World after the Bomb

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

Devonport computer game maker Binary Star is "building" giant underground cities to house two multi-nation alliances competing for resources in a post-nuclear world.

Thomas Reimann, Binary Star producer and chief executive, says the company's game with a working title of Homeland will cost around $2 million to make and should be ready for global release in 2005. The budget is about half what a US commercial game developer would have to play with.

Binary Star is working with Microsoft's London-based centre of development for Xbox games rather than the New Zealand subsidiary "which is just a distribution company", said Reimann.

The project is funded mainly by the Reimann family and Binary Star is still to sign a formal agreement with a publisher though Reimann says he'd like to think there were many avenues to choose.

"We are keeping the company private and have no intention of getting in overseas investors because when that happens the revenue goes offshore."

Once complete, Homeland will also run on PlayStation 2 consoles and personal computers with a grunty chip.

"Our intention is to develop a gaming software industry in New Zealand because it can be done here."

Development takes place in a trendy Devonport apartment that has been converted into a development lab bristling with computers, ergonomic workstations and a giant TV that plays movies while they work as part of stimulating the creative process.

The game engine software for Homeland has been developed from scratch in Microsoft Visual C++ because nothing on the global market was good enough. 3D modelling has been done with Discreet's 3ds max. The story has also taken around a year to write and might be seen as prophetic.

"There is every possibility there will be a nuclear war in the future which will devastate the planet and render the surface almost inhospitable so that people are forced to build giant underground cities to survive."

The cities have been mapped out very precisely and players will be able to drill down to them at a very deep level of detail.

In a bid to customise the games for different markets, details such as paintings hanging in rooms will reference the country it is sold in. For example, a game sold in New Zealand might have rooms with recognisably New Zealand scenes in the paintings.

By coincidence the word homeland has entered the American-centric lexicon following the September 11 attacks and its notions of protection and security may help sell the game.

Now the software engine is almost complete the company is going on the hunt for animation and rendering experts to make the content that colours in the storyline.

"We need people who realise the characters and stories inside the engine."

The game's story has the United Front and Democratic Alliance led by a woman and man respectively competing for resources.

Ella, United Front's leader, is a police commander and detective like a "hi-tech Nancy Drew", but she is not going to be over-stylised like Tomb Raider's Lara Croft. Design work on Ella's look and feel is about to begin.

Drake, the Alliance leader, is a rugged "commander type" and in the story the two do engage, "but it is not a romance".

Details are not being revealed of the plot or the world where resources of all kinds from food and water to building materials are in scant supply.

Reimann says the story has many sidetracks and branches and it was written to entertain people on many levels.

So many games were big on special effects, which was fine, he said, but Homeland was going to be very strongly story based and not just a "shoot-em-up". Reimann, former visual effects artist on TV shows Xena, Warrior Princess and Hercules, heads the technical team which includes a former war games developer for the South African Government as well as "exceptionally bright computer science graduates from New Zealand".

The company has also just signed on Michael Hodgson of electronic music group Pitch Black to do the soundtrack and sound effects.

Peter de Vocht, previously the lead developer for Virtual Spectator, is the lead programmer on Homeland. He said:

"We have made software that is on the next level and will give this game a new look and life of its own. The software will allow the characters to have personality nuances that have not been seen in a game before."

Binary Star