Armored Enemy Ship

Here's the inital design of the armored enemy ship. The ship has no projectiles, but it's heavily armored in the front to ram the player's ship. Created and rendered in ZBrush this is a untouched render just showing a swarm of ships deep underwater.

Enemy Ship Design in ZBrush

I've taken a variety of approaches to enemy ship design for Deep Blue. I've tried traditional concept sketches, an experimental drawing program called Alchemy, and speed painting and so far...I still haven't been able to produce anything I really like.

I'm going to something that is a combination of vehicle and organic and something that could be a never before seen species of sea creature, or extra terrestrial origin. So today I tried something a little different and gave a 3d sketch a shot using ZBrush.

And I'm happy to report, the results are MUCH closer to what I was hoping for. Take a look at this little video above to see how it developed. The colors may be a bit off but I think I've finally managed the right balance of natural/ship and creature/alien.

Co-Op has begun

Since it was the number one requested feature by my co-game designers (that would be my 6 and 9 year old kids Connor and Katie), and since they obviously weren't going to stop asking about it until the game included it, I'm happy to announce the two player co-op game mode on "Deep Blue".

I haven't quite figured out exactly how that's going to all play out but at the moment we've got a pair of MANTA subs swimming through the water and blasting everything in sight.

What this also means is that sometime in the not-to-distant future I'll need to pick up another USB 360 controller for testing on the PC. I can already tell that running from the computer room to the living room to test multiplayer isn't going to fly.