For my proposal, I will be working in-tandem with my current MQP, in order to really dedicate the work to this game and level design process. My game will be revolving around a first-person character stuck in some sort of retro-Sovietpunk future, where they have to solve puzzles through magnetism.
Let’s begin explaining what all that means!
Firstly, what is retro-Sovietpunk? Sovietpunk is actually a sub-genre of the overarching aesthetic genre known as Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is actually a lot more than just an aesthetic genre encompassing various elements of politics, class, and a veneer of the future basing itself off the the 1980s and 1990s. It’s been seen all over the world in award-winning films such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), or Johnny Mnemonic (1995). It’s a future-noir take of the “far-but-yet-so-near” future, envision a incredibly capitalist world, where humanity is plagued by problems such as incredible wealth inequality visually shown by shear differences in verticality (i.e. the skyscrapers that cover the planet– the tops are for the wealthy, and the lower levels are for the über-poor). So then what exactly is Sovietpunk? Sovietpunk is the same ideas of Cyberpunk attached to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Even within the 1980s in our timeline, the Soviet Union embraced similar near-futurisms that the west did. Take a look at just a few pictures of the Soviet Union circa 1970s to 1990s:
Palace of Ceremonies (R. Dzhorbenadze, V. Orbeladze) Tbilisi, Georgia, 1985 Photographer Frédéric Chaubin reveals buildings sited in fourteen former Soviet Republics which express what he considers to be the fourth age of Soviet architecture. His poetic pictures reveal an unexpected rebirth of imagination, an unknown burgeoning that took place from 1970 until 1990. Contrary to the 1920s and 1950s, no school or main trend emerges here.
Sovietpunk is taking that visual aesthetic and bringing it into the more cyberbunk future. I’ve been working with an artist based in St. Petersburg named Evgeny Zubkov whose produced many pieces of Sovietpunk. He’s allowed us to use his concepts and implement them into the game, which I’m incredibly excited about, as his vision for the world really encompasses the vision of what a true retro-Sovietpunk future is like, but serve as a fantastic mood-board. Take a look!
Next, the player.
The player controls a sentient robot named FyED-OR (Fye-Door) or in Cyrillic: Фёдор, whose mission is unknown. They wake up in a metal scrap compactor without a clue of why they’re there. Turns out, FyED-OR used to be an old, unused and long-forgotten, robot with magnetitic appendages– this lets FyED-OR essentially grapple to and away (depending on polarity) from metallic surfaces. The lore and narrative arch of the game is still a work in progress, but the game mechanic is there: you as the player will solve problems with magnetism and polarization! Think Portal and Portal 2 style gameplay.
Next it comes to conceptualizing it from my team’s perspective, as it’s my job as the single artist. It’s a lot of work, and I’ll admit I am not equipped to do concept art, but concept art is concept art!
3D Conceptualizations of visual-unity among a “sample level”. Note, this is not greyboxing or anything of the likes. Just showing critical areas of visual aesthetics.
Love the concept of Sovietpunk, it’s tiring to see storytelling oversaturated with western iconography. Is all of the future tech in this world powered by magnetism?
I am pleased that this project has to do with your MQP! My question, how did you get so interested in sovietpunk?
I love the aesthetic of this, and that you seem to have thought it through very closely. How will the player manipulate magnetism to make things happen?
I was surprised by the cyberpunk/retro-Sovietpunk theme. Mostly becuase I’ve never heard of it but it seems interesting and compelling, especially with the concept art to show what the feelings are like. Do you have a specific prop in mind to control magnetism?
I love how well thought out your aesthetic and concept art is. Are you planning to take your modeling and rendering into a more “realistic” direction, or stylize it all a bit?
Okay this a cool cyberpunk that I haven’t heard about before. It’s interesting how you want to add a lot of Russian culture into this. And the magnetism controls sound like a very interesting mechanic as well. Are you using magnetism as a form to sharply move around (like snapping) or will be more free-flowly (by controlling levels of magnetism for example)?
Like others have said, Sovietpunk is really intruiging! I haven’t thought of different cultures being central aspects of the “-punk” aesthetic. It makes sense since cyberpunk is American so there must be other cultural -punks. I’m imagining a bunch of different -punks now! In your game, is FyED-OR’s goal to reach a destination? Or maybe accomplish some sort of change in their environment?