{"id":21045,"date":"2020-05-05T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/?guid=cb323ecc9559ffef8b1387b2abf36547"},"modified":"2020-05-05T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T19:00:00","slug":"looking-into-groundeds-unnatural-wonders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/05\/05\/looking-into-groundeds-unnatural-wonders\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Into Grounded\u2019s Unnatural Wonders"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A backyard can be a\u00a0treacherous place to explore<\/a> when you\u2019re shrunken down to a centimeter. That\u2019s the central conceit behind Grounded, the upcoming survival game from Obsidian Entertainment. Danger may be a constant companion, but we were struck by something else during our hours of hands-on time: The backyard is\u00a0a really fun place to explore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely feels like the one thing we talk about is making it feel like a theme park,\u201d says game director Adam Brennecke. \u201cOne thing we\u2019re trying to do is make it feel like every turn and everywhere you go there\u2019s something cool to find \u2013 not only the stuff materials wise, but there might be a cool manmade object or a little secret cave that you\u2019ve never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re definitely on the right track. Head out in any random direction, and you\u00a0eventually stumble upon an object that\u2019s fun, interesting, or flat-out weird. And even though we still didn\u2019t understand why, for instance, there\u2019s a disembodied action-figure head out in the middle of nowhere, the developers have spent a lot of time poring over its back story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s an object in the world \u2013 why is it there? Who put it there? Who made this? Where is it manufactured?\u201d Brennecke says, going through just some of the details his team sweats. \u201cWhat is the company that makes this? Where can you buy it? And that\u2019s just for manmade objects. I think that\u2019s what makes Obsidian games so great. We care about the games so much, and we talk about this stuff probably way more than we should, and I think those details come through. Even as a developer, I love Obsidian games, because we spend so much time on that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating props at this scale took some adjusting, too. \u201cIt took us a little bit to figure out how to even make things this large,”\u00a0says lead environment artist Sean Dunny.\u00a0“If you think about large objects in a traditionally scaled video game, you think about a building, which is made up of a bunch of different composite parts, so each of these pieces can be done separately and then made to look the way you want. But when you have something\u00a0the size of a building but is all one cohesive, seamless material, it becomes a little bit trickier. So we\u2019ve had to create some custom materials and shaders to give us that up-close detail that we want while also maintaining a read from far away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grounded\u2019s overall visual presentation is a departure from a lot of survival games, too. Its world is bright and cheery looking; even the spiders, as creepy and dangerous as they are, are stylize to a point where they almost look kind of cute. That overall aesthetic is at its peak in the graphic design for many of the various manmade objects within the game. The products you come across have bold and purposefully awkward designs, with logos and branding that lean into Grounded\u2019s \u201890s setting. The team credits senior artist Mitch Loidolt with much of that aesthetic. He even created a document titled, \u201cWhy the \u201890s are a cool time period to set a game,\u201d which highlighted some of the visual touchstones that they could lean on. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be mocking it in any way,\u201d Loidolt says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want it to be super out there and blast your face with the \u201890s. Just to bring you back to that time, is all.\u201d<\/p>\n

After seeing some of the manmade objects in the world and hearing about all the work that went into their creation, we wanted to learn more. Here are some super esoteric stories behind a few of the objects that you\u2019ll encounter early on in Grounded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Juice Boxes<\/h2>\n

At Grounded\u2019s scale, an ordinarily unassuming juice box becomes an imposing landmark. The rectangular object is immediately recognizable, with a bent straw jutting out of one end and dribbling juice onto the ground. Dunny says making props for Grounded has been significantly different from his work on Fallout: New Vegas, for example. Since small details are scaled up, it\u2019s important that objects feel authentic. \u201cI\u2019m actually looking up diagrams of how juice boxes are folded together and the manufacturing process to get that sort of thing right,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe juice box, we actually have a corporation called Punch-O that makes those juice boxes,\u201d Brennecke says. \u201cThey\u2019re a part of a large company that has their hands in lots of different things, which is called Mouthtown. The Punch-O brand is very similar to Hi-C, for example. Mitch made his own almost storyline of all the characters on the Punch-O boxes. For example, we have Lemon Crime, which is the lemon-lime drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like \u2018Armed Raspberry,\u2019\u201d Loidolt adds. \u201cIt\u2019s the Juicestice Squad; they fight the bad fruits.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The Flying Disc<\/h2>\n

Part of the backyard is walled off by a thick hedge. Getting up it may seem impossible, until you notice something familiar sticking out of the vegetation. \u201cOne Item that I particularly like is the Frisbee, because I love Frisbee in general,\u201d says art director Kaz Aruga. \u201cThat thing came out of personal experience. We used to have this tall hedge next to our office, and we used to chuck them and they\u2019d always get stuck in the hedge, so I like that little detail in the yard. That thing, the way it\u2019s wedged in, it actually serves as a little platform in the hedge biome. You can have a little boss fight with a spider there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A Baseball<\/h2>\n

One of the first things you might run into that sells Grounded\u2019s sense of scale is an otherwise ordinary baseball. It\u2019s massive. Unlike the juice box, which releases life-sustaining juice from its straw, the ball doesn\u2019t serve any gameplay purpose. Instead, it\u2019s a landmark that\u2019s close to a fairly large clearing. When you\u2019re still getting your bearings, landmarks like these are vital. \u201cI tend to build near the baseball, because it\u2019s a very flat, open area, and I like building massive megastructures,\u201d Dunny says.<\/p>\n

When I first came across it, I circled the ball and soaked up all the detail. Everything from the grain of the leather to the stitching has been carefully reconstructed. There\u2019s also a cartoon face on it. Was there a little story there? As it turns out, there is.
\n\u201cI think the little cartoon character that Mitch drew is our Feargus face,\u201d Brennecke says, referring to Obsidian co-founder and studio head Feargus Urquhart. \u201cWe call it Chunky Chub\u2019s baseball, which is the branding for the baseball equipment that we have in the yard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was that something that Loidolt cleared ahead of time? \u201cIt\u2019s a bad habit of mine, trying to reduce peoples\u2019 faces to the easiest drawing that I can think of,”\u00a0he says. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely an \u2018ask forgiveness\u2019 situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Soda Cans<\/h2>\n

Soda cans are scattered throughout the yard, possible evidence of the \u201cjerk teens\u201d that Loidolt says throw their trash from a nearby gas station. The best part of the cans is that you can crawl into them and build a small base \u2013 completely protected from spiders and some of the other large pests in the yard. Getting in used to be even easier, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started making the mesh for the soda can, I got a message from Mitch a couple of days later and it was like, \u2018Hey, this is incorrect. You have a wide-mouth soda can, and those didn\u2019t exist at the time,\u2019\u201d Dunny says. \u201cSo I had to actually modify the mesh to fit with the time period of our game. It\u2019s certain things like that, where you have to take into account not just how the thing is actually made but how it was made in the early \u201890s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMitch also made Jabby Cola, which is my face and my nickname,\u201d Brennecke adds. \u201cIf you see Jabby Cola, that\u2019s me, which is great. I\u2019m on a soda can now!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Toy Head<\/h2>\n

One of the stranger objects in the yard is the head of an action figure \u2013 and the body is nowhere to be seen. There\u2019s not much to go on, since it is just a head, but Obsidian has bigger plans for the toy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually have our own cartoon universe that we\u2019re making,\u201d Brennecke says. It\u2019s inspired by He-Man, but they obviously couldn\u2019t just lift that licensed character. Instead, they put their own spin on the character. \u201cHis name is Yoked-Girth. He\u2019s just like pure muscle. He\u2019s like a lot of the action heroes from that period smashed all into one character. We\u2019re also developing a toy line and a comic book.\u201d There\u2019s also a chance that players will run into toys based on their Skeletor analog.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team was happy to talk about the minutiae behind many of Grounded\u2019s landmarks, but only to a certain point. There were plenty of times where they held back a bit, wanting to keep some of it a mystery.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that I really love about this style of game is the discussion it brings about,\u201d Dunny says. \u201cI love reading fan theories about games that I like. Even seeing a Wikipedia page or a Gamepedia and seeing people piece together these things. By leaving less of it explicitly said, one of the things that I\u2019m personally interested in is fostering that kind of discussion and encouraging that kind of community involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking to get involved in Grounded, you don\u2019t have long to wait. Grounded is going into Game Preview and early access on Xbox One and PC starting July 28.<\/p>\n

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