In the season 1 finale, the young boss is playing a video game, before he [SPOILER! CENSORED]...
The game he was playing was ALBEDO!
Check out the show's credits (6th credit from the bottom):
Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space
Albedo on Gomorrah, the hit TV show!
In the season 1 finale, the young boss is playing a video game, before he [SPOILER! CENSORED]...
The game he was playing was ALBEDO!
Check out the show's credits (6th credit from the bottom):
A Brief History of Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space by Developer, Fabrizio Zagaglia (Part 3)
And in the end, they came from Outer Space!!!
As I mentioned previously, I met Ivan Venturi some years ago. We began to work together on projects for disabilities (a visual-impaired simulator in XNA), then on children’s educational games on road safety. Then he proposed that I become the managing director of the Nicolas Eymerich, Inquisitor project.
So we began working together with other colleagues daily, and I began this routine:
while(1){ //BEGIN LOOP
- Arrive at office by bus: A 40 minute trip, from my house to the Ivan’s company.
- Start work: Programming, Data managing, Modelling and many other things: In Italy, most of the companies are little companies. So we (Italian devs) have the habit of doing a lot of things; not only coding, modelling, testing, animating, designing, texturing or [all-the-infinite-remaining-things]; but all of them. And we like it!
- Have lunch: Mainly “panino alla mortadella”. “panino” is not exactly a sandwich. It is a little bread divided in two parts, and inside it you can put salame, prosciutto, bresaola, coppa, cotto, squaccherone, stracchino, and a lot of other things. And, obviously, “mortadella”. It is the ‘salami’ thing produced mainly in our city (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortadella).
- Drink Coffee: (You know Italian coffee: it is like a speed boost, very useful after lunch when your eyes begin to droop as you drift off for a little snooze) in Via del Pratello (near our office: a street full of Trattorie -Diners- and Osterie -Taverns).
- Return to Work: (Sometimes it is important to work) on programming and other wonderful things
- Go Home: Another 40 minute trip.
} //END LOOP
Interesting, don’t you agree? NO. Not exactly, I know. But the thing is that, out of my routine, after dinner, by night mainly, I worked on LONGY 2, spending (the most part of) my free time creating (programming/designing/modelling/animating/FX/texturing/etc) my game, the sequel of StealthZzTHzZth and Longy 1!!!
So; the day was for the Inquisitor, the night for Longy!
Sometimes for sleep...
I spent a lot of time, about 2 hours a day, waiting and commuting by bus. Wasted time? NO! In our life sometime (often) we need to get slower. It’s a slowdown bonus!
So waiting for the bus was my slowdown bonus.
I designed my game waiting and commuting by bus! Just thinking and dreaming, watching out of the window as the parallax of the world (so many layers!) scrolls and the shader of rain deforms the window glass. I love this stuff!
Please Z4G0, be brief. Ok, ok, I will.
In March 2013, Ivan was preparing to go to Game Connection in San Francisco (Estados Unidos) for business. Ok, I’m a shy guy, don’t talk too much. So I didn’t talk with him about Longy 2. But a colleague of mine, Max Di Fraia (who gives me help with music of the game) said to Ivan, “Hey, don’t you know that Z4G0 is developing a game?”
So I showed Longy 2 to Ivan. And Ivan said something like “WOW” if I remember correctly; the Italian version of WTF, and in dialect version as well, and in the slang version, then again, in Italian version. I had the impression that he liked the game. Ivan is a Sci-Fi fan and he liked the retro, heavy colours and so on, of the game. He told me that the game looked like an old 60s Sci-Fi movie to him, something like “It came from Outer Space”, or “Plan 9 from Outer Space”. Something from Outer Space, definitely!
Outer space. Alea jacta est. The game was done!
Ivan went to San Francisco and showed the playable demo of the game, still named Longy to a lot of publishers, and obtaining good interest. But he discovered a point of weakness of the game. It was quite completely anonymous. Longy, you know, is a wonderful, incredible, beautiful name, an amazing sound to the ears! Anyway, still not the best title.
As a friend (Eclipse!) said “What about players telling you that is not a very “long” game?” and joking on the word ‘long’?
I lost my remaining few sleeping hours thinking on this! The title is extremely important, the first (or second) thing that the player knows of your game. Very important.
So, it was very important to find another name.
I worked deeply on shaders in Unity, a lot on lighting: bloom, glow, reflections, and similar things. If you see my game, you can see this. There’s a lot of work in this direction, a particular style. Very colourful, rather than ultra-realistic. The style I like. Or better, the way my personal graphics card (part of my brain) sees the world. Saturated colours everywhere!!! The ALBEDO!
ALBEDO is good in Italian, and in English as well. I like it a lot. Ivan says he likes it a lot, too. Ivan showed it to other colleagues, and they liked it a lot, too. They showed it to friends, they liked it. Friends told me, and I like it a lot too!
I put my alien creatures everywhere, and now in this game (they are CENTRAL to the game) Ivan asked me to put a subtitle after ALBEDO, for a 60s Sci-Fi style. Maybe “EYES FROM OUTER SPACE”, I thought.
And so ALBEDO - EYES FROM OUTER SPACE was born!
A Brief History of Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space by Developer, Fabrizio Zagaglia (Part 2)
Turning to Unity3D
In the 60’s Stanley Kubrick dreamed that in 2001 the mankind would be conquering the space. Instead of this, in 2001, Longy 1 was published!
Life continued. In 2008 I began working in a company, producing an online videogame; Before, I finished high school and began University of Information Technology in Bologna, in 2004.
But I continued to have the strong will to develop my own videogames.
Anyway, if you live as a student in Bologna, which gives hospitality to almost 80000 students, (more than) half of them girls, you have a LOT of problems producing your own videogames. A lot of bad things like parties, concerts, things to do and so on. DISTRACTIONS! Terrible if you want to be an indie game developer.
But, luckily, I live near Bologna, not exactly in it, so I saved the future of my own videogames.
In the meanwhile, my vision of videogames changed. I added one dimension to my dreams. 3D entered in my life and I began thinking to a new game, Longy-based, in 3D.
Not a precise idea. Not a draft idea, really. Better to say a direction. I thought “The game will be in a 3D world. So I have to build a 3D world. And to build a 3D world, I have to build a 3D-world builder!”
So I began the “EdiTable” project!
As you probably know, if someone of you develop games or like the idea of doing it sooner or later in life, to develop editors or tools for the game, sometime is more fun than developing the game. It is a wonderful sensation to create something that will enhance your life, simplifying complex phases. You feel that the world gets better. And so it is! Game editors make the world better! All of mankind agrees, I’m sure.
EdiTable was a 3D-world editor, as I say, where you can import 3D-objects, meshes, textures and so on; put it in the scene, assign behaviours parameters and a lot of other beautiful things and so on. EdiTable had the possibility to let user edit the editor itself (hence the name) scripting and customizing almost all things: from the description of the type of objects and relative binding, to the output file format specification... from create own GUI skins to add or edit the different ways to import the objects in scene, like single objects, groups, spline, path etc…
Not only this; my 3D-world builder had to also be a super-mega-ultra-engine, with lighting ******* PLEASE ZAGO COMPLETA QUI ***!!!
It was based on BlitzBasic for rendering, but the most part of the features had to be absolutely great, the absolute dream of every developer! Maybe all the indie devs of the world would adopt my engine!
In 2010 (about. maybe) I met Ivan Venturi, an old Italian videogame producer. Not because he’s old (YES Ivan, you’re an OLD GUY!!!!), just because he was one of the first Italian videogame developer, publishing his first videogame in 1987 and co-founding the first Italian videogame company, Simulmondo, very famous in Italian videogame history.
As in this period the main business of Ivan was serious gaming and similar, we developed a couple of videogames, an edutainment game on road safety and a disability simulator. In the meanwhile Ivan had begun also to produce the Nicolas Eymerich Inquisitor saga. So, after a couple of years, when the project entered an advanced stage of production, he asked me to become the managing director of the game. So I entered deeply in the project.
Not only. I fell deeply in Unity3D. Full immersion.
Well. Do you remember I talked about ‘EdiTable’, my 3D-world builder and blitz-basic-based engine? Ok. Try to compare characteristics I wrote of EdiTable, with Unity3D 2.0 characteristics.
You’ll discover that Unity3D had all these characteristics. Not only. About 20-30 times more. And it do this things 20-30 way better... Exporting the project for Mac, iOS, Android.
My pride was destroyed! My will became cheese. My dreams turned to trash. The world of engine builders would never been mine. A tragedy.
So, with the death of my ambitions in my heart, but with the bravery of Duke Nukem, I decided to abandon the EdiTable project. And I completely surrendered to will of Unity3D!
(And, BTW, if you dev guys want to develop your own engine, let me give you some advice: if you want to do it for educational purposes, yeah, it’s great! but if you want to do also a games, don’t do it, go to the seaside, maybe the Caribbean, and try to forget your dreams - somewhere in the world, someone has already done what you are thinking about, better than you, and before you - so develop games, not engines. If you’re not making games, developing editors & tools is GREAT!!!)
Well. At the end of the day, after all these misfortunes, I did three things.
FIRST: I began working to my new videogame. LONGY 2.
SECOND: I began developing it in Unity3D!
THREE: I don’t remember...
OK guyz, rest your eyes, stop reading my blog and go look at the trees or flowers or horizons or nature and all that stuff. I have to return to my code. I have a list of bugs to fix and more polishing to do before Early Access version, long about 2 kilometres (you know, in Italy we use Kilometres, not Miles).
So, back putting my nose in Unity3D editor. See ya!
Second Teaser Trailer - Who's shooting who?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mzNRMk1Q3Y&feature=youtu.be
New Teaser Trailer Series
Can you fix it? Yes you can!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gERdwhnps5k&feature=youtu.be
A Brief History of Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space by Developer, Fabrizio Zagaglia
I got my first PC in 1995, the PC486, when I was just ten years old. I was a videogame enthusiast, but I did not just want to play video games; I wanted to make them too. I soon found that I was able to make my ideas come to life, and I did so all my will and effort. Yes, I’m a bit nerd! ;P
In the beginning I used tools such as Blitz BASIC and Klik ’n’ Play: With them I was able to produce my very first videogames. From reconstructing my school in 3D in essentially a Doom (<3 <3 <3) lookalike game, to dozens of other kinds of mini games. I explore all styles and genres: 2D, 3D, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Sports… Everything and anything I had in my mind at that moment! I had no specific goals other than to just have fun in my free time.
When I was fourteen I produced a ray-casting 3D action adventure game, it could better be described as a stealth game. As my surname is Zagaglia, I have come to love using the letter “Z”, and being the very, very original guy I am; I decided to call this game “StealthZ”, just to trouble all those who had to pronounce it. Nerd fun!
I later made a game with DivGameStudio; spending a couple of months on it. The result was quite interesting for a boy like me. So I decided to send it to an Italian videogame magazine called “The Game Machine”, with no genuine expectations. Well, they decided to publish it in the ‘Talent Zone’! They wrote a couple of pages dedicated to young developers (the term “Indie’” was not well known or used in Italy at this time). They also put my game on the CD-ROM attached to the magazine, so millions! …or billions! …or at least hundreds of people played my game! I was a very proud fourteen-old guy!
Strangely, nobody founded a ZAGO fan club! I don’t know why… :(
Anyway, the important this is, this gave rise to a new character. The main character of StealthZ was named John T Longy! I had created my personal hero!
I liked the idea I had a lot, and I wanted to improve the StealthZ ‘experience’ as well. This of course meant updating a bunch of libraries, things, stuff, assets, and with that brought chaos.
So I designed a nice 2D isometric game with a beautiful story and… no, just kidding! The true story is another one: I started an ‘Experiment’ in 2D isometric to try rendering shadows of the main character on walls and objects, and I used the ‘design’ (for whom there wasn’t one yet!) of John T. Longy to create the main character. The ‘Experiment’ went well and I was satisfied.
After that, I inserted simple game mechanics, to encourage the player to move from room to room, to pick objects, to use objects, to interact with environment’s elements, to kill things. I began adding mini games and enigmas to solve here and there; I thought about these puzzles day and night. I continued to make a lot of little videogames, but I combined all of their elements into one: the ‘Experiment’.
One night I had a dream! Or more accurately, a nightmare. However, it had a lot of visual special effects, so it was really a beautiful nightmare, with a bunch of single-eyed creatures running towards me, a beautiful soundtrack and a quiet good screenplay!
I loved those single-eyed-creatures! I decided to put them in the ‘Experiment’.
The ‘Experiment’ was no longer a mere experiment, now it was a little but real videogame. So after a week …or a month? Bah! Time is relative! I gave it a new title: “LONGY”! (As I said, I am very original at choosing names)
It was a 12-level action-adventure-stealth-escaperoom-2D-isometric-platform-survival-sci-fi game. A crossover between lots of different genres of videogames. You know, when you work alone, you can put on the screen what is maybe only a rough idea in your mind, not-organized, not-designed. It seems confusing, but when you finish it, on the screen you see your videogame-soul realized; and the player can taste it. …sometimes. :P
I ‘published’ Longy in the ClickItalianSoftware community (now indievault.it, the main italian independent developers community) and the game had amazingly great success. My friends and other community members enjoyed it a lot. Some month after, I submit it in the GPI (Game Programming Italy - another Indie Videogame Dev community) contest, and I won the first prize! For the best game and for the best graphics! (Clearly, they were stoned when they examined the game!)
So that is how John T. Longy came to be the main character of my latest videogame “ALBEDO - EYES FROM OUTER SPACE”.
But I think I bothered you enough. In the next few days, (while I’ll take a break from programming - I’ll do it while I sleep, two hours a night) I’ll explain the rest of the story: from 2D to 3D, from “LONGY 2” to “ALBEDO - EYES FROM OUTER SPACE”
Ciao!
Z4G0