Hi everyone, how is your summer going? The Twin Wolves Studio Team is taking a little vacation, but we will soon be back in better shape than before to complete the development of Liz Before the Plague. In the meantime we leave you some shots of Liz and Jane at the seaside.
Happy Summer! ːsteamhappyː
Remember to wishlist our game to stay updated on the development process!
Agents, we have a case for you to train your detective skills.
An eyewitness saw the young Jessica Stone being flanked by a black van near the Harvard Medical School where she studies. The girl is soon declared missing by her friends who were waiting for her nearby. Boston police intercepted the phone of his father, Jeremy Stone, a prominent government officier and a ransom request from an unknown location soon arrived.
Here you find a recording of the call
https://youtu.be/cb-9CFhcBRk
We also pinned on this Map some suspicious vans, in the Boston area, that correspond to the description of the witness.
A) South of Washington
A Security Camera registers a van similar to the one described by the witness, passing with a red light.
B) Cambridgeport
A police car sent to patrol the Cambridgeport area reports a black van parked next to a house, where Jessica's ex boyfriend, Michael, is currently living.
C) Broadway Station
A police patrol asked for reinforcements to stop a black van on the 93rd, due to excessive speed. The van was found shortly after, parked near the train station area but the driver's trail was lost.
D) Boston Port
A sailor reported the presence of an abandoned van on his property, the owner is not known. A tow truck has been called for removal. This area is very near to the Harborwalk pier.
E) Boston Airport
A policeman who is patrolling the Airport area on foot reports a suspicious black van with tinted windows parked on the street.
Help us to identifiy the area where the girl could be hidden. Write your answer in the comment area!
DEVBLOG #7 - Introducting Liz's World
https://youtu.be/87gENlo7ZKc
Year 2121, the human race can no longer ignore climate change, nature is rebelling violently sweeping away entire civilized areas with extreme weather events.
About one third of the world's population has been exterminated by the onset of new diseases and the consequences of tornadoes and floods.
The global economy is at a meltdown, civilization as we knew it has been destroyed; groups of armed people have organized themselves to pillage from shopping malls and homes. The black market has become the only way to procure basic necessities, drinking water and fresh food have become scarce.
The survivors live in precarious conditions, most of the rich population has taken refuge in armored buildings, protected by private armies, where they lead a privileged life.
"The human race has taken planet earth to the extreme, the forces of nature have rebelled against the hegemony of man" -says the President- "we must get to work to combat climate change before it's too late." In this dramatic context humanity still has a faint hope.
Ankh Pharmatech is providing the population with new medical technologies to help it survive and revolutionized the environmental approach with a ten-year plan to restore optimal climate conditions on the planet.
DEVBLOG #6 - Back on track!
No time to rest at Twin Wolves Studio!
Hi agents we're sorry for the absence! Fortunately, we're not dead in an apocalypse and we were not affected by the plague, we are just working hard to complete the development of Liz! ːsteamhappyː
What are we doing now?
Luca - Developer
Luca, our programmer, is currently implementing rooms in engine, checking game flow and adding new features to the gameplay.
Paola - Game Designer
Paola our Game Designer is working on levels' logic and on the collision system of the game.
Chiara - Game Designer
Chiara our Game Designer is working on Puzzle Design and expanding the game design document.
Alessandro - 3D Artist
Alessandro our 3D Artist is texturing some new game models which will be added in the scenes.
Irene - 3D Animator
Irene our 3D Animator is polishing some mo-cap animations we registered for the first part of the game.
Paolo - Character Artist
Paolo our Character Artist is working on some secret 3D characters for the game.
Hey gamers,
We're glad to announce that Twin Wolves Studio will be at Gamescom for the first time! If you'll be there, come to visit us at Italian booth ːsteamhappyː.
We worked very hard during these weeks, sorry for news blackout!
We share with you this new LIZ: Before the Plague shot, as apologies:
Would you like to have it as your wallpaper?
We hope you enjoy it!
DEVBLOG #5 - Sound Design
Hey everyone! Another week of work passed quickly here at Twin Wolves, and we tought to share some of our work with you. This week we'd like to talk about the sound design of LIZ: Before the Plague.
Technology
The decision about the technology to use has not been obvious. Liz is being developed using Unity game engine, which has a pretty much interesting built-in sound engine, in fact the first implementation relied on it, and it was really good. After some time, though, we started to feel the need of some features that other sound engines give "out-of-the-box" so we looked around and spotted FMOD. We already worked with that engine so we knew its capabilities and we replaced the existing sound management with it. This allowed us to integrated parameter-based sounds, spatialization and more. For instance, this is a simple beat sound used in multiple situations, with different impact force and on different materials.
This, instead, is one of the first drafts of Liz' motorbike engine sound.
Concept
As we discussed in a previous dev-blog, all the Liz experience is studied to be as immersive as possible. Every element in the game has a strong bind with the game world. As the GUI is located on the main character's PDA, so that the player sees what the character sees, the same is for the sound. Most of the sound effects were designed ad-hoc by Davide Pensato, very familiar with FMOD studio. In fact, the greatest part of them is parameter-based and takes advantage of FMOD's spatial audio and scattering, so they are realistically placed in the game world and give such a variety when repeated. In order to keep immersivity, we couldn't just put some background music and play it during gameplay. Liz' PDA is paired to a headset and that's where the music comes from. Liz has the habit to turn on the music during the most lively moments in fact, before every survival game phase she turns on her music player.
Music
The voices that make up the music have been designed to increase the level of tension as danger increases. With a dark tone pad with percussions of industrial character, each layer gives a specific emphasis. From an old organ to baritone electric guitars and industrial-style percussion, the emphasis is placed on the feeling of being crushed by an entity that has corrupted the deepest essence of the human being; dirty sounds and blows united with increasingly intense rhythms will accompany you to the end, without ever leaving you alone. Music does not only fit the game mood but also the different gameplay phases! The way it was made makes it adaptive to the gameplay. If enemies are coming, it is at that moment that we want to intensify the tension but without using faders or sudden changes: the flow evolves according to the events in progress, silently accompanying the player. Each piece of music that you hear will be a sequence of loops of loopable modules, which overlap according to the current game state and will give a unique experience to the player. This compositional approach, experimented for the first time by our composer Alberto Martino for LIZ: Before the Plague, gives us, every 10 seconds, about 1.200 different combinations, considering even a 3 minutes game we have much more than a billion songs different possible! All these combinations are part of the composer's intention to avoid unwanted sequences by structuring the modules purposely and by constraining the overlap with very few simple rules. All it's left now is to choose among all those combinations what are the most impressive to use them in-game!
Here are a few montage samples.
Let us have your feedback! Comment and rate! The sound designers will appreciate! ːsteammockingː
DEVBLOG #4 - Immersion
Hey everyone!
Another week of work passed quickly here at Twin Wolves, and we tought to share some of our work with you.
This week we'd like to talk about the player's immersion inside LIZ: Before the Plague.
LIZ: Before the Plague has been developed from the beginning aiming to make it a highly immersive experience, the kind of immersion where the limit between real and virtual is almost imperceptible.
For this reason, we prefer to define Liz as a videogame experience because we want to give to future players a more vivid and realistic experience.
UI
The graphical user interface (GUI) is the first element that breaks the illusion while you play, that's why we built a completely diegetic GUI, meaning that there is no user interface in the game that is not integrated into the game world: the player sees what the character sees.
Also game settings and most of interaction interactions pass by the character’s gear, the PDA, as well as by the drone, which will be our guide during the experience.
Character
When we started working on this project we did some studies on other VR games to understand how the main character was currently managed. On many occasions we have seen interesting things, but none of these solutions seemed appropriate to our title and our goal. We started studying a method that allowed the player to feel completely immersed in the scene. We wanted the character's body to follow, as much as possible, the player's movements from the view of the bust to the movement of the shoulders, arms and hands in space. For the legs, instead, we had to approximate the movement, because the hardware does not give us tracking information about the lower part of the body.
We can say, however, that during the testing phases it is often natural to want to see the legs! Not to mention the boys who focus for a few minutes on the details of our beautiful main character 😉
Here are a few pics of our game designer testing the body responsiveness ːsteamfacepalmː
Always in favour of the immersion, we have eliminated the ghost of the physical controllers in favour of items of character’s gear.
Narrative
Narrative is something not so easy in VR since you have no control over the player's focus (you can just "wait" for it or try to draw his attention) and, as soon as the game is first person - meaning the character's position matches player's one - where the animations cannot be seen, you cannot give the proper emphasis to crucial scenes.
We have studied different alternatives, but they were all in line with the current market and not very adaptable to LIZ, so we developed a somewhat different system.
In main narrative phases, which need a particular emphasis, the main character will detach from the player point of view, and the player will remain a spectator of the scene where the characters give life to a scene.
This choice seems to reduce the immersion but has a motivation, let's see if you will find out and understand it by playing!
As always don't forget to let us have your feedback! Comment and rate! ːsteammockingː
DEVBLOG #3 - The Doctor
Hey everyone!
Another week of work passed quickly here at Twin Wolves, and we tought to share some of our work with you.
This week we'd like to introduce you Jane, the costar in LIZ: Before the Plague.
Jane Carpenter's Story
Jane is a promising 25 years old woman, a prodigy scientist.
She graduates early and with excellent grades in Genetics and Biochemestry.
She immediately gets a job at the Ankh Pharmatech thanks to her excellent skills
After carrying out the first researches successfully, she gained an important role in a research based on some ancient Egypt findings from which the company wants to bring out a cure that improves the expectations of life and appearance.
Her excellent skills and abilities allow a sudden career progress despite her very young age, but this creates envies among the colleagues.
Intelligent and responsible, Jane is also a bit naive as she doesn’t notice that the results of her research have been altered…
Character Design
The character, that was designed and realized by Alessandro Galimberti, our 3D generalist, has her name inspired by director John Carpenter, famous for his horror films and Jane Foster, a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most commonly depicted as a supporting character of the superhero Thor Odinson.
The reconstruction of the face is based on the photographs of a real italian model, Jessica Armanetti, redefining the colour of the hair and makeup to keep it more in line with the futuristic mood of the environment. The work beyond texturing on the skin of the face has been very interesting, which starts from the reconstruction of photographs then worked digitally.
The uniform has been created with an informal cut, which transmits security and responsibility. A simple model with a limited number of polygons, to ensure good performance in game, but important work of texturing to give all the necessary detail to ensure a high performance of the character.
The materials have been studied with the goal to convey the idea that it’s an aseptic uniform and that allows maximum practicality in a laboratory, thanks to the sleeves and trousers more adherent and the absence of a real gown too, but more similar to a jacket. The jacket, closed to the neck to ensure better protection, has luminescent edges that serve both to be able to identify her in the dark during the gameplay also to underline her role of responsibility, adding golden decorations.
The company in which she works is rich and has a certain line of image, which it tries to convey also through its employees, including the golden elements and the hexagonal pattern.
Her Role in the Story
Jane is head of research in the last and main research in Ankh Pharmatech. Her role allowed her to gain a big personal laboratory with direct access to the top secret research material. When things gone wrong in the lab she found herself in a cul-de-sac with no escape so she had to take cover in a safe room in her personal lab, but she's surrounded by dangers so the situation remained critical and her sanity is slowly declining...
Everything is up to Liz, she will decide the fate of Jane.
Let us have your feedback! Comment and rate!
Jane will appreciate... and the model too! ːsteammockingː
DEVBLOG #2 - Ankh Pharametch
Hey everyone!
Another week of work passed quickly here at Twin Wolves, and we're here again with some updates from the game.
This week want to give a brief overview about the set of LIZ: Before the Plague.
Overview
The concept of the Ankh Pharmatech structure, where the game experience takes place, was created by Alessandro Galimberti following a study carried out on the needs of gameplay and narrative, thanks to his skills and studies in architecture field.
Liz: Before the Plague VR is set in a near future, in the year 2134, where the technologies are advanced, but the structures do not fully have a sci-fi taste.
The building aims to represent a rich and successful pharmaceutical company that looks to the past to progress in the future. Ancient Egypt is the historical period to which they turn: the company logo is represented by the ankh, the Ancient Egypt symbol that was the key of life. The architecture is impressive but with clean lines, the building stands out in the forest like a huge white stylized crown of a pharaoh (Hedjet, white crown), isolated from the city of Boston.
The entrance is structured in such a way as to be very tall and without entanglements, furthermore it tightens towards the top, offsetting the perspective and making it seems even higher for those who look up, giving a sense of vertigo.
The square before the building has an oval shape, almost reminiscent of an eye, surrounded by a mainly red marble colonnade, which, for those coming from the long straight avenue, gives the impression that the space grows both above and around him. Spotlights illuminate the columns and the entrance to the building, while the headlights above the colonnade illuminate the façade. Although the main body goes up, the story takes place in the basement, where the true secrets are hidden from view.
An Important note is that no paper will be found. In the future that we have imagined, the use of paper has been completely eliminated, thus wanting to convey the idea, but also the hope that, in the future, the attention to the environment, which we are trying to give now, will finally be reached. This is also why the company is located in a park, far from the city.
Lighting
The general rooms’ lighting is given both by lights in the false ceiling, for an almost more traditional idea of the environments, but also by bright stripes, certainly more towards the future, on top for the normal light situation, while lighting from below of a red light, for the emergency situation.
Specifically, about the entrance, the lighting was designed to give a sense of religiosity with the torch-style lights that illuminate the golden company logos hanging from the walls from the bottom upwards. While the upper tube lights are used to illuminate the rest of the volume.
In the emergency situation, on the other hand, only the red emergency lights are on, while the whole environment is lit only by the moon, with the large glazed front projecting disturbing shadows.
Materials
The materials used are mainly stone blocks that cover the interior, such as the ancient temples, and the marble and gold for the floors and details, to enrich the entrance. Despite the tradition, the shapes of the furniture follow a more minimal design and contribute to always give the impression of being in the future, as well as of course components such as computers and other objects.
Here are some of the materials created by our artists, with Substance Designer, for the building and interiors.
Let us have your feedback! Comment and rate!
See you next week for the next devblog!
DEVBLOG #2 - Ankh Pharmatech
Hey everyone!
Another week of work passed quickly here at Twin Wolves, and we're here again with some updates from the game.
This week want to give a brief overview about the set of LIZ: Before the Plague.
Overview
The concept of the Ankh Pharmatech structure, where the game experience takes place, was created by Alessandro Galimberti following a study carried out on the needs of gameplay and narrative, thanks to his skills and studies in architecture field.
Liz: Before the Plague VR is set in a near future, in the year 2134, where the technologies are advanced, but the structures do not fully have a sci-fi taste.
The building aims to represent a rich and successful pharmaceutical company that looks to the past to progress in the future. Ancient Egypt is the historical period to which they turn: the company logo is represented by the ankh, the Ancient Egypt symbol that was the key of life. The architecture is impressive but with clean lines, the building stands out in the forest like a huge white stylized crown of a pharaoh (Hedjet, white crown), isolated from the city of Boston.
The entrance is structured in such a way as to be very tall and without entanglements, furthermore it tightens towards the top, offsetting the perspective and making it seems even higher for those who look up, giving a sense of vertigo.
The square before the building has an oval shape, almost reminiscent of an eye, surrounded by a mainly red marble colonnade, which, for those coming from the long straight avenue, gives the impression that the space grows both above and around him. Spotlights illuminate the columns and the entrance to the building, while the headlights above the colonnade illuminate the façade. Although the main body goes up, the story takes place in the basement, where the true secrets are hidden from view.
An Important note is that no paper will be found. In the future that we have imagined, the use of paper has been completely eliminated, thus wanting to convey the idea, but also the hope that, in the future, the attention to the environment, which we are trying to give now, will finally be reached. This is also why the company is located in a park, far from the city.
Lighting
The general rooms’ lighting is given both by lights in the false ceiling, for an almost more traditional idea of the environments, but also by bright stripes, certainly more towards the future, on top for the normal light situation, while lighting from below of a red light, for the emergency situation.
Specifically, about the entrance, the lighting was designed to give a sense of religiosity with the torch-style lights that illuminate the golden company logos hanging from the walls from the bottom upwards. While the upper tube lights are used to illuminate the rest of the volume.
In the emergency situation, on the other hand, only the red emergency lights are on, while the whole environment is lit only by the moon, with the large glazed front projecting disturbing shadows.
Materials
The materials used are mainly stone blocks that cover the interior, such as the ancient temples, and the marble and gold for the floors and details, to enrich the entrance. Despite the tradition, the shapes of the furniture follow a more minimal design and contribute to always give the impression of being in the future, as well as of course components such as computers and other objects.
Here are some of the materials created by our artists, with Substance Designer, for the building and interiors.
Let us have your feedback! Comment and rate!
See you next week for the next devblog!
