Week 4 - Building our First Level

2/2/18 - Hard At Work

Good evening, fireBreak fans! Parker here, glad to report another productive week of work. Given our objective for this next build, we hit the ground running with our next major milestone: planning, whiteboxing, and building our first full level. Without any further ado, Let's take a look at what the team's been doing!

Design

Today, our design team laid out the existing documentation regarding the planned story and objectives for level one. This is important, as it has to set the example for how the game play and the narrative are going to interact throughout the whole game. Time for whiteboards and flowcharts.

The result of two hour's brainstorming and consultation.

During this time, Ian, Ian, Wyatt and Myself laid out the major story beats for the first level and figured how each major event would affect the player's influence with each of the game's factions, as well as how the level would progress. We recorded a video of this process and passed it along to Darren and Silas, our online designers. They're going to be making paper maps of the level, over the next week. After this, our design team is going to whitebox the level-- that is, create the level in the game engine, without any assets or textures.

Art

In the meantime, our artists were compiling an asset list. The design team had some input on this as well, providing ideas for other props for the artists to model.

Trent looks at reference images. He's still at work on the interior of the player's ship from last week.

Tuesday, another of our artists, working on models.

In the meantime, Bryce has been working on character models, and Ian is doing concept art for weapons.

Programming

Dave's been hard at work on the character controller, making sure that the player can run around and aim with the mouse

Garrett and Dave consult on the Inventory System.

Garrett is still working on the inventory as well. Though there's not much else to report here, they've both made excellent progress with their respective tasks. Overall, it's been a good week!

Lore Corner: Syndicate Organization and Technology

The Stratum Mining Corporation is a well-known company in core space,  though it has a checkered past. A series of ill-advised business decisions have left the company in a precarious financial position. Unrest on Stratum-controlled worlds has led to the adoption of necessary measures to keep peace in difficult situations.

The Hoelian Syndicate is one of several Military Police syndicates that the Stratum Corporation equips and employs, though they are by far the most active. Stratum equips their syndicates with military-grade arms and armor, emphasizing a doctrine of quality over quantity. Many veteran Syndicate soldiers were once enlisted men in the Core Space military, or law enforcement officers in their own right-- all well-trained, capable fighters.

Being privately funded, Syndicate officers have access to top-of-the-line weapons and equipment, including plasma-based energy weapons and magnetically shielded armor. A few ledgers even record the purchase of armored military vehicles, though these are fewer and further between than what Coalition rumors would have you believe.

Week 3 - Our First Build

The Build

Hey everyone! Parker here with another development log! This week we presented our first build for UAT's production studio program. Most of the programming team pulled an all-nighter last night to prepare for the build today. The team was able to pull through though, and we're proud to present the first official iteration of Firebreak! (Props to Ian, Ian, and Dave for putting in the hours for this one).

We ended up migrating the original prototype level over to the current build. While it looks the same on the surface, there are a number of changes that we've done under the hood.

By far, the most significant change that we've made is migrating our scripting over from Unreal 4's Blueprint system over to C++. This is an important change, since Blueprint is a very CPU-intensive method of scripting. We've already seen a noticeable jump in performance since we switched over to C++. Progress is a bit slower, but it's going to result in a more stable and efficient program in the long run.

Not only that, but we have a few assets for this build! Now that our workflow has been established, the art department has been steadily creating assets. While we didn't have a place for all of them, we'll be able to show off a few of them in this iteration.

On the far left, we have an untextured shelving unit. On the right, we have a section of pipe running from the wall to the floor. Both are courtesy of Brittany, one of our artist interns.

A cot, also courtesy of Brittany.

As far as art is concerned, several of our artists have been shifted over to working on environments. Trent is still making the floor plan of the player's ship, as well as creating the wall and floor textures. Tuesday is switching over to modeling for environment objects for our first level. We're hoping to have both the ship (which functions as the player's menu) and the first level white boxed by the time our next build rolls around, in about three weeks.

Developer Focus: Dave Engleman

The man himself

Who are you?

Dave is our Lead Programmer, a graduate of UAT with a degree in Game Programming and Design.

What have you been doing on the project?

He's been with fireBreak from the beginning, having come up with the original concept alongside Ian Goldsmith back in early 2017. Since then he's been working on the project, having co-written the original design document. After working on the code for the prototype, he's been leading the programming department since production started.

Anything else you'd like us to know about you?

Aside from playing video games, one of Dave's favorite hobbies is playing D&D. He has a pit bull mix named Mason and a hog-nosed snake named Clarice. He'll also be getting married this April!

Lore Corner: The Miner's Coalition

A ragtag paramilitary force formed from an alliance of former labor unions and rebellious miners. The Miner's Coalition is lashing out against the oppressive conditions enforced by the Hoelian Syndicate, leaving the planet in a state of open war.

When Hoelia was peaceful, a number of miner's labor unions arose to advocate for the rights of the many civilians employed by the Stratum Mining Corporation. For the most part, the relationship between the corporation and these unions was civil. 

After the Corporation suffered through a period of financial loss, it was forced to cut wages for many of the planetary miner. While many of them understood, a few of these groups began to organize strikes against the company.  The protests began peacefully, with labor strikes and protests against civil centers. However, as the years went on with no solution in sight, the protests became more violent.

The creation of the Syndicate escalated the conflict even further. The miners felt that their freedom was under attack-- as such, they felt compelled to fight for it. The less scrupulous among the union members began to contact gun runners. The arms dealers were able to traffic large volumes of war materiel to the planet before the Syndicate was able to crack down on the imports, but it was too little, too late. The localized unions reached out to one another to form the Miner's Coalition. The newly unified group attacked in force, seizing several large metropolitan center. 

In response, the Syndicate began to arrest any civilians that held strong ties to the unions. Citizens fled en masse, seeking protection from the Coalition. Dozens of refugee camps sprung up overnight, offering a place that civilians could go to avoid the ever-mounting war.

Week 2 - Ships, Story, and UI

1/19/18 - Onto the first build

Afternoon, everybody! It's Parker, here with another development log for fireBreak. We hit the ground running this week with production, and we've started to progress on our first build. 

Much of the last week was dedicated to project organization. Ian, our project lead, spent a good deal of time getting our organizational software set up and communicating with our leads to get tasks assigned to our interns and employees.

Design

One of the biggest tasks that our designers tackled today was UI design and menu flow. These two are critical in establishing the player's experience

Wyatt and Ian start to lay out navigation from the start menu

The most important thing here is the ease of the user experience-- making sure that it's easy to get into a game from the menu. Wyatt also spent time planning the User Interface, giving the player information on the player character, their inventory, and their squadmates' health and critical information.

During this time, I also wrote out the plot for more of the story levels. While this information isn't going to be used for awhile yet, the plot is going to be used to inform the level designs that are going to be created.

Art

Trent pitches a ship design to Ian

This week, Trent spent some time designing layouts for the ship that the player is going to spend their time on between missions. Between the layout and the interior aesthetic, he's currently building what the player is going to see in this crucial gameplay hub.

In the meantime, Tuesday has been working on models for melee weapons and energy weapons, as well as other props.

Lore Corner: The Hoelian Syndicate

The Hoelian Syndicate is the primary force that exercises the Stratum Mining Corporation's control over the planet of Hoelia.

A decade prior to current events, the Stratum Mining Corporation suffered a series of unfortunate financial calamities. Between a series of risky colonization attempts and failed investments, a number of concerns faced them. Faced with financial ruin, the Stratum corporation was forced to cut the pay of their mining workers.

There was, predictably, outrage. On Hoelia, a number of riots broke out. In response, the Stratum Corporation formed the Hoelian Syndicate. The Syndicate was originally a small force of well-armed riot control troopers, with a small squad stationed in each city. Their intended purpose was to deter rebellious action by their mere presence, but it soon became necessary for them to act.

As protests became riots, peacekeeping became crackdowns. As open revolt started to break out over the surface of the planet, the Syndicate was forced to escalate, requisitioning heavier equipment and recruiting more officers. Before long, martial law had been declared, and the Syndicate had taken over the governance of Hoelia.

Week 1- Development Kickoff

1/12/18 - Production Begins

Hey everyone! Parker here with our first fireBreak development log. We've been in pre-production for the last three months, and after a great deal of conceptualization, documentation, prototyping, we're finally in a good place to begin production. Over the course of the next year, we're looking to push out the whole game.

The result of our labors was a short prototype. It doesn't include any assets, but it establishes a few important concepts for the game. 

So all of the basics are there. You can run around and shoot, and there are enemies that shoot back. Still to come are assets, the User Interface, the story, dialogue, weapons, multiplayer... We've got a ways to go, but we're off to a good start!

Bring in the interns!

Through our partnership with UAT Game Studios, we were greenlit to work with the school's production studio program. This means that for the next 15 weeks, we'll be working with 7 interns, which is a welcome change. On top of having additional personnel for design and programming work, we've also gone from having one artist to having five.

For these fifteen weeks, we're focused on making what's known as a "vertical slice"-- A section of gameplay that has all of our intended features, albeit in a single level. This will be a full level with primary objectives, side missions, and a boss. At the same time, we'll be continuing work on the overarching narrative of the game itself, further expounding on the narrative we developed during pre-production.

Developer Focus: Parker Smith

(As part of our weekly development logs, I'm going to be taking a bit of time every other week to talk to one of our team members. We'll see how they're doing, what they're currently working on, and find out a bit more about them.)

This week, since the majority of our team has just joined us, I'll tell you a bit about myself. My name is Parker Smith, and I'm one of the founding members of Lava Bear Studios.

I'm a Game Design student in my final semester at UAT. One of my main focuses has been writing for games. As such, I'm the one who has written most of the fireBreak's story during pre-production. I've also taken on the responsibility of handling our social media and online presence.

Over the last week, I've been creating the Lava Bear Studios website and setting up all associated social media accounts. If you ever message us on Twitter or shoot us an e-mail, odds are good that I'm the one who's responding. It's been exciting to get all of this started, though it's kind of weird to be creating a website that doesn't have any content yet. Oh well. With any luck, that'll be fixed soon.

Lore Corner: Hoelia

(This section will be dedicated to releasing bits of information about fireBreak's story, such as important locations, events, individuals, or factions.  Stay tuned as we flesh out the world of fireBreak!)

Hoelia (Designated TM27 by the Stratum Mining Corporation) is a large, rocky planet on the fringes of civilized space. It was first colonized fifty-three years ago, due to spectral scans indicating large deposits of titanium beneath the planet's surface. The Stratum Mining Corporation, fueled by a spike in the price of ship-grade titanium, established a number of large mining settlements all around the planet.

For a long time, the inhabitants did well. Mining settlements grew into small, prosperous cities. Terraforming efforts turned some spots from arid, rocky wastelands into arid, less rocky grasslands and sparse forests. A new generation of miners and workers was born on Hoelia. This small outpost of civilization thrived, and all was well.

However, it didn't last. After a number of prominent titanium deposits dried up, many settlements turned to mining less valuable substances, such as iron and copper. Many smaller communities declined, and dissatisfaction with the provincial government began to take hold.

In response, the Stratum Corporation established The Syndicate, an organization of peacekeepers intended to deter violent actions against the populace. It didn't help matters, as tensions rose between these peacekeepers and the disgruntled residents of the planet. Riots began to break out, and tensions flared. Within a year, the planet had begun its descent into a state of civil war.