Hard Truck: Apocalypse Wrap Report

The calamitous event now known as the Great Cataclysm nearly destroyed Earth and humanity. The devastation it wrought was so shattering that even though more that two centuries have passed, much of the environment remains poisoned. The inhabitants' lives are hard and impoverished, without the many comforts and luxuries their ancestors took for granted. In the setting for Hard Truck: Apocalypse, an action RPG from Nival Interactive's Targem Games studio, scattered settlements have been established. They are connected by trading agreements. However, the hostile expanses that separate them are completely lawless, filled with scoundrels, gangs and other unsavory elements. As a result, these commercial links are constantly threatened with disruption. Ordinary cargo vehicles would stand no chance of getting through, so the vital task of keeping the routes open has fallen to heavily armed, well-armored transports and their intrepid drivers.

As one of these individuals, your short-term goal is to deliver merchandise to various destinations. At another level, you become caught up in pursuing a greater objective, which is to discover the guarded secrets of a lost civilization. The third-person action involves battles against assorted enemies, while the RPG component centers on equipping and upgrading your vehicle. You can control five basic truck models, turning them into powerful fighting machines by choosing among more than 30 types of armaments, enabling you to defeat battle trucks, war transports, robots, infantry and more. The game incorporates realistic driving and combat physics, and we've seen appealing visuals, especially those showing weapon and damage effects. Lead Designer Aleksey Tchestnikh, Lead Programmer Anton Savin and Project Manager Evgeny Khrunov offer their views on the title, which shipped late last year in various Eastern European markets.

Includes five exclusive images

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The Project

Aleksey Tchestnikh: Hard Truck: Apocalypse is mix of a vehicular action game with RPG elements, set in a post-apocalyptic world. It's a game where you drive armored trucks, trade, explore, and above all... you fight!

After we made Battle Mages - a game that made us think a lot, I must confess - we then considered what to do next. We felt like doing something with more action and adrenaline. During one of our brainstorming sessions, we came up with a project that involved heavy trucks, combats, bandits and an alternative future.

To name a couple of enhancements during development, we added the damage system and lightmaps, even though they weren't in the original concept.

Hard Truck: Apocalypse stands out among other seemingly similar games because of its unique combination of gameplay elements. Among the special features of the game, we should mention the realistic damage system, highly customizable vehicles - even the slightest improvements visibly change your truck - and a non-linear plot.

The game was released in Russia in December, 2005. The European release is planned for Q1 of 2006.

The Team

Aleksey Tchestnikh: Targem was founded in 2001, in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Hard Truck: Apocalypse is the third project of the team. The other two were the RTS/RPG Battle Mages and its add-on, which came out in 2003 and 2004 respectively. There are over 40 people currently working at Targem, and about 30 of us participated in the development of Hard Truck: Apocalypse. I worked on the script, the dialogue and overall design of the game. No outside contractors took part in making it; the game was fully developed in our office.

High-Level Goals

Aleksey Tchestnikh: The brief phrase that may describe the concept of the game best is "Elite on wheels". We set out to provide drive / combat / trade / upgrade gameplay, and we think we succeeded. Among the games that influenced us, there were such titles as: Elite, Fallout, Vangers, Bandits: Phoenix Rising and Freelancer. And the Mad Max movies, of course.

The games that inspired us all had huge worlds to explore and cool combat. However, most Privateer-like games take place in outer space, while we wanted to be closer to our mother Earth. :) So, we based our game on Earth, in a post-apocalyptic future and put the gamer behind the wheel of a heavy truck.

Technology

Anton Savin: As regards the graphics engine, we had three options. We could:

a) write a new engine,

b) license a third-party engine, or

c) improve the Battle Mages engine.

We chose the third option. We brought our own up to date so that it would fit the modern standards of graphic technologies. In the new version of the engine, we implemented shaders 2.0, bump mapping, normal mapping, grass rendering, soft shadows and various other features.

We also needed to implement a physical model of truck driving. So, we opted for the open source ODE physics engine (http://ode.org). It's fast and flexible, and we are happy with it.

Also we used FMOD for sound. It was stable and flexible enough for us.

Development Timeline

Evgeny Khrunov: The project started in November of 2003 and was completed by December, 2005. As a result of the budget being increase during the development period, we gained a few extra months to add some new elements and polish the game.

Changes and Enhancements

Evgeny Khrunov: We cut out the fifth region, which was a snowy one, from the game so that we could spend more time on the other four. Also, we decided to give up "perks" as RPG elements, because we already had gadgets and their function was fairly similar. In the game, you can buy various gadgets that improve your truck's power, accuracy, armor, etc.

To name a couple of enhancements during development, we added the damage system and lightmaps, neither of which was in the original concept.