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Maelstrom - Developer Diary #2 Feature
Chris Leyton
17/03/2006
KDV provides an update to the development of Maelstrom, taking a look at the major innovations behind the exciting blend of strategy and action...
With less then six months to go until development concludes on KDV/Codemasters future vision of a devastated Earth, Elena Khudenko returns to run us through the key aspects behind the game.
The Four Elements of Maelstrom
From the very beginning we've designed Maelstrom as a mix, a combination of classical RTS principles and innovative features. As you may already know from the diary part 1, the basic starting point for Maelstrom, was the combination of deformable landscape and dynamic liquids.
But why stop, when we can go further? So we've decided to develop the idea of a dynamic environment. We were already using water and earth as gameplay features, but there were still two more elements - fire and wind that we decided we wanted to incorporate. After spending some time figuring out the math, we ended up with a game engine with "elemental" features or fully dynamic environmental systems. We've created airstreams, rain, and snow and combined them with already implemented features. What I mean is, all dynamic systems - water, weather, wind and fire affect the game play in a number of ways and also interact with each other and with objects or units in the maps. For example, most maps have rivers and lakes and even seas. Some units cannot cross water, in low temperatures water will turn to ice, rain will collect in pools wind can spread debris or fire across the map. The game also features a day and night system that affects the productivity of solar power generation and a whole bunch of various disasters: volcanic activity, earthquakes, tornadoes etc.
In the preproduction phase of Maelstrom's development we've invested a lot of time in the game's engine. However, I guess it's not right to use the term "game engine" in our case. The main concept of game development at KDV is the creation of integrated systems for game creation and provision of total visual control over the entire game content. Our technology - Vista Engine (topical, eh? ;)) allows us to create games with minimal support from programmers. But let's return to the game...
The Forces at War
The second source of innovative features is the faction design. Our main goal was to create truly unique factions that could really take advantage of the new way in which our game engine works. At the same time of course we had to keep in mind the setting and the backdrop to make everything blend together in a integrated gaming experience.
After several months of brainstorming and constant on and off-line discussions we finally came to a vision of the three main sides of this global conflict, their gameplay features, units and technology. The next step was the development of the single campaign structure, missions and mission objectives.
Maelstrom's factions are extremely different in all aspects. Each has an individual style of base development, unit production, a unique set of units and weapons. Factions also differ in their philosophies, in the goals they are aiming at and in their vision of our world's future. All these factors were to consider during the mission design stage.
Action vs. Strategy
We've used several tools for strengthening the Maelstrom's action elements.
First and foremost there is the free camera, which in combination with high-detailed environment and objects allows us to cross from strategy over to action in just a turn of the mouse wheel.
But the main action elements are unit control modes. We've created two of them, adding a "direct control" mode to the traditional strategy control "from above". In the "direct control" mode player controls a single selected unit and fights "equal" (in terms of balance) enemy units. Plus, there are a lot of options for customization of the mode - We're also using this feature in the mission design, designing action missions, where players control units or vehicles to complete mission objectives, for example players can control guard towers and have to shoot down enemies, attacking from several directions.
P.S.
The release is only 6 months away, and right now we're focusing on the single campaign, finishing work on the mission objectives together with Star Trek's James Swallow and preparing to start scripting the missions. So keep an eye out for the next part of Maelstrom diaries for more info on the upcoming title, game mechanics and multiplayer.
