The Fall – Last Days of Gaia Diary #3

RPGVault continues their designer diaries for Silver Style’s upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG, The Fall – Last Days of Gaia, with the third installment revealing some information about the engine powering the post-apocalyptic RPG. An excerpt:

Before we actually started coding it, I guessed that the combination of indoor and outdoor environments would be one of the most time consuming parts. And I was right. Implementing interiors is trickier than you might think. Object placement, ‘door management’ and pathfinding issues are just some of the aspects that make it a challenge. Another element to be considered was the camera, which isn’t fixed and always as close to the character as in games like… let’s say Gothic.

Many games try to solve this problem by blending out the outdoor part once you enter a building. Morrowind is an example of that, but also a title like Fallout 3 would have handled it the same way. The Fall, however, will feature a seamless environment. It took us quite a bit, but we’re very satisfied with the outcome. There won’t be any loading times when you enter a building. You can look through windows into the interior parts and vice versa, and see all the characters and objects.