A City of many Nationalities: How the style of Hakavik came along

Greetings fellow Industrians,

Once upon a time, many many years ago, INDUSTRIA was a completely different game. Not a mysterious First-Person Shooter. At that time we were influenced a lot by oldschool horror games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. We wanted to create something as creepy and eerie as those on our own and decided to work with fixed cameras as well. Well, there is not much left from our old plans to be honest. Except for one single room, the very first piece of level for years: it is the receiver room in which Nora wakes up in Hakavik.

We switched from fixed cameras to the first-person view. Back at that time the game looked a lot like a 1920s Chicago - especially in terms of architecture. Not much of that remains in today's Hakavik. The architecture has changed again and again over the course of almost six years of development - mostly due to the fact that we have tried out new ways to build a modular building structure in a performant way, we went to a more early European 1900s style of architecture. Which, of course, also had to look good!

The old US-American style of buildings as we had them a few weeks after starting development.

Of course, this also meant that we had to rebuild the levels each and every time - which ment a change of influences and architecture each time as well. And so Hakavik became a northern European city. (At that time we also changed all names, signs, etc. into Swedish). That was about three years ago. This brought us a good variety in shapes, but our texture work always looked pretty dated and flat. Another problem was performance, one building could mean up to 100 draw calls (one model in a game = two calls for the engine to get that model to render in the final game. The more draw calls, the worse the performance). With a big city like Hakavik, you can imagine that this got out of hand really quick.

This is a screenshot from June 2018, featuring our, yet characteristic, but bland second building system.

And so, more than a year and a half ago, we decided to throw the whole system out of the window and to rebuild it from scratch. The focus was on a) much better performance and b) much prettier, more substantial and detailed buildings. And with that, the exterior of the buildings, and thus Hakavik, changed again. I was on holiday in Prague at the time. And anyone who has been there knows that it is a beautiful city with loads of old buildings, showing off their century old patina and plaster surfaces. I took endless photos, and so the architecture and colourfulness flowed into the overall picture of Hakavik.

Two of many photos I took in Prague on my holiday. I just could not stop taking them, i was way too amazed by the look around me.

But here the transformation is not over yet! Since INDUSTRIA started in East Berlin in 1989 and there is a connection between that time and Hakavik, many Berlin influences have also been added since then. If you live in Berlin like I do, you might recognize some of the buildings that also characterize the face of Hakavik. Building entrances, hallways, rooftops and shopfronts directly modeled after apartment buildings just down my street (including the pavement model we use all over the city, which I walk on every day when going to the grocery store).

The actual Berlin pavements from down my street.

Okay, so whats in the bag then after all these years? The first US-American approaches, followed by the Northern European over buildings inspired by Prague architecture and ending at direct Berlin neoclassicism. In addition, influences have made it into the game that have no "real" reference. Steve and I are both huge Half-Life 2 fans, so it's no coincidence that many of you out there feel Half-Life vibes in INDUSTRIA. We often just sat down, doing level design together in a shared screen call and went all into creating interesting back alleys and streets like we used to do in the Source Engine for Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike mods. That results in areas that have an architectural influence that people immediately pick up as Source-ish, though that probably often has to do with light and color as well.

Over the years though, Hakavik has developed its very own townscape and atmosphere. Of course, we would have saved ourselves many hours of work if we hadn't rebuilt the levels over and over again. But then we wouldn't have this unique and pretty city in front of us today. You learn from mistakes, and after all, this is what INDUSTRIA is for us: a giant learning experience as a first step into this industry.

See you all in the streets of Hakavik soon! David & the Bleakmill Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172650/INDUSTRIA/