Environment test

Vigilance is a game that i have always wanted to make but thought that i could never make. Its a very ambitious project and with no funding, is proving very difficult. I have a few years of experience using unity and the unreal engine working on small personal projects to get use to the engine. This is the first project that i am planning to work on til release. I started working on vigilance last year but took many breaks for personal reasons.

At first when i wanted to make vigilance it wasn’t going to be a bounty hunting game. It started of as a project where it was mainly based on simplistic neon retro style visuals and more of a walking simulator. It was a much less ambitious game as it started of as a hobby. However i slowly started implementing features and testing out different areas which resulted in good reception ( Thank you for all your kind comments really keeps me going ).

Working on my game has proven to be very time consuming especially when it’s not the only thing you do e.g. work. I use to spend over 10 hours a day on vigilance and on days where i worked i had little to no sleep. I realised how unhealthy it was when i took a long break on gamedev. I now work around 4–6 hours about 4–5 days a week which has allowed me to have plenty of time to sleep and do other things. on days when im not working on Vigilance, i spend some time watching videos and reading to get inspiration for my game and is proving to be very beneficial for me. I do recommend doing this to any gamedev’s who are reading this or if you have your own schedule, then take a look at it again to really see how much free time and sleep that you allow yourself.

To get to where vigilance is today, i started reading a lot more stories of the cyberpunk genre such as neuromancer and looking at concept art to get the feel of what i was trying to go for.

Vigilance before

Vigilance now

Environment Design

The design of the buildings was inspired by this (image above) artwork made by Balaskas. I think personally one of the best things for coming up with new ideas is to look at existing ones. The artwork helped set the mood for the type of game i was making with the blue representing both the night time and lights illuminating the environment.

I wanted the city to feel very crowded in some areas like seen in blade runner which makes everything feel real and alive. The environment still has a lot of retro aspects to it though with the purple and red light in the narrow alleys which is only fueled by the retro synthwave style music.

A common form of cyberpunk depictions seen in media is a world that looks similar to our own but with more technology/holograms being shown around and usually in a tokyo-esque environment. Although i really do like that style, i wanted the environment to feel very futuristic where nearly nothing resembles the world we live in today.

I know that having heavy rain is seen as generic in the cyberpunk genre at this point but when it is done correctly, i think that it can really immerse you in the environment. This is something i am trying to capture (hopefully). Despite the world in vigilance not resembling our own, i want to add some familiarity to it such as some the problems going on in the world today still happening in vigilance ( will discuss this in more detail in future devblogs )

Gameplay

There is a lot of work to be done with the animations seen in the video. Im trying to get the third person gameplay to feel similar to uncharted where the character reacts to environment which is what makes uncharted feel so satisfying to play. Vigilance can also be played in first person mode for those that prefer first person games for a more immersive experience. I haven’t shown much of the first person version of the game but by the end of the games development, i would like it to play out similar to Prey 2 which was sadly cancelled a some years ago.

Since the game is mainly based on bounty hunting i want the game to have parkour elements as you’ll have to be chasing some bounties. I want the game to have a lot of detective aspects where the player will have to solve puzzles, riddles that are related to murders and bounties. This is still being brainstormed on the best way to approach this so that the solving parts and the bounty and story parts dont feel like complete different games.

What will be seen in the next update?

A different area

New gameplay mechanics

A.I improvements

There is still a lot i can talk about but it would be better for the next devblog since they include the updates i am working on. Always feel free to message me on twitter :) @nasnakarus