Monday 13 July 2015

Project Announcement: Subnautica

Rather than try to put into words how excited I am to sign onto another innovative new project, I will simply invite you to have a play of Subnautica if you haven't, and then ask you to enjoy with me a restrained mutual fist pump. Yes.

Subnautica, like FTL, is one of those games I loved so much as a player I just had to get in touch and see if there was something I could help out with. Much as I dislike the market pressures early access puts on consumers to purchase unfinished product, it certainly has its advantages.

Subnautica beguiles me so for two reasons. First, it is a non-violent, open-world exploration / survival game. While I've done a bunch of non-violent things in the past, it is great to be able to start 'specialising' in it, but it's the openness of the world that really holds the potential for me. My entire career I have wanted to explore ways of telling story that are not just audio logs, cut scenes and dialog trees - or at least be ambitious with how I apply those techniques. Subnautica offers a whole new palette.

Second, Subnautica's world is without parallel. Aesthetically speaking, where The Swapper lacked visual definition, and Talos had too much of it (for my personal liking), Subnautica's slightly exaggerated first-person world is hugely to my taste. It is colourful, immediate and intriguing, and its science fiction provides lots of opportunities to build on that world.

Thematically it is right down my alley as well. I always try to make my stories be about whatever the gameplay is about. If you are swapping your consciousness between different bodies to solve puzzles, the story had better be about that. If you are shooting many men in the face, your story had better be about that (hence why I don't work on so many shooters).

Subnautica's gameplay is about exploring and surviving on an alien world, and learning how to live harmoniously with your environment. That is literally what you do minute-to-minute. The story, then, is going to be about concepts quite alien to video game narratives in general: survival, environmentalism, life itself. I think these are topics which I can do justice to.

Now, what's the lay of the land, and what are we going to do?

To date there has been some initial story development at the studio, and early access players will already be familiar with the established backstory: you're on a space ship, it crash lands on an ocean planet, find out what happened and get home. Most of the gameplay systems are implemented, along with over half of the world map, but there is a way to go yet with original content creation before moving into polish stage.

Since this is early access, we are not taking the front-loaded approach I usually take, where we spend half the budget on pre-production planning before writing a single word. Instead we're firing multiple cylinders at once. Right now I am working directly with Charlie (Cleveland, Unknown Worlds' founder and creative director) to nail down some of the big outstanding questions about the story. Who is the player character? How do we deliver lore and story in-game? What crashed the ship?

At the same time I am developing plot pitches so that soon enough we will have a firm idea of what actually happens at the end - and of course what happens after that, since in a game like this there is no end.

Finally I am developing in parallel a practical in-game script for the first 40 minutes or so of gameplay, potentially to include in a future game update as a way to test the water for the direction we're taking, and share some of our work with the players.

If you want to follow development there will doubtless by story tasks added to the Subnautica Trello, once my workflow within the team is a bit more established. If you want to play the Early Access (it's in very playable state, save for a bit of stuttering) it's £14.99 from Steam.

23 comments:

  1. Have you played the game? What are your must-have features?

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    1. I can help you for the scenario of the game. I'm a game developer and artist.

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    2. The game has very good innate scary and thrilling scenarios and I would love these being used to their best. Most of us agree on being in love with something the size of a sky-crapper suddenly out of nowhere eating us. That might get you an idea or two about the gamers here.

      Also, we are very excited about building and exploring and we kinda want it to be complex and that it gives us a sense of achievement with something that will take time, resources and that does offer a challange. We don't want to be held by the hand all the time and have things put in front of us.

      Day time and Night time should feel completely different rather than just changing visuals. We don't want things to just glow, we want to be just as vulnerable as any prey in the darkness. Right now its just an inconvenience for me to see but it should be so much more.

      Lastly we don't talk much about the Aurora aside from how to enter and avoid the reapers but some of us are really interested in knowing what happened before the crash and more importantly the crew's final moments. Some have talked about audio logs or holo recordings to be found, our unnamed protagonist must have known these people so we want to know his feelings about this too.

      P.D.: We have threads about the name of the planet in the forums and we also think the name of protag is canonly "Wasabi" due to a model in game but we'll like to know more too.

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    3. Farming, and changing the ecosystem for sure are my must-have features.

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    4. - A good storyline. You were sent to terraform the planet when your spaceship crashed. This offers you two obvious choices, either finish terraforming the planet or find a way home. It is more then likely that someone who is stranded would try to reach out to his homeworld. A radiostation or an explenation why you wouldn't want to call your homeworld for help are two must-haves.
      - A saltwater filtration system. The player is in a sea. It's supposedly filles with saltwater, hence the salt deposits. Getting salt in survival mode is really boring and a pain in the ass, cause after a few days all the salt in the vecinity of your base will be gone. Getting salt from water is incredibly easy, every person with a heat source hot enough to boil water should be able to do it. That's why I would suggest a module for your base that filters/boils the water and produces a small amount of salt daily.
      - Exploring the Aurora. It is a huge ship, at the moment it is only possible to enter one narrow hallway. Exploring the other parts of the ship would be quite interesting as there are seemingly huge quantities of supply crates on-board. This could also tie in with the storyline: Recovering the terraformer from the ship to complete the mission.
      - A fast cave system and drilling equipment/vehicles (the exosuit's drill arm is a good start). What kind of materials exist down there?
      - A purpose for the floating island. Right now it looks kinda cool, but traveling there is a waste of time. A farming system of some sort might help give the island a purpose. Or integrate it in (one of) the quest(s).

      These are just a few ideas that i had, hopefully you enjoyed reading them.

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  2. I played the game, and there were many scenarios in my head.

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  3. Danilo Marchioro isn't speaking for all of us. (Why are you even speaking for anyone but yourself???)

    I'd hate it if building would cost more time than now, it's nice to know i can build a sweet base without having to spend 12 hours a day, for a week. Not everyone has that much time to play.

    A big creature coming out of nowhere and killing you or your sub is a horrible idea. Theres no counterplay, which means it's only frustrating.

    Danilo, next time speak for yourself, other people will give their own feedback if they want to, they do not need you for that.
    Also, like pretending to represent a lot of people is gonna give you a bigger chance of getting what you want, regardless of what other people want...
    Devs are smarter than that ;)

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    1. 1. I never claimed to speak for everybody nor was that my intention, exactly what nerve did I hit for you think that? You are the only one wasting their time with making a post about me. Are you saying you are speaking for everybody about what they think of me?

      2. There is going to be plenty of time for the devs to make game modes suitable for everybody, and I never even specified an amount of time but thank you for putting words in my mouth.

      3. That already happens, even in the safety of the cyclops and I can see you never explored a cave without the safety of your seamoth. Did you even see the Sea Dragon Leviathan? I guess I have a better idea of the way the world is developing.

      4. Everybody is already giving their feed-back and I'm glad they are, the more the merrier and I have been around for months so I kind of have an idea why some people are here plus some of what I said was word for word with old posts in the forums so surprise surprise it is what some people want.

      5. We keep this civil, put up or shut up.

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  4. I purchased the game and was delighted to find that it is playable on the oculus rift. That really makes this world feel real and immersive! However, it is really difficult playing the game with keyboard while using the rift. I've asked the developers to include an option to control the character using an xbox controller; many oculus enabled games allow this.

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  5. I for one would like to see the story go in a direction where the main character is not alone. Sans a multiplayer option this would have to be done with NPCs. I would imagine something like the way you can build an enclave in Fallout 3/NV, and soon out of the box in Fallout 4. I realize these are very different games, but from a 'story' perspective... would you really want to survive on an alien planet all by yourself? I seriously doubt it. Of course the story pathway they seemed to be leaning towards was rescue. I just find it incredibly depressing to think on that huge ship this character is the only survivor. Why? The ship wasn't even that badly damaged in the crash? Clearly the story needs to explain this better if the intro situation stays as it has been. Cheers.

    PS: Apologies if this is a second dupe. Please remove this one if so.

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  6. Is the other name for Subnautica "Underwater Knight Quest" ?

    :)

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  7. Thanks for all the comments guys! A bunch of these features are definitely on my want-to-have list, and I think already on the team's as well.

    And LOL - Underwater Knight Quest. As it happens that one was written by Jonas ;-)

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  8. To be honest, i would love it if the game made some reference as being part of the NS2 universe. That the ship crashed because of the aliens in that game.... But perhaps that is not what some people want to see, especially since "non violent" is key here. *keeps hoping*.

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    1. I am not really sure why people keep making this non-violent point to be honest. We crashed an alien spacecraft into this world and it then exploded into a radioactive mess. How is that non-violent. We then proceed to eat the flora and fauna, build underwater, and kill (or cause to be killed) some of the more aggressive sea life (I don't know about you but I have definitely killed a few stalkerfish in my 70+ hours in the game - those buggers are annoying!). My point is only that it's a survival game, of course there is violence. Maybe not PVP violence but it's there. :)

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    2. I suppose this depends on our definition of violence. If we're talking physical violence, then sure, I take the point. It's there, albeit in small amounts. But emotional violence is something that's not present. The crash landing wasn't an intended attack. Killing creatures is sometimes necessary for survival, but always pointless beyond it. Despite moments of aggression, it is a resoundingly peaceful, non-violent game.

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    5. Doesn't the game prologue infer some potential threat from the planet that did cause the crash? I can only assume that means that will be changing. :D

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    6. Wow Google... time to throw a dev at this Blogger comments section. Apparently if you use the back feature it reposts your comment a second time. In my case I wanted to change one word, thought I copied it before deleting the comment, couldn't paste, and then went back to try to access the form page. No form page but it reposted it anyway (which I didn't see until post #3 was made). Doh...

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  9. Congrats Tom! I would love the option to move loose items without having to put it in the inventory and drop it, to make it messy and have that "lived in" feel. Also, the option to color/retexture items/sea base pieces just like the submarines submenu. One last idea, where are the beds and kitchen pieces? I realize that this is all sounding like the sims, but it would be a lot more immersive. All in all, just more things to pimp my crib and make it shaggadelic!

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  10. I have been thinking, and came up with the idea of being able to find one or multiple escape pods, simply because it is unlikely that you're the only one that escaped, maybe one escape pod has popped floaters so it sank to the bottom and you have to dive it up, (it could have a corpse inside). I thought little clues/details like that could, without completely changing the game, add a lot of immersion. I hope this helps (please keep in mind that this is just my opinion on how to improve the game)

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  11. Just keep reading all the story ideas that come on the forums. I really like them. Especially the one's where you discover a civilization. I saw a location in-game that has a sort of pathway/stair system, which is an indication that there was some kind of civilization there. Maybe find some other humans at the other side of the ship... . I will keep thinking on idea's, what is the best way to post them?

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