Maelstrom - Developer Diary #1 Feature

Taking place on the devastated future Earth of 2040 where an alien invasion triggers an apocalyptic ecological disaster, Maelstrom is the latest title from KDV after a previous collaboration with Codemasters on the critically acclaimed PC RTS Perimeter.

TVG has teamed up exclusively to offer you an insight into the development of Maelstrom, with the first chapter providing a look at the origins of the concept and an early glimpse of the game's different factions.

Hi there, I'm Elena Khudenko PR Manager at KDV. Welcome to the first Maelstrom Development Diary! We would like to start from the very beginning and tell you the story of Maelstrom's birth and also about its loving parents, publisher and author of the concept and story Codemasters and Maelstrom's development team KDV games.

As you may already know, KDV games is a Russian dev team, and has previously worked under the title K-D LAB (this title is well-known back in Russia, where some of our previous projects like "Vangers. One for the Road", "Spanking Runners" and "Perimeter" became "cult"). We're actually a rather small company: with 10 programmers, 7 artists, 3 game designers, 4 content managers and some other specialists (managers, script writers, ) the current total number of our employees is about 30. Our team is based in Kaliningrad - the most western city of Russia, former Eastern Prussia metropolis Koenigsberg.

The team started working with Codies just over 2 years ago, when we signed a publishing deal for the RTS title Perimeter. The game was released after 9 months of rewarding cooperation - it was a great chance for us to work together with Codemasters, and we've learned much from the experience. Perimeter became a truly successful title - it has received numerous awards in Russia and abroad, including the title "Game of the Month" from PC Gamer UK and also made it to the PC Gamer Top 100 game awards in 2004 and 2005. The game was also a runner-up in the Develop Industry Excellence Award 2004, in the "Innovation" category. Needless to say, that both publisher and developer were deeply satisfied with the result of our first cooperation.

So, after Perimeter's release both sides were ready and willing to continue our collaboration and start a new project. In August 2004 part of the team travelled, by car, across Europe from Kaliningrad to London to attend the Awards. Of course, we also used the opportunity to visit Codies' office and discuss the plans for our next game. All we had at that meeting was a prototype of our new technology and our good reputation.

Since the development of "Perimeter" we had this idea of dynamic liquids. We've dreamed about flooding enemy bases, and sailing from island to island in search of resources and troops. And so we began prototyping dynamic water to the main feature of our new engine. The next step was to combine the mechanics of dynamic water and deformable landscape. But we've decided to go even beyond this and created a fully deformable and destructible environment.

In return, Codemasters have presented their concept for the future game - a story of a dying planet, facing constant wars and ecological catastrophes, leading to total collapse of world society as we know it and flooding of the biggest part of land. The surviving humans split into two factions - with everyone is struggling desperately for survival. "Maelstrom" was born!

After the UK meeting, a lively on-line discussion started. Game designers from both sides were working frantically together to create some unique/cool game mechanics. Defining the playable factions took some time, and most difficult was the Alien race. Everyone had a vision of their look, technology and even their method of intrusion: some imagined a giant mother ship, others deposed on an inter-dimensional portal... The Aliens changed their appearance many times in these early stages, and concept artists worked frantically on designs.

Other races have also changed during the pre-production phase: for example, the Remnants were first designed as amphibian creatures, after that they became normal humans with psycho-powers (or magical powers). But a sci-fi RTS with a magical faction seemed too patchwork, and in the end the Remnants became what they are know - cunning low-tech soldiers, masters of hit-and-run and guerilla tactics.

Maelstrom's development started in October 2004, and there's now only about 9 months left until the worldwide release. What we've got is a playable version of the game with complete unit and tech trees, ready for testing. Right now we're focusing on the production of the rest of the graphical content (such as single- and multiplayer maps, special effects and in-game units of final quality) and optimization of the game's performance. But even now, on test worlds and with placeholder graphics Maelstrom looks prettier, smoother and more realistic then our previous RTS project.

Stays tuned for more news, and prepare to be caught in the Maelstrom of war!