WE'VE SPRUNG A LEAK!
A screenshot from the leaked video. The image quality is not indicative of our current visual fidelity.
A piece of our “next gen” video from the game has been leaked! This means that anyone who’s been waiting for a chance can finally see at least a fragment of what we’re doing and judge whether it’s worthwhile keeping an eye on us or not. To pre-empt any rumours and misinterpretations of this tiny bit of the environment on show, taken out of the context of an hour-long presentation at a game industry conference, it’s best to clarify just what’s going on here and how our game is looking, and to recapitulate on the development so far, which I wanted to do anyway. So here we go.
Last weekend there was a small gaming conference for developers and students in Prague, Czech Republic, where we have our HQ. Alongside colleagues from 2K Czech, Disney, CD Projekt RED, Cauldron and others, we were also amongst the speakers and we had a whole five presentations on the agenda. The Czech game scene is small and development needs support, so we took it from the ground up and described the work on all aspects of a modern game from a purely practical perspective. I gave a talk on game design and tried to describe as accurately as possible how it proceeds. So as not to just blandly theorize, I showed our design documents. Viktor Bocan followed up with a description of how the game design is brought to life by means of the script and Roman Zawada, our main technical graphic designer, demonstrated how the stuff that has been designed is fleshed out in the form of 3D graphics, which he illustrated using the very piece of terrain that was leaked in the video. Michal Hapala, one of our programmers, then described the work of the programmers with a licensed engine and showed everything we were customizing for our game (and there’s lots), while Martin Klíma described how we function on an organizational level. Read more...
WE'VE SPRUNG A LEAK!COLOGNE REVISITED
The author, beset by a gang of teenage zombies. Gamescom is not for the faint of heart.
Things have been pretty hectic around here the last couple of months. Warhorse is up and running and the hour is fast approaching of planned completion of a very important milestone – the 'Vertical Slice' which we've been working hard on 24/7. As the name implies, a Vertical Slice is a cross-section of the game and should be a very polished demonstration of all the game’s basic mechanisms, its graphic look and its treatment of the important elements. For us, this means generating quite a chunk of art (in an Open World game doing one level is not exactly an option), scripting into it a representative quest, which will contain all the important game mechanisms, such as complete control of the character, the dialog, the combat system, AI controlled NPCs, and throwing in an animation sequence or two, voiceovers and user interface. As far as possible, the whole package should look as good as the finished game. In the case of a shooter, we’d simply do one level and exploit lots of mechanisms straight from CryEngine; with an RPG it’s a bit more complicated than that. For example, we had to program a very complex dressing system, which you won’t find in any 3rd party engine. But such is life. Read more...
COLOGNE REVISITEDCRUNCH AS A PENANCE
Niko Vuori, General Manager at Zynga
The most depressing thing about the recent kerfuffle about Zynga’s disgruntled workers were not the comments of Niko Vuori, Zynga General Manager, who assured the sheep in his flock that "NO ONE IS FORCING ANYONE TO WORK HERE AGAINST THEIR WILL [sic]", but the reactions of other developers to the effect of "be a man, dude, game development is not for wimps", followed by the yarns of the saintly days of yore when we all slept under our desks, ate cold pizza and ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when. Read more...
CRUNCH AS A PENANCEOVERKILL DESIGN
I’m an eternal malcontent, hater and troll. When I look at something, I immediately know that, if I’d done it, I would have done it differently and naturally better. I take to few things that I would not tinker with and simply enjoy them for what they are. Many people have a problem with that and I’m not even very surprised by it. Not everyone has a need to consider things in such detail; most are content to enjoy by their reaction and grouches like me pointing out the errors only spoil their enjoyment. Who does it bother that half-naked barbarian women are running around in three feet of snow in their favorite RPG? Maybe only miserable female cosplayers who decide to have their picture taken for real in a fur bikini in a snowdrift and discover that at -20 degrees it’s good to be wearing more than a thong, tassels over your nipples and a helmet and that their sword has frozen to their hand.
A LESSON IN CARTOGRAPHY IN POTATO LAND
Cryengine? Unreal? Reality, and it is going to stay out of reach for some time in this level of detail.
You are Krutor, a wild barbarian from the land of Morkroch. You have travelled a very long journey, across high mountains to the famous imperial city of Lhota, the capitol of the world and largest agglomeration in the known universe, whose fame touches the stars.
The city consists of precisely fifteen buildings (one of which is the imperial palace); the town is inhabited by 30 NPCs, including Emperor Lojza, Archmage Lotrando and all of the members of the guilds of thieves, mages and warriors.
You visit the emperor, who sits alone in the throne hall, and he assigns you with an quest. The land is terrorised by an evil dragon from hell and Lojza is powerless. He has sent an entire imperial army against it, but the monster has killed all five soldiers. Now, he needs a hero like you! You have to find and climb the mystical mountain, Lohen, on which no human has ever set foot, and behead the dragon. Read more...
A LESSON IN CARTOGRAPHY IN POTATO LANDCHOOSING YOUR RELIGION
Screenshot from CryEngine 3 from Crytek's promotional materials. (© Crytek)
This time, I won’t be bitching about the evil game industry and how things suck for a change, but surprisingly, I will tell you about how great everything is.
Intermezzo I
We’ll have to go back in time to August 2011, when we were establishing the company. At the time, Warhorse was becoming reality but it wasn’t incorporated yet, so we were still just a bunch of unemployed guys.
But we needed to get going in order to be able to start testing the technology that we’ll use for our game from day one when our people arrive in the office and we needed to start negotiating with all of the technology providers. So we printed nice looking business cards, created the website to look like an actual company and went to Games Convention in Germany to do some business. Read more...
CHOOSING YOUR RELIGIONCHECK YOUR PEOPLE
HOW TO MAKE CALL OF DUTY KILLER FOR LESS
So, how many people do you need to make a triple-A game? In the last century it was anywhere from one nerd, to “big” teams of 15 to 30 pizza-eating individuals in a garage. I remember my reaction, when I saw Daley Thompson’s Olympic Challenge for Atari ST, back in the days when games were made by two people – a programmer and the guy who did everything else – while Daley was done by a team of five and the graphics were completely digitized. My first thing thought was: “Oh boy, nobody needs artists anymore, the good old days are gone...”
Screenshot from Daley Thompson’s Olympic Challenge, a high-budget, AAA, blockbuster hit from 1988
Luckily, I was very wrong. At the time.
A few years later, during high school, I worked on an Eye of the Beholder like game. It was just me and two coders. Later we worked on an Elder Scrolls Arena clone. The programmer was 14 years old, and did awesome work on the engine side. Neither game was ever finished, we were just naive students with zero funding, working on them in our spare time, but even the big games were developed by just a few people in those days. Just look at the credits – Doom was developed by ten people, the first Elder Scrolls or Duke Nukem 3D by 15 developers and those were the biggest games. Read more...
CHECK YOUR PEOPLEWarhorse Studios Licensed CryENGINE®3 to Develop Role-Playing-Game
Prague (Czech Republic) / Frankfurt (Germany), February 9, 2012 – Crytek GmbH (Crytek) and Warhorse Studios are happy to announce that they have closed a licensing deal for Crytek’s proprietary all-in-one game development solution CryENGINE®3. Warhorse Studios is working on an unannounced role-playing game (RPG). The debut title for the studio will combine open-world experience with a rich story and innovative gameplay elements.
Martin Klima, Executive Producer at Warhorse Studios commented: “We looked at every major technology out there and CryENGINE 3 suits our needs perfectly. We are confident it will allow us to make the vision for our game come true.”
“The team at Warhorse Studios consists of industry veterans from AAA classics such as the Mafia franchise and Operation Flashpoint. We’re excited by their vision for an innovative RPG and we are looking forward to working with them to help them achieve that vision with CryENGINE 3.”, said Carl Jones, Director of Global Business Development CryENGINE. Read more...
Warhorse Studios Licensed CryENGINE®3 to Develop Role-Playing-GameLET THE STRUGGLE BEGIN!
A lot of people send me emails that go something like this: “Dear Mr. Vávra, I have a great idea for a brilliant game that no one has created yet. Could you please give me some advice as to how I could get it made?” I’m never really sure how to answer them as I was asking myself the same question for years. And these were not the years before I started making games; this was when I was actually making them. How the hell can I create the game I want to create?
The author giving a lecture about game development; a topic he is sometimes not so sure about himself. Photo: Jaroslav Wagner
Two years ago, I decided I have “found” the answer. I have to do it myself. After ten years in the games industry and a couple of million games sold, I should know how to do it. So I packed my stuff, left a well-paid job at one of the top five publishers, with a view to starting my own company and doing things my way. Yes, I am that naive idiot! Read more...
LET THE STRUGGLE BEGIN!PRESS RELEASE 1/2011
Prague, 21/7/2011
For immediate release
Today, July 21st 2011, a new video game development studio was formed in Prague, Czech Republic. The company, Prague Game Studios, will operate under the label Warhorse Studios.
Warhorse is a brain-child of two game industry veterans, Mr. Daniel Vavra and Mr. Martin Klima. The development team will include other experienced developers, with proven multi-platform track record. Their games include some of the most successful titles ever produced in the Czech Republic, including Mafia, Mafia 2 and Operation Flashpoint.
The studio secured an investment from private individuals.
More information about the studio and their work can be found on the company website at http://www.warhorsestudios.cz.
About Mr. Daniel Vavra: Director and Design Lead for Mafia, designer and screen writer for Mafia II. Dan has more than ten years of experience in game development, going back as a 2D artist on 16bit computers. He was nominated for Game Developers Choice Awards Excellence in Writing for Mafia. Mafia won Game of the Year and Best Screenplay awards in many countries. Dan’s games sold more than 5 million copies combined. He also participated on Hidden&Dangerous and other projects. Read more...
PRESS RELEASE 1/2011