Bonum diem!
It's Tim, Art Lead at Tarock Interactive, and I'm back with a new dev blog entry after quite some time. Jens and Felix usually keep you up to date on the fantastic progress we're making with Lost Legions. This time, however, I'd like to give you a few insights and thoughts on the game's graphic design.
As mentioned in the last blog post, we've been working intensively on the intro level over the past few weeks. The player starts in a Roman camp in the middle of the Teutoburg Forest and has to defend themselves against attacking Germanic tribes in the rain and darkness.
Thanks to the support of our talented level design interns, we were able to quickly block out the level – after all, it's a fairly linear passage of the game.
The big challenge was to create a dense and immersive atmosphere – and to guide the player through the level as intuitively as possible despite the darkness of the night and the chaos of battle.
The setting: a detailed camp hastily erected by desperate Roman troops in a matter of days and nights. It serves as a starting point and place of retreat to gather equipment before heading into battle.
Then comes the burning forest, scarred by battle, with muddy ground, uprooted embankments, and deep trenches.
Players pass through various checkpoints, each marked by enemy barricades. After each barricade, they learn new combat techniques and control elements. At the end, a particularly dangerous section awaits in the swampiest part of the forest, characterized by dense ferns and mystical ground fog.
There they reach the fourth and final barricade – what happens next will not be spoiled here, of course. But one thing can be revealed: After that, the game opens up into a large-scale open-world level.
Here, the player is initially guided subtly through the level design while another series of tutorials begins. The mood is now completely different – still dark, but more cold and mysterious. Nothing remains of the hectic battle that preceded it, except for the wounds that need to be healed.
The view falls on a secluded valley with an abandoned hut – a quiet, almost idyllic moment. A path through a cave follows, eventually leading out into the open. In this phase, the player learns the basics of the survival and crafting mechanics of Lost Legions. The clever placement of points of interest (POIs) ensures that the player is guided through the area to discover all the important resources and treasures.
https://youtu.be/K4lBxKuWRk8
At the same time, the lore of the world gradually unfolds. Detailed environmental storytelling creates a dense atmosphere that brings the game world to life. I'm very happy with what we've created so far – and excited about how different each section feels: from the desperate battle, to the dark ritual sites of the Germanic tribes, to the almost peaceful valley.
We've also learned a lot in the art department – about the engine, our set dressing processes, and optimizing our workflow. Performance issues, shader problems caused by engine updates (yes, I'm looking at you, Felix), new plugins, feature changes, quests, and progression – all of these things are part of our daily world-building routine.
Earlier playtests already made it clear that our player guidance wasn't always intuitive. But with the latest adjustments to the level design and set dressing, we've been able to get this problem under control much better.
I hope you like the impressions – and I'm very excited to see how it feels to roam our world when you get to experience Lost Legions for yourselves soon.
Now we're moving full steam ahead into the next big region. Stay tuned – ad iterum!
Tim