologies, with their Unity 3 game engine, was among the vendors that came to us with congratulations, goodwill and offers of support.   Their engine stood out as an early front-runner on point 1 of our requirements.  The artists loved its support for the native formats of the art tools we already use (3DS Max and Photoshop).   I also like its built-in version control for assets and code.  

At first it seemed to be missing a leg on point 2 (support for Linux platform), but I knew that we could get source code and therefore could provide the Linux port ourselves.  Given that the engine is designed and structured to support multiple platforms, I felt it would not be insurmountable to port it to Linux (or actually hire some outstanding external contractors we’ve used before to do the job).  After talking to Unity about this, we found they’ve already been working on a Linux port, so Unity is supplying inXile the Linux port alpha source code.  InXile will work with Unity in order to port Wasteland 2 to Linux.

Where Unity really bowled us over was on point 3.  Besides generous support available from Unity staff, the Unity Asset Store is a treasure trove of assets (3D models and code) provided by the large and growing community of Unity users.  A recent Unity newsletter announced that the Asset Store customer base has topped 100,000, and the catalog has reached over 3,000 packages!   We’ve been able to find all kinds of useful 3D assets and code in the Asset Store ranging in price from cheap to free!  Having an organized marketplace like the Asset Store for finding assets and expertise fits right in with our desire to leverage and give back to the community.   While we cannot share engine source code changes, we can share script code and components, as well as graphical assets as part of our modding support.

On the Modding front, we always figured we would have to provide custom tools to users, so we didn’t rank modding support high on our list of engine requirements.  We’ve also had generous offers from the Wasteland community of coders to help with developing those tools.  And yet I think the fact that Unity provides their basic engine/editor for free is a big plus as a starting point for providing the tools necessary for supporting modding of Wasteland 2.  And there again, I think the Asset Store will facilitate ongoing collaboration with the community on modding tools that can be offered in the store for free.

Finally, from looking at Unity demos, other games developed with Unity, and conducting our own art and coding tests, we are convinced that Unity delivers on the game system that we need to build Wasteland 2 in style.  This includes advanced 3D rendering, pathing, physics (PhysX), multiple options for scripting language, advanced 3D level editor that is customizable with scripted components, and much more.

Summary

In summary, Unity hits the sweet spot for us defined by the specific requirements of the Wasteland 2 game design, deployment plan, and the unique circumstances of the development effort which includes community involvement on an ongoing basis. 

It has been my experience over decades of game development that no engine or tool is ever perfect for the game you want to build.  Any engine or tool will have points of weaker comparison to other options, but you have to evaluate how the whole offering matches up with your resources and skills to make a good choice for the project at hand.  Unity is an excellent choice that will allow us to deliver the great game we’ve promised in Wasteland 2.

Best Regards,

John Alvarado
Director of Technology
inXile entertainment

*Technology inXile has used:  Snowblind Engine, RadTools, UE3 Engine, Gamebryo Engine, RKEngine, and various smaller third-party tools for game sub systems such as, path-finding, physics, character animation and lip-synching, etc.

Hello Fellow Wastlanders!  We have our latest update on our site at http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/blog/ 

Head there to check it out!

We did it!  Thanks to each and every one of you, we have completed our incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign.  It has been an amazing ride and one of the most memorable achievements I’ve ever had.  Being able to interact with you all on such a personal level has been amazing.  I can’t imagine going back to making games any other way.  With Double Fine’s success, the world was watching to see if that was an anomaly or if this fan-funded approach could be a viable means of changing the world of video games.  Together, we’ve proved that fan-funding is here to stay and we can’t wait to see where you take it next.  We are fully committed to doing whatever we can to keep this movement alive and strong. 

Before we move on to what’s next, some quick housekeeping:  We’ve received messages from some backers saying there were issues when Amazon tried to apply the payment.  Kickstarter said they would contact you if this was the case.  You can also check to make sure it worked correctly by logging into Kickstarter.  They give 7 days to correct your payments, so please check it soon.  After that grace-period, your pledge and reward is cancelled, and nobody wants that to happen! 

Now on to the fun stuff… If your tier contained any rewards where we need to gather your information fo use in the game, we will soon be doing so through Kickstarter.  Keep on the lookout for this notification.  There is no need to update your shipping address yet as we will collect it when we get closer to the release of the game next year. 

We have opened up a store at http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/store.  We currently have the digital copy available for $20, and we will leave that preorder up during production.  If you have friends that missed out on the Kickstarter but still want a copy of the game, they can go there and still get it cheaper than after it is released. Also, if you forgot to add $15 for international shipping on physical rewards, we have added a PayPal option to do so in the store.  In the near future, we will open a backer-only store with some great exclusive items that won’t be available to the general public.

So, now we get started on the game!  We are in full production mode for the next 18 months.  Expect to see many updates as we start to shape the experience that you’ve helped create.  If you want to stay in the loop in between our Kickstarter updates, head to our blog and forums at http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/.  We will be spending a lot of time interacting with all of you there.