By now most of you have probably seen the teaser trailer for Dead Island. This trailer has been getting tons of attention over the Internet and many seem to think that it is one of the best game trailers ever. I find that this is quite interesting, since just about everything that makes the trailer good are things that modern video games lack. I would even go as far as to say that a video game made using modern gameplay-centric design could never create something that gives the same experience.
So I just finished Dead Space 2 and wanted to discuss it a bit. Mainly because it is a perfect example of some trends in game design that I find are really harmful. I also find that it has some moments that could have been brilliant if just slightly changed, making it extra interesting to discuss.
When I thought that all problems with heightmaps was over, I stumbled upon something sort of tricky recently. The only thing I had left for heightmaps was to add physics to them. This seemed easy to do as it was basically just a matter of sending the raw heightmap data to the physics engine (newton game dynamics) However just as I had done this I realized that this was not enough: the terrain could have many different physical properties at different places (a spot with dirt, one with rock, etc).
After a little break with updates on the rendering system, holidays and super secret stuff, I could finally get back to terrain rendering this week. This meant work on the final big part of the terrain system: Undergrowth. This is basically grass and any kind of small vegetation close to the ground.
Frictional Games have now officially existed for almost exactly four years (4 years and 7 days to be exact), Amnesia: The Dark Descent is our fourth game and it is now four month since we released it. Because of this we thought it was time for another round-up of sales and other stuff that has happened.
I am not very fond of new year’s resolutions, but I will make one anyway: From here on, I promise myself to never take the simple way, but always take the hard one, when making game. This might seem a bit weird, so let me explain myself.
