KickStarter Homeworld 3 from Blackbird Interactive

[Grotesque]

hmm

 

[Grotesque]

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/homeworld3/updates/1343

Development Update: How a Single Slice Makes a Whole Game

It’s the holiday season, and what better present could we give our community than a brand new update about the development of Homeworld 3?! Fans of the Homeworld series will be very excited to know that development is progressing nicely on the first mainline Homeworld title in over a decade. What does this mean exactly?

Find out more about process behind Homeworld 3 this far from Senior Producer Matt Kernachan, Design Lead Lance Mueller, and Technical Lead Andrew Ritchie. In this update they’ll talk about the Vertical Slice and what that means in the development of Homeworld 3, building large scale terrain for ships to battle in, how this impacts ship behavior, and more.

Q: What is a vertical slice and what does the term refer to?

We often talk about our Art and Design processes when it comes to making games and how we approach different aspects or challenges in making the game fun and visually exciting. We don’t always get to talk about what it takes to actually produce a game so I thought I’d take a minute here to talk about one of the most important milestones a Development Team will deliver: the Vertical Slice!

Think of a layered cake. A Vertical Slice is literally just that but for a video game it’s a small slice that shows all the layers that are present under the icing. It’s not the whole cake but it clearly shows what the whole cake will be.

-Matt K

Q: Sounds delicious but what does Vertical Slice mean in game development?

Essentially, it’s one piece of the game that demonstrates what the final product will be. The Vertical Slice is where you prove what the gameplay is and how it will look and feel.

We begin by choosing an area of the game that contains all the parts that will be needed in the final product. For Homeworld we would choose a campaign mission. We then identify every component we’ll need, set about planning how to do it and then begin working. By the time we’re done we have created a fully-fledged mission that contains all the following:

Ships, assets and a game environment that are visually representative of the final game, Core movement, controls and combat that are fun and engaging, a User Interface that is polished and representative of final quality, Cinematic moments and cut scenes that are representative of final quality, voice acting, interactive Music, basically all the pieces of a game are present and can be experienced by a player.

- Matt K

Q: Why do you build one?

We want to learn everything we need to know to be able to deliver the full game experience we’ve all imagined. As much as we plan there is always a surprise or two waiting for us and we want to surface those surprises early before we’ve committed too much time and energy. As they say, the best way to learn is by doing!

Building a Vertical Slice allows us to get our technical foundation in place (the game engine, etc), prove out our production pipelines (the processes we use to create features, missions, and ships), determine the look of the environments and assets (the Beautiful Corner as Karl Gryc spoke of in an earlier post) and, most importantly, prove out the gameplay!

The Vertical Slice build is the culmination of all the work that takes place in the pre-production phase and it is how we prove that the game is ready to enter full production. Essentially, pre-production is about planning and figuring out how everything will work together, while production is pulling those plans together to actually construct all the various elements that will make up Homeworld 3.

-Matt K

[“An Ice field is interfering with sensors readings, keep your eyes open for hostiles!” Campaign concept image - Jonathan Blessin]

Q: The Homeworld 3 Vertical Slice showed off how players would move units strategically between platforms to take down larger ships. What are some of the challenges you think you might face creating these large-scale environments during development?

From a creative perspective, terrain has been an interesting challenge for the whole development team. As soon as we started developing the level editor and added terrain into the levels we knew we had something very special. Some of our first experiments included placing large walls, giant arcs, and debris scattered around an open space.

As we work more and more with what is possible we have been building out larger terrain surfaces. The advantage of this, other than looking decidedly Homeworld in scale, was to create focal areas for gameplay. With these large areas of terrain [shown off by Karl Gryc in our August update] we could start adding more bits of debris as well as cutouts into the terrain slabs to create 3 dimensional choke points. Cutting holes in the terrain or placing panels above or near terrain create new avenues of attack or retreat for ships.

These new elements have created a lot of possibilities for different avenues of gameplay that we can't wait to share with you all. But these possibilities come with challenges for development. The player will need to be introduced to new ways to exploit the terrain in each campaign level but so will the enemy.

-Lance

Q: You suggested that the individual behavior of player and enemy ships may change based on the environment they are in. Are there any tech challenges that arise from these new enemy behaviors?

The inclusion of more terrain-like features in the game has raised a lot of interesting opportunities for showing that each of the game’s units is aware of them. This is a significant change to the core game simulation and pushed us to explore two major areas of tech that really help sell that awareness.

The first is navigating around, over, and through this terrain. These are the pathfinding and avoidance systems. Everyone is excited to see fighters hugging trenches and breaking formation to filter through smaller gaps before they reform but doing this without processing hitches or jarring movement paths is an art in and of itself.

-Andrew

This [navigating] created some great ship interactions with fighters and frigates in combat while moving through and around the terrain. There's nothing like seeing your fighters burst through of a crack in the terrain to engage a formation of hostile frigates.

-Lance

The second is developing significant ways that units can interact with the terrain. This has fallen under a broader topic of "Unit Behaviors" which is how we intend units to decide how they leverage terrain based on influences such as player orders, tactics, combat roles and even faction identity. Players using debris as cover or frigates springing ambushes from alcoves to give them a tactical advantage are often very contextual moments that we'd love to see unfold naturally during gameplay without heavy reliance on scripting.

-Andrew

Just like player units exhibit tactical behaviors, Pirate Raider Fighters like the one below will exhibit these actions and others that match the hit and run tactics of their faction.



https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/homeworld-3-raider-fighter-d5992225c5d74db285a79320a362ed65

[With its stripped down chassis, powerful engines and menacing weaponry the Pirate Raider Fighter is a nimble craft perfectly suited to hit and run tactics


While that’s all for this update, we want to thank all of our backers and fans who have supported us throughout 2020. Your passion and continued interest for Homeworld allowed us bring the Hiigaran fleet home, usher in the the Age of S'jet, and kept the series alive and thriving for over 20 years. We cannot wait to show you where Homeworld 3 will take you next and will be back for more development updates here on Fig in 2021! Happy Homeworld Holidays from everyone at Blackbird Interactive and Gearbox Publishing!

 

[Grotesque]

 

[Infinitron]

Grotesque You should post sources.

 

[underground nymph]

Funny enough, the first one is the best.

 

[Nirvash]

Waifu and gundams can save this franchise, DO IT.

 

[sser]

Why do they always sexify these things. It's so ironic that nowadays they do that when it's rather "in" at the moment to not.

 

[laclongquan]

Because it's the reason Homeworld cant beat or replace Star Craft franchise. At least on visual scene.

SC has Queen of Blades and Nova. What does Homeworld have?

 

[Grotesque]

What does Homeworld have?

sexy!

 

[laclongquan]

I agree that it look pretty but face facts: we are a minority. A niche of a niche.

For most people to look at them halfway seriously, so that they can, at least, give it a try (aka bother to download and install, which is a huge sign)... You are going to need some pretty faces, sexy tits and asses, daring outfits.

After that. AFTER THAT. You can now start display your competency in making games.

 

[Dayyālu]

You are going to need some pretty faces, sexy tits and asses, daring outfits.

After that. AFTER THAT. You can now start display your competency in making games.

Good fucking luck then, because God willing we'll need a ton of luck. Also for sure the first thing I think about Homeworld is TITS&ASS IN YOUR FACE. I never understood the fascination they got with Fleet Command, she was essentially a non-entity and not even Mission Control. It's telling that her "role" started to get underlined in the complete narrative hack job that was trying to salvage Homeworld 2.

I'll even sperg more: in HW1 and Cata we didn't even know the ethnicity of the Hiigarans. The fact that they were roughly human was all we got, and when I played it when I was a little 'un I pretty much visualized them as a generic "Near Orient" people (desert, sound of the names, soundtrack, pseudo-religious themes, clans). Lucky me HW2 and Desserts of Kharak felt the need to bland-ify everything, in the only goddamn setting where brown people would have made sense (yes, I know that Hiigara was Earth-like, but hell, 10-years old me only saw Hiigara at the goddamn end of the game).

Also keep repeating that DoK was a good game, interviews. Maybe you'll find someone outside of the dev team that thinks so, hope springs eternal.

 

[laclongquan]

Which is why the mecha subgenre is half dead. They, the devs in that sub-genre, simply cant keep up with the changes. And the biggest change is this: there is a huge backlog of games for gamers, so they have to do SOMETHING to compete for attention. A good game, which is a dubious self proclaimed label in any case, do not cut it anymore.

 

[Grotesque]

Pyramidion of Amenemhat III
From the pyramid complex of Amenemhat III at Dahshur. Reign of Amenemhat III. The Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, ca. 1860-1814 BC. JE 35133

 

[Grotesque]

jesus fuckin christ.

who in their right mind comes up with that trembling animation when firing like in a fuckin cartoon for 12 year olds?
LOOK AT ALL THAT POWEH! IT BURSTS AT THE SEAMS!

the more I see things, the more hacks are revealed.

 

[Zibniyat]

That seriously looked bad and literally has no precedent in its prequels (H1 and H2). And where is the sound? It just comes off as amateurish, which is the complete opposite I expect from something Homeworld-related.

 

[Grotesque]

And where is the sound

sound in space?

 

[Storyfag]

And where is the sound

sound in space?

Granted, I haven't played HW in YEARS, but... it had sound. Didn't it?

 

[Grotesque]

And where is the sound

sound in space?

Granted, I haven't played HW in YEARS, but... it had sound. Didn't it?

it was a joke

 

[underground nymph]

Yea, that looks bad. Damage visualization is good though.

 

[Grotesque]

Yea, that looks bad. Damage visualization is good though.

on the bright side, 99% of the comments from Fig backers point out that the trembling animation is retarded.

 

[underground nymph]

Maybe you'll find someone outside of the dev team that thinks so

Actually I do! It had its flaws, has zero replayability and pretty shallow combat-wise. Though it managed to catch that Homeworld-esque feeling, surprisingly beautiful while being another Unity clone, and yes it tells the story, which of course might be the bad thing, looking from the perspective that there shouldn’t have been any sequels or prequels at all. But didn’t you desire to know more yourself? It is though a hardly avoidable trap, when a mystery uncovered becomes less attractive. They could have done it much better with sequel, that’s for sure.

 

[sser]

Just test footage. I think that looked well done, except the trembling. The shaking stuff is really stupid looking.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Dunno why you fuckers are hyperventilating about that footage, it looks nice and pretty.

 

[Dayyālu]

[But didn’t you desire to know more yourself?

No. Bad writing is bad writing, often what was should not be explored by people clearly unskilled to do so. What is ruined is ruined.

Tell smaller stories then: again and again, Cataclysm (pardon, Resurgence or Emergence) managed to tell a better HW-esque story than all its sequels or prequels. What was the uplifting story of an united people becomes this .... messy and unclear combine of ideas.

And sin upon sin, it was a mediocre game. Not that HW's gameplay was ever top-tier, but it was at least engaging.

 

[Zibniyat]

Cataclysm (pardon, Resurgence or Emergence) managed to tell a better HW-esque story than all its sequels or prequels.

Cataclysm didn't even feel like a Homeworld game, so this point is moot. It had uglier graphics, uglier art direction, soundtrack unbefitting of Homeworld, and generally played like some offshoot that tried to use the fame and prestige of Homeworld for marketing purposes.

I am obviously one of the few people who actually liked Homeworld 2 quite a lot, including its overall story and plot. What can I say, I just like that mystery and mysticism. But I understand the critics and they are indeed right that H2 destroyed H1's lore and story.