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Mission 16 - Design & Production Notes
Sadr City

Trying to create the atmosphere of such a dense part of Baghdad was a pretty big challenge. The primary consideration was making the playable area feel as dense as possible while still allowing enough room for the player to maneuver. The other big challenge was making a mission in which civilian casualties are a prominent factor. Sadr City has far more "neutrals" than previous missions. All of the civilians are off-limits, so be careful!

Getting the scale of the buildings and alleys right takes some time. In order to simplify the process, the developers made a simple cube that represented a building, and kept loading it in at different sizes until it was just the right size for the task. Then that template was used for the new buildings.

Also, the developers created a lot of interesting "nooks and crannies" in the different building models -- otherwise the player would feel like they are walking down hallways. This has the added advantage of creating plenty of places for enemies to hide.

The designer’s favorite part(s) of the map is "probably when you find the first cache…and the battle that leads up to it."

With regard to enemy placement, the goal was to create the feeling that these insurgents have "gone to ground" and are waiting for you to come to them. Therefore it’s up to the player to take the initiative and go after them. The developers paid special attention to place some enemies in pretty clever positions and some others in places where a smart player can ambush them. Finally, filling the mission with civilians was very important, and created a lot of challenging spots for the player.