Restriced Area Developer Diary part 4
Sia 'Garrett' Manzari, 2003-08-08

Restricted Area is an isometric action RPG set in a 2083 on earth in a somewhat post-apocalyptic world. Jan Beuck from developer master creating is writing a deveoper diary for German site MGW and RPGDot brings you the english version of. This fourth entry was originally posted on august 6th 2003 at MGW. Thanks to Daniel for the cooperation!

There is an English version of the the developer diary at RPGDot of late (note from the editor: not a big surprise to you right now :)), and so the readership has increased so much, that I almost don't dare to say anything any more. But what the hell: What you are surely more interested in is 'What has happened since the last entry?'.

At the moment we are hard at work with the in-game-trailer. Everybody, but Leonid (graphics artist), who is still busy with the city. He still believes, that everything (even dust) needs to be modelled instead of texturizing it... (in the meantime there's rumors that the city will be done after Duke Nukem Forever only...nonsense for sure).

After the first draft of our trailer (for press and publishers only) was acclaimed very well, we are really trying to finish the final public version. Overall, this version gets a new sound, excusively composed for it, and shorter scenes as the pre-version, in which we tried to prove, that we do not need to cut scenes to present cool action in a row. For a short trailer, we could not avoid to use more frequent cut scenes. The trailer will premiere on German Gaming Magazines' cover disks in early september and at the same time on the internet worldwide, for example on Gamespot or the official Restricted Area homepage.

I spent the past days looking for new designers to support us with the creation of various new environments and it is now, that I want to introduce our latest employee Lothar. Lothar originally is a traditional artist inspired by Albrecht Dürer, but he has worked for 6 years in England as 3D artist with Eidos Interactive and with the XBox team of Peter Molyneux' Lionhead Studios and gained much experience in digital graphics and games. He is from China originally and is fond of games with a world war 2 scenario, like Commandos or Battlefield, and will create the majority of the inside areas for RA...for which we decided to use Maya, the first academy awarded 3D Software, some of you may have heard of, for it's used in movies like Lord of the Rings or games like Doom 3.

Visiting Gamigo
Last week we visited Gamigo, the largest German gaming site, where we chatted with Arnd and Kai, had some ice cream and talked about Restricted Area. Thereby Gamigo had the chance to playtest the pre-alpha version, which resulted in a special, which can be watched on the newly designed Gamigo site - I quote the conclusion here already:

"With Resticted Area, the Hamburg based developer Master Creating really has a very interesting title in the pipeline, which will appeal to fans of sci-fi scenarios and Diablo gameplay. Nice graphics, unlimited missions, an interesting main storyline and good gameplay made a good impression. But also random missions, that enable the player to live the game with all of the four characters and also story relations will grant a very long playing time. We can enjoy beautiful textures, nice weapon- & psi-effects and smooth character animation. Also, the isometric point of view is well displayed and you can configure walls' transparency, the way the light is displayed and more in the game's options. Restricted Area aims for a high goal, but has good chances of achieving that. Our suggestion: Keep an eye on this!..."

Besides, there's a short interview on Gamer's Station's German site.

After Martin (lead programmer) has improved the AI yesterday (in detail: enemies did not move properly in large groups regarding tactics), he had to bite the bullet today and start to code the cooperative network mode...the last big chunk of the program. Network programming has been a difficult thing always...mainly because the military system is not really suited for games. But he has to go through this, and he does not walk on new ground also fortunately.

And in private?
Last week I played Max Payne for the first time...had to rent it in a video shop, because it was not to be found in stores anymore. It is really cool, even though it has been out for a few years already. And of course I watched Terminator 3...two times, but I have to say, that I like part 2 (of the four part trilogy) a lot better and it offers a lot more detail (get the Ultimate Edition on DVD...the scene in which Arnold is learning to smile is worth the price alone)...so for now it's: Asta la vista!

Former diary entries: