Introduction
Back in January of 2004, four guys sat down together in a small, darkened room. At the time, they made websites for a living, but they were looking to get into something more creative. The subject of their meeting was how to utilize their free time to develop an FPS that would be fun and sell well. A bit over a year later, they had put together a team of more than 5 times the number of the original members and had created a unique and engaging 2-hour long single player campaign as a mod for UT2004, winning second place in the Make Something Unreal Contest.
Damnation is a unique game experience. As a hybrid 1st/3rd person shooter with Prince of Persia-style navigational puzzles, there really isn’t anything else like it out there. Add in the alternate-universe industrialized Old West setting and you’ve got something really special.
We always looked at Damnation: Hell Breaks Loose as a prototype for the larger game that we wanted to make. We envisioned the mod as a sort of demo that we could release to gauge what sort of an audience there was for a product like Damnation as well as a learning experience for ourselves. Even the seasoned professionals on the team had never worked on a project this epic and complex. We needed a playable prototype in order to test out our new game concepts and to see if we were capable of making a game like this. During our search for a good licensed engine, we spoke to Mark Rein and he suggested that we enter the Make Something Unreal Contest. “Why not?” we thought. We knew that we needed to invest some time and effort into a prototype. If we won a free license of the Unreal Engine as a result, so much the better.
Next: What Went Right...