How only three people create a survival horror and what tools they use for this, the Art Exponent studio told. App2Top.ru made a squeeze of the material 80.lv .
Art Exponent was founded in 2016. Her debut game, Curzon Line, has been in the works for two years. The creators describe it as a survival horror, a first-person shooter with RPG elements and a large quest line.
To save time during development , the authors adhere to two rules:
- if possible, use third-party assets;
- use all possible types of software and services.
About management
- Art Exponent understood that three people would not be able to cover all the tasks necessary to implement the game. Therefore, in the early stages of the project, Art Exponent tried to outsource as much of the work as possible.
- Each of the team members spends at least 3-6 hours on the project on weekdays and weekends.
- To manage tasks, developers actively use the Trello online manager.
- The developers leave the adoption of various decisions to each other’s discretion. A joint discussion of the problems that have arisen during the development is carried out only in cases where it is absolutely impossible to do without it.
About the engine
- Curzon Line is developed on Unreal Engine 4. Art Exponent appreciate this engine for the fact that it gives full access to the source code. This greatly expands the capabilities of developers. If a problem occurs in the game, developers can fix it at the source code level.
- The Blueprints system in Unreal Engine makes it easy to create and debug prototypes. At the same time, there is no need to write everything in the code itself. Programmers and designers also easily exchange ideas using Blueprints.
About tools
- The team would like to develop their own assets for Curzone Line (after all, Art Exponent started as an asset creation company). But there may not be time left to create the game itself. Therefore, developers actively use third-party software.
- Among the tools used were named World Machine, SpeedTree, Gumroad, Megascans, Substance Designer, Mixer. To develop the environment in the game, the Procedural Landscape Ecosystem created by Gokhan Karadayi was used.
- The developers highly note the speed and convenience of the Megascans library. In their opinion, this is the best friend of any indie developer. In Curzon Line, it is used to create the landscape, floor and walls, foliage and debris.
- When developing for mixing materials in Curzone Line, Mixer was widely used. However, it is useful only when mixing 2-3 layers of materials, and Substance Designer is more suitable for more complex materials, the developers are sure. In the process, the studio abandoned Mixer and switched to the Substance Alchemist asset, which successfully mixes raw scans from Megascans.
About the game
- Curzon Line takes place in Poland, the plot is dedicated to the nuclear conflict between Russia and the UN. The game is inspired by titles such as DayZ and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
- The developers want their game to be as realistic as possible: “from the indication of calories on cans to the scenario of a world conflict.”
- The project is at the pre-alpha stage, Curzon Line does not have an exact release date yet.
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