[Project] Afghanistan '11

dammit

As some of you may already know, RetroEpic and Every.Single.Soldier have teamed up to create the sequel to the Vietnam '65 game: Afghanistan '11. Naturally, this is something we're super excited about, as we're building the whole game from the ground up.



A quick sum up of the title:

Afghanistan '11 has been designed to be much more than just a re-skinning of the Vietnam '65 game. Major changes include 3D terrain elevation, complete overhaul of the supply mechanic and the inclusion of a 24 battle campaign mode.

While, as with Vietnam '65, winning the hearts and minds of the local people is a core aspect of the game, Afghanistan '11 expands the conflict to include the concept of Nation Building: The US Military has to equip and train the Afghan National Army in preparation for its ultimate withdrawal from the country. In addition, the US also needs to ensure there is suitable infrastructure to ensure a sustainable Afghanistan post withdrawal.

We've also started sharing some developer diaries. This is our first attempt at writing these kinds of posts, so please give us feedback and let us know if they're interesting/useful etc.

http://www.retroepic.com/every-single-soldier-and-retroepic-software-join-forces/
http://www.retroepic.com/afghanistan-11-weekly-dev-diary-13-nov-2015/
http://www.retroepic.com/afghanistan-11-weekly-dev-diary-20-nov-2015/

dammit

No art to share this week, but here's our weekly dev post: http://www.retroepic.com/afghanistan-11-weekly-dev-diary-27-nov-2015/

Next week we'll start sharing our final models for the vehicles.

Sash

Hey, just out of curiosity here... do you guys do audio in house or is it contracted out? Im looking to get more experience. My demoreel is war themed as well. So if it's in house do you have internship/job opportunities that I could apply for?

dammit

We don't do sound in-house, but we already do have a team in mind for this particular game. We also have already done a fair amount of work with Ivo so we're definitely not looking for a new sound person just yet.

dammit

We're doing a short series on the vehicles in the game too, starting with the Nyala:

http://www.retroepic.com/nyala-rg-31-vehicles-in-afghanistan-11/

bischonator

The Lowpoly model work is great.

dammit

bischonator said:

The Lowpoly model work is great.

I'll pass that onto our art team ^_^ Thank you!

konman

"Actual Nyala. Not mine-resistant." Shame man. LOL!

Edit: I think humanity should refrain from naming killing machines after innocent animals. But that's life right? :)

dammit

konman said:

"Actual Nyala. Not mine-resistant."

This was the pinnacle of my writing career.

Also, we've got our Stryker MGS post up today: http://www.retroepic.com/stryker-mgs-vehicles-in-afghanistan-11/

Wakintosh

@dammit Damn, these models look cool, what software is used to make them?

dammit

@Wakintosh Our 3D modeller tells me he usually uses a combination of blender, zbrush, photoshop and xnormal when he's modelling, but for the vehicles he's used only photoshop and blender.

roguecode

The little 3D viewer thing is cool (as are the models obviously).

dammit

Neal - one of our art monsters - put together a tutorial on how we used data from NASA to create the mountainous terrain of the Afghanistan landscape: http://www.retroepic.com/mountain-creation-from-data-tutorial-afghanistan-11/

dammit

This week, the Buffalo vehicle (now with transformer street-cred): http://www.retroepic.com/buffalo-vehicles-in-afghanistan-11/

dammit

We're kicking off the year with more vehicles: http://www.retroepic.com/m1117-armoured-security-vehicle/

dammit

Our weekly dev diary, and first for the year: http://www.retroepic.com/afghanistan-11-weekly-dev-diary-14-jan-2016/

dammit

New blog post with sexy Apache Helicopter http://www.retroepic.com/apache-helicopter-vehicles-in-afghanistan-11/

(next week, we start a weapons blog)

dammit

Weapons! This blog post features a very cool video with 5 facts about the M4 - I support this video. I also support this blog post: http://www.retroepic.com/m4-carbine-rifle-weapons-in-afghanistan-11/

Zaphire

dammit said:

Weapons! This blog post features a very cool video with 5 facts about the M4 - I support this video. I also support this blog post: http://www.retroepic.com/m4-carbine-rifle-weapons-in-afghanistan-11/

Where do you get the textures for the weapons?

dammit

Zaphire said:

Where do you get the textures for the weapons?

We actually paint the textures ourselves, using photos for colour reference.

Chris_Bischoff

Just wanna say that you are doing an amazing job. Ive always wanted to do graphics for a strategy game - so Im a little jealous|

dammit

@Chris_Bischoff :D Thanks! We do have quite the collection of skilled and hard working artists. And @pomb who is just on his own level :P

Mexicanopiumdog

@pomb is a bous.

dammit

Sounds! http://www.retroepic.com/1779-2/ We did some work with Sound Foundry and got our first pass at the voice over work that will be in the game.

Mexicanopiumdog

"Rogert that Khrrr" nice one

konman

@Mecianopiumdog Mmmh, I had to google "bous" cause it sounded like a swear word... :)

Afghanistan is looking like a solo dev's nightmare from a tech complexity perspective. The terrain creation complexity mentioned previously in that height map article and now the wonderfully extreme detailed gun model research... sheeeeeesh. Not for the faint of heart...

It makes one appreciate the level of detail that goes into crafting our art eh? <3

dammit

@Konman - Yeah it really would be crazy for it to be a one man project. Currently, we have Robbie on it full time for coding, Keith for tech art (though he switches between all our projects), Daoyi on UI, Neal on rigging and animation and Hannes on modelling. Oh, and I'm writing some of the in-game elements, Theunis is putting in the sounds and I believe Jem will be assisting when Robbie goes on leave....

So, basically, everyone is involved.

dammit

A little late on my wednesday schedule, but I spent far too much time enjoying watching the videos of this machine in action: http://www.retroepic.com/a-10-thunderbolt-ii-vehicles-in-afghanistan-11-2/

dammit

A bit of an education around the vehicles the Taliban choose to use in Afghanistan http://www.retroepic.com/insurgent-land-cruiser-vehicles-in-afghanistan-11/

dammit

Rock Paper Shotgun picked up on us working on a project called Carrier Deck (more on this soon for people who weren't at the meetup where we showed it): https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/03/18/the-flare-path-topical-titbits/ [scroll down to N]

Other wargaming websites are starting to write about A'11 too now (without any press push from us or Slytherine):
http://www.wargamer.com/news/every-single-soldier-following-up-last-years-vietnam-65-with-afghanistan-11/
http://www.pockettactics.com/news/vietnam-65-followup-from-every-single-soldier-is-afghanistan-11/

dammit

http://www.retroepic.com/chinook-vehicles-in-afghanistan-11/ The chinook - another beast vehicle in the arsenal :D

dammit

Had to share the render of the uniform for the game: (you get badges for doing well etc and then increase your ranking)



And our weekly blog update: http://www.retroepic.com/afghanistan-11-weekly-dev-diary-15-april-2016/

dammit

slitherine.com/news/2054/Afghanistan.11:.a.new.counter-insurgency.game

slitherine announced A11 officially which is exciting. You can sign up to be a beta tester on the link above.

Dipso

Good write-up.
Well done :)
.

dammit

Congratulations on the launch @RetroEpic. Hope it's going well and can't wait to see Carrier Deck on Steam soon :D

dammit

Couldn't find a Carrier Deck thread so posting this here:

http://www.slitherine.com/beta/cnda.asp?gid=680

dammit

Looks like Carrier Deck released last week: http://store.steampowered.com/app/580720/Carrier_Deck/

Congratulations!