ShockRods Vehicle Design
Neil Barnden
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ShockRods Game Director and co-designer
This blog is going to talk a little about how the ShockRods vehicle design evolved. The way the ShockRods can move – in ways that conventional cars can’t – is core to the game. This comes from their multi-directional wheel tech and the system of boosters built into the car chassis.
This fact is the key to how the design of the cars evolved. They needed to look agile; fast and tough and able to leap around the landscape.
It was decided that the vehicles would be “classless” – every car would share common performance characteristics and have the same hitbox shape. This simplifies gameplay balancing and means that the player can make their ShockRod choice based on their personal taste, without tactical considerations. With this in mind, we decided to use a common chassis design for all the vehicles. So the first task was to design a chassis that would house the ShockRod’s power plant, boosters and suspension. Our car concept artist Daniel “CzechDeath” Tejnicky would work on a chassis layout that emphasised the vehicle boosters, so the player would be able to see what made the vehicle so manoeuvrable.
In part, the name “ShockRods” also gave a direction for the vehicle design. The name has a vibe that felt akin to the 1970s/80s era world of sci-fi; Gerry Anderson and Star Wars. And the setting of the game also tied to that sci-fi aesthetic – futuristic vehicles doing battle in real - world locations. I had this in mind when designing the logo for the game, and the intention was to follow this through the game’s visual design, giving it a cool retro - future vibe. These notions shaped the loose brief for the chassis design that I gave Czech. The initial concept he sent me was great, but a bit
more H. R. Giger than Gerry A.
I wanted something cleaner and more like a design by Ron Cobb or Chris Foss (concept artists who worked on Star Wars and Alien). I did a very rough sketch over Czech’s concept:
Czech immediately got where I was coming from. We also agreed that the conventional suspension spring units were too fussy and detracted from the idea of a futuristic vehicle. The next version incorporated the revised suspension idea but was still a touch too organic.
His next version nailed it...
So we had our chassis design, and now Czech could start the most fun part of the job – coming up with body shells to fit over this base construction.
He sent me some initial design ideas which looked great and allowed us
to nail down what sort of directions were working best.
While this had been going on, Stainless and Green Man Gaming had been discussing a release schedule for ShockRods, and so in the same spirit as every reality TV show these days, Czech found himself under pressure to produce the goods to a very tight schedule...But did he deliver before the deadline? Or would some major mishap result in a concept art calamity? With only minutes to go, would Google Drive fail and delete all his files? To find out, tune in to the next episo... Ah, never mind all that nonsense – of course he delivered!
Here’s a small selection of the car body designs that you’ll see in the game...
Readers who have been involved in our beta program will recognise some of these concepts, while others have yet to be seen in - game. The game will launch with a large stable of vehicles for you to buy with the ShockCurrency you earn by playing. Added to your garage, you can begin customising them to reflect your ShockRods personality.
Which ShockRod will you choose?