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Development Update: Jun-Aug 2024

Summer is slowly making its exit, and while things usually slow down during this time, the important work on our game has not stopped, with a good part of our team working hard through the warm months. Here is a look at our progress in the last bit!

Art

In the past months, we have expanded and strengthened our art team and made significant progress on this front. We have also established collaboration with a team of professionals who have worked on several Assassin’s Creed games, which we hope will take the quality and consistency of our art to the next level.

Capernaum Concept Art

With the exterior concept art done, we have now moved on to designing the interiors.

Gate Zero Concept Art: Rich Building Interior Living Room
Concept Art: Rich Building Interior Living Room
Gate Zero Concept Art: Rich Building Interior Living Room
Concept Art: Rich Building Interior Living Room
Gate Zero Concept Art: Residential District Kitchen
Concept Art: Residential District Kitchen

Capernaum Residential Modular Set

As we work on building out Capernaum, we have also developed a modular system to improve efficiency and ensure optimized performance.

Gate Zero Capernaum Residential Modular Sets
Capernaum Residential Modular Sets

Materials and Textures

Our artists have also been hard at work with the details, creating materials and textures of building façades like roofs and walls, props such as carpets and pottery, and clothing textiles and fabrics. A lot goes into creating high-quality, realistic graphics which are at the same time optimized for an open world game.

Gate Zero: Texture on a building façade
Texture on a building façade
Gate Zero: Carpet samples
Carpet samples
Gate Zero: Textile material
Textiles

Game Mechanics

Recently, we’ve made major improvements to the stealth elements of Gate Zero, with the goal of making it fun by incorporating lighthearted, humorous moments. You may just find Max with lots of new tricks up his sleeve as you find creative ways to evade enemies and danger!

We have also been seriously prototyping some action elements for the game, working hard on making them balanced, responsive and fun. The goal is that these new elements will be easy to learn and rewarding to master. We’ve spent a good amount of time getting this right, and we can’t wait to show you more when we’re ready! Stay tuned!

Level Design

Level design is also an important part of game development, and one aspect of it is defining heights and spaces between buildings and other environment assets.

Rules for horizontal and vertical traversal ie. jumping and climbing distances defined for the environment art and level design will ensure a unified, clear and positive player experience.

Vertical Traversal Rules
Horizontal Traversal Rules

Story

Our scriptwriters have been doing extensive research into the gospel stories that will be featured in Release 1, determining the context and main messages we aim to bring out through the stories in each mission.

They have also been working on character development of the various people that Max (the player character) will be meeting in the game. It’s shaping up to be incredibly interesting!

Gate Zero: Release 1 story tree
Overview of the gospel stories we plan to feature in Release 1

Fundraising

In case you missed our last blog post or email messages, we are still actively fundraising for Gate Zero.

Our goal as one of the world’s first Bible video games is to create a product of excellence. The more resources added to the project, the greater impact we can make on millions worldwide with the life-changing message of the gospel.

Creating a video game of this scale and quality with care, respect and attention to the source material takes a considerable amount of resources, and we are grateful for any support you can provide!

If you would like to give to our mission, please visit our donation page here

Events

Last but not least, take a look at the events we’ve been a part of in the past months!

Imladris Meetup in Oregon

In mid-June, our marketing manager Eunice attended a meetup in Oregon for Christian game developers working professionally in the industry, part of a growing group called Imladris. It was a place to network and learn what other Christian professionals are doing in this space, and to help and support one another.

Attending a session about the uses of AI in gaming with Riot Games’ Alex Lehmann
Special evening dinner at Oregon Gardens
An amazing dessert display of Rivendell

Forward Conference in Georgia

At the end of June, we attended a large youth conference in Georgia where 13,000 young people were gathered. Our Gate Zero booth was a hit with the crowd, and it was so fun to see these young Gen Z students’ interest in our game!

Gate Zero booth at Forward Conference 2024
Gate Zero booth at Forward Conference 2024
Gate Zero booth at Forward Conference 2024

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