Dev Stories #1- Hunting the Atmosphere

Intro
This is the first of these developer stories, my plan is to keep this format as casual as possible and easy way for me to express my thoughts around Road to Vostok and game development in general.

This first topic is about atmosphere related to game development and why its should be one of the main focus for many games, especially if you're making a post-apocalyptic survival game like Road to Vostok.

The Development Space
Video games are extremely complicated entertainment and software products and sometimes it's hard to create spesific atmosphere to a game when you are sitting in this well lit, modern and collaborative office space.

Yes, it's easy to search Google Images and make stuff from references, but there's some detail layers towards atmosphere that are really hard to mimic if you're not experiencing the atmosphere yourself.

I remember back in 2013 when I was hyped about survival game The Long Dark and I watched the second devlog episode about their core development team.

The Long Dark - The Team - Part 2 (Developer Diary):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L45pnNhbG8k 

I noticed that the work environment in that video that they were (at least back then) was this cozy looking log cabin with forest and hiking paths surrounding it. After I noticed this I immediately thought that this is special and in the future I want to make games inside similar development space that supports the atmosphere you trying to create inside the game.

Unfortunately, I'm not yet inside a log cabin or anything like that, but I still work with this mindset and I use couple of tricks that I find helpful for me in order to put myself inside that right atmosphere.

The first trick I use is background bushcrafting, camping and outdoor videos. Often times when I'm designing or coding something, I use these spesific videos on Youtube and I play them in the background. I don't necessary see what is going on with the videos but I can hear the ambience and experience the journey that the video creator has experienced in an audio format. On top of that audio experience, I will often learn new things about survival/camping gear and some minor details about nature, weather and so on. If you're a type of person that likes to work in total silence and is easily distracted, I cannot recommend this background video method for you, but otherwise I think these outdoor videos are pretty cool way to immerse yourself while doing some development work.

Here's one of those videos if you want to have an idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKBrEE1lqBI 

The second trick I use is dim lighting and game related props. This one is also really easy because it's totally low-expense way to modify your home office or just your desktop space to more immersive and atmospheric workspace. Something as small as an electric lantern inside a low-light or dark room gives you the feeling that you are not just working on the computer and there's some special thing towards what you're making. I sometimes also place some military/survival props and other small items that are related to game on top of my desk. This works especially well for me since most of the props are actual in-game items because of my way of taking photo textures from those items.

The third trick is more time-consuming and requires a bit more effort but I like to make these development workshops/bootcamps from the lakeside cabin my family and I own. This means that I travel there with all my development gear and spent few days there developing without any distractions. I will actually go there again next week and trying to polish stuff like weather / storm systems in the game and making stuff like that is really something else when there is actual storm / rain outside.

I attached few photos on top of the mountain that's near that cabin so you can get an idea what kind of scenery and atmosphere there is.

The Stalker Atmosphere 2.0
I'm pretty sure many of you are already aware that Stalker series and its mod Anomaly is one of my favourite references when talking about video game atmosphere. There are also many other games that have amazing effort towards atmosphere creation but Stalker has still that something that is really compelling for me for some reason.

I think one of the core elements related to that Stalker atmosphere is spesific color palette, textures, skyboxes and audio design, but for me more import atmosphere related topics are tied to immersion. 

Even if Stalker isn't the most compelling game in terms of interactivity with the environment, there is this spesific feeling that you are actually inside the zone. This feeling is achieved through multiple small nyanses with are related to factions, campfires and things like weather events and so on.

My goal with Road to Vostok is to follow this Stalker atmosphere (without fantasy elements) but I plan to enhance it with bunch of interactivity related mechanics that give more depth to the game world. There was a small clip already about the campfires and radios that I implemented in the game but this is just the beginning for this game.

In the near future I will implement actual survival stuff like fishing, improvised shelters and other small details like sauna and rowboat mechanics that will expand that Stalker experience to the next level.

Competitive advantage
In my opinion atmosphere is also one of the key aspects of game development that can be used as a competitive advantage for small indie game developers, like myself.

The upcoming small first demo will not propably yet reach that level that I could call an advantage, but I will definitely prioritize atmosphere a lot and I think every video game should have somekind of compelling x-factor or "soul" that is often time missing in modern big titles.

- Antti
(Developer)