Giving sequence to the series of posts about the Tsar Project, today the subject is Level Design which is the development of the game’s setting and background from the most wide scope (location) to the most specific details (desk positioning).

The Level Design of Tsar Project was conceived after a thorough research of the Moscow Kremlin architecture circa XVI century, done mainly by our Art Director, Maperns. The continuous drive for accurate textual and pictorial information to compose our historical fiction made us reach a russian architect and historian, Julia Tarabarina. With  her kind support we managed to gather information about the building layout and structure, and architectural blueprints of that century and posterior ones.

Building from this knowledge we started the development of the Level Design properly, designing the necessary modifications to make game interesting but always trying to preserve the historical accuracy. The first step was to gather all information that we had collected by drawing blueprints of all floors of all of the Kremlin main palaces, in order to create a better understanding of the game space. These blueprints then were simplified to help the work of the game designers and programmers.

After this, we started to work on the game events, placing them on the game space. We also designed a huge mind map with all rooms and their connections, NPC placement, item placement and guard routes and routines. Both were also tested on our software prototype and Lego mock-ups. These maps also helped the development of the first background concepts which Maperns is doing directly on Paint Tool SAI, a very powerful (and cheap) japanese painting software which he will present on his next post.

I’ve been silent for a while now, but now I’m here. My name is Thiago, but you can call me Beto, and I am Aduge’s game designer. I will try to be more present on this distinct blog from now on.

Last time I spoke briefly about the Tsar Project’s themes of aloneness and patience and how they are thought to be integrated with the gameplay and other aspects of the game. Now it’s time to talk about the gameplay itself, more on general terms rather than on specific details. What it means is that I will talk about how the game will be played/experienced on a general level, trying to not spoil too much of the experience proper.

To begin with, Tsar is an infiltration mission.  The protagonist is an outsider, an invisible summoned creature inside the heavily guarded and tense Moscow Kremlin Palaces. A mission is presented, but it hardly matters, the character is where it shouldn’t be, and there are people that will attack anything that don’t belongs there. Thus, the game objective is quite clear: avoid all guards, civilians, animals (read: everyone) and reach your destination within a set time limit. Failing to elude the obstacles means a very hard time for the player, or simply failing the game itself.

And what means this character has to complete its objective? As said above, it is an invisible creature. No human can see it under normal conditions. Although particles, debris, snow, blood or and any other mundane object over this creature’s body remains visible. So it’s for the best to avoid getting dirty. And even if invisible, the character still makes sounds which can be heard by any attentive guard, so silent movements are still important. Also, the protagonist (it’s name shall remain a mystery, for now) is very athletic and agile, being capable of exploring the environment with great mobility. Now it may seems pretty easy, right? Not that much. There’s one major vulnerability in this playable character that enforces the game as a “sneaking mission”. The protagonist is fragile. Fragile to the point that any wound can mean it’s death. A direct combat situation is extremely adverse to the player and even if this character is powerful enough to kill or incapacitate most humans in one single strike, this kind of situation remains a risky gamble that should be avoided.

Another interesting aspect of the game is related to it’s time limit. The player has one in-game night to complete the mission. All characters (and I mean all of them) that inhabit the Moscow Kremlin have their routines and their stories on this particular night, as the time progresses. The player can simply watch everything or take action and see the results, whichever he wants. Guards will stand watch, workers will do their jobs, everyone will sleep, eat, or do whatever else people do. There is also a behavior system which conducts every character’s actions and reactions that will result in a very complex AI system, where enemy characters will not be as dumb as players are used to.

To sum it up, the Tsar Project is a stealth game where the player must elaborate routes and actions that are the most efficient to reach a destination without being seen or raising suspicions. Killing guards seems easy, but it’s not a very good idea most of the time (as it can cause a full scale alert, locking paths and whatnot) or going the most obvious and guarded route is not as efficient as using other sneaky and more subtle paths. When playing Tsar, remember: you are invisible, you are alone, you are deadly, but you still breath and is mere flesh and blood as any other. Better tread carefully.

The last fortnight was a productive one. The game prototype is now running in 0.1 version, we’ve got the pathfinding algorithms improved and our test dummy character; a Kremlin Guard warmheartedly called Josino, Iosifka in Russian; is getting it’s first scratches of a.i., starting with the ability of hearing, which, by the way, will be of great importance for both NPCs and the Player in Tsar Project.

Another important Milestone achieved in this last week is that all the initial ConceptArts for the Characters are done, that means that we’ve completely defined the aesthetics of the game and the appearance of all the classes of characters and the individual special ones. At this stage the Visual Art Department changes it’s focus to the Backgrounds, and Character Design will be on hold ’til we got the initial development of the Concepts for the rooms of the Kremlin, which is scheduled to end at the end of the Month. Talking about schedules, the Project Schedule has just been revised and optimized in a new project management tool this week.

In the other Departments, Beto and Bruno finished the most important aspects about the Game Dynamics (combat and ambient interactions, to be specific), the Enemies descriptions, and have planned the next steps of the Level Design documentation. Aural Art Department just finished the plot of the Conceptual Soundscape. And, last but not least, our dear Screenwriter is heavily working in the creation and development of the many scenes and dialogues of Tsar Project including the multiple endings of the game. Of course, her work is highly confidential as it is a torrent of spoilers.

March 2009: Aduge starts developing it’s new game, code-name Tsar Project.
April this year: We move to our new headquarters in the Azuri Building
May: The studio turns 2yo.
July: The Adugans buy an espresso machine
September: Still no welcome party? How can it be???

Not anymore. One week ago, on September’s 8th, the so long waited Aduge’s Coffee Party took place in the three rooms of the Azuri Building currently used by the studio; being them the Headquarters Proper, Sun’s Bedroom and The Kitchen. We’ve had some of our closest friends, many types of special Brazilian coffee grains, and obviously, games.

Ingrid and Marcel competently took the charge of coffee tenders, and, among normal espressos and cappuccinos, prepared some interesting variants such as machiattos, nutella mochas and our exclusive brigadeiro coffee. We had breads, pies, cakes and snacks provided by our beloved guests. And for the games, N64′s Super Smash Bros. and Mario Tennis and CPS3′s Street Fighter 3 Third Strike (tough we don’t have a proper CPS3 machine, yet, we do the best we can with an emulator). The most remarkable challanges were undoubtedly the 4 players Smash Bros. ones.

We would like to thank our amazing guests and certify you that it was a real pleasure and reason of great happiness to us all to see you around here, so,come back soon! And for those that haven’t visited the studio yet, be sure, we are awaiting your visit!