A floating city, a terrorist attack, a heck of a lot of water – Hydrophobia is the hugely promising futuristic adventure from UK publisher Blade Interactive, due out next Spring. In the second installment of our interview with MD Pete Jones and lead game designer Rob Hewson, we discuss the intriguing enemies at the heart of the game, the city itself and why hardly anyone else is doing real-time fluid dynamics…
The terrorist group that kicks of the events of Hydrophobia are called the Malthusians. So how did eighteenth century economist Thomas Malthus end up influencing a next-gen shooter?
Rob Hewson: Pete was adamant that our villains had to be credible; they had to have a real world creed – a group with a great deal of depth. This is really hard trick to pull off without upsetting any ethnic, religious or political groups.
We were all tired of the shallow, soulless canon fodder you get in most games, and when Pete came up with the Malthusians it just worked on so many levels. There are going to be times when you’re playing Hydrophobia when the player thinks hang on a minute, these Malthusians have a point, maybe they’re going about it in the wrong way, but their not just 2D bad guys.
From the Malthusians came the concept of building a near future world on the foundation of trends which are occurring today. Malthusian politics are starting to creep into the public consciousness again, food prices are rising and the global population is set to increase dramatically over the next 50 years, which of course drives climate change. Climate change causes sea levels to rise resulting in less land to live on – in Hydrophobia the world is drowning in the “Great Population Flood” – the scary thing is it might just happen!
What are the terrorist enemies like? Are they intelligent? How do *they* use the environment?
Rob Hewson: With the information-rich environments of InfiniteWorlds, the AI characters are able to understand a great deal about their environment. They have pre-planned escape routes, they can share information and they can adapt to the situation.
The dynamic nature of the water required a much more comprehensive solution than your average game, so you’ve got a completely dynamic AI system reacting to a completely dynamic water simulation, creating a much deeper level of emergent gameplay.
How big is the ‘City at Sea’ - is it an open environment or are you taking a linear path to the surface?
Pete Jones: The Queen of the World itself is huge; the “City at Sea” label is in fact accurate. In size terms it’s about 1.5km long and about 0.5km wide and 6 decks deep. That’s a playing area of 4.5 sq km. Erm, it’s big…
Rob Hewson: It’s not a sandbox game, it’s a narrative driven adventure, but we had to approach things differently because of the water. Anyone who has seen floods on the news can appreciate that the behaviour of large volumes of water can be difficult to control and predict because they affect everything at once and move on very quickly.
If this wall gives way and a stray bullet shoots out that window, the water flow is dramatically altered. As such branching in the levels becomes more a result of endlessly testing the simulation in each area to cover every possible scenario than a cut and dry level design decision.
The result is levels that feel fluid as you play through them, you won’t always take the same path, and it’s not always because of a conscious choice.
Every system in the game, including the systems driving the narrative, has been designed from the ground up with this fluidity in mind.
What as been the most difficult element of transposing a complex water engine onto an action game?
Pete Jones: See above! When we first got HydroEngine flowing around in a game environment, we suddenly realised that every other system in the game; AI, animation, narrative, cover, swimming, damage… everything had to be dynamic enough to cope with this new fluid force.
You have to consider everything in terms of different water levels and forces that may or may not occur, so somebody would come up with a design for say, the cover system and we’d say “great, now what happens if a torrent of water bursts along this corridor?”, the result is a fluid transition to the grabbing systems and floating cover systems.
Judging by the E3 demo the water looks amazing – what kind of graphics effects are going on in there?
Rob Hewson: There’s a ripple simulation for the surface of the water which is feeding off the fundamental flow system as well as interaction with objects and characters in the water, we’ve got perfect reflection and refraction effects, “wet mapping” which allows materials to appear wet when water passes over them and dry out over time… basically we’ve covered every conceivable aspect of water and reproduced it in real time – the amount of particles we’re throwing around would give most developers nightmares.
Keith Stuart was interviewing Pete Jones and Rob Hewson…
Free and Easy time. This game is going to be amazing people! Definitely one for the radar.
Comment by katamari-ball — Sep 9, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Free and Easy time indeed. Raise your street cans in the air and prepare to venture out of the slither!
Comment by Rob Hewson — Sep 9, 2008 @ 11:45 am
Hi Rob,
Are you planning a Playable Demo of this title on the PlayStation Network (Store) before full (Blu-ray?) release next April?
I like the look’n'feel of the environment; very “Resident Evil”-esque. Hopefully you can piggy-back on the survival-(horror)-adventure anticipation given this title is due out a month before your own.
Could you clarify the title, for me please?
“Aquaphobia” is a morbid fear of (deep) water, or of swimming.
A “Hydrophobe” is a scientific term to describe the chemical “aversions” of (parts of) a molecule.
Is the lead character, Kate Wilson, scared of water completely, or is she trying to get away from the press for “LittleBigPlanet”?
I hope the critics don’t pick up on this & use the metaphor “stink” too often
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Sep 9, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
Hydrophobia is also a term for the symptoms of rabbies, and although Aquaphobia is the technical term for a morbid fear of water, Hydrophobia is sometimes used instead.
Regarding a playable demo, it’s certainly a possibility, but we don’t have anything to announce at the moment.
Keep an eye on http://www.bladeinteractive.com/hydrophobia
Comment by Rob Hewson — Sep 9, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
I’m gonna need a nappy…
Comment by JohnSketch — Sep 9, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
I think I’ll reserve judgment on this until I get to play it. Blade, formerly Mirage, the guys behind Rise of the Robots have a history of bigging up games purely on graphics alone, and we know how many people were fooled on that one.
Comment by mysteron — Sep 9, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
[...] Hydrophobia Q&A A floating city, a terrorist attack, a heck of a lot of water Hydrophobia is the hugely promising futuristic adventure from UK publisher Blade Interactive, due out next Spring. In the second installment of our interview with MD Pete Jones and lead game designer Rob Hewson, we discuss the intriguing enemies at the heart of the game, the city itself and why hardly anyone else is doing real-time fluid dynamics _______________ Source: ThreeSpeech [...]
Pingback by Hydrophobia Q&A - DriverHeaven.net — Sep 10, 2008 @ 6:41 am
More screenshots and videos please, this looks pretty
Comment by lxd — Sep 10, 2008 @ 9:59 am
Hey they better have implemented the I’m partially wet algorithm as seen in Uncharted. All games that involve water should have that now, not exceptions!
Comment by Savage( CartBlanche ) — Sep 10, 2008 @ 10:13 am
@lxd: Keep an eye on http://www.bladeinteractive.com/hydrophobia - there will be more screens up soon
@Savage: Absolutely right, character wet-mapping it actually one of the simpler effects we have running, though it’s a more advanced version than you’ve seen in other games. We also have full environment wet mapping; so walls will become wet when a wave passes over them, and they dry out over time so you get a layered effect. The wet mapping will give a different effect depening on material, for example absorbant materials will become darker, non-absorbant materials will become shinier and drips will run down the surface.
Comment by Rob Hewson — Sep 10, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Looking very wet and… good indeed!
Thanks for ThreeSpeech for bringing the developers INTO the blog. If you do this more, you’ll certainly move this blog a level up!
And thanks for Rob for taking the time to stop by. Keep the “waves” coming
Comment by Ricardo — Sep 15, 2008 @ 10:06 am
Hey Rob,
On the subject of the “wetmapping”. If, for example, an objects hits the water displacing water droplets will these droplets map onto objects int eh game (Characters, Walls, Crates etc) and undergo the same “slow dry” process? That would be new and particularly awesome
Others have mapped the drips onto objects but for little or no effect.
Thanks.
Comment by moosehound — Sep 15, 2008 @ 10:37 am
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@ Moosehound: We’ve found the little details are almost as important as the fundamental behaviour in order to make the water feel real. The drip system we use is a per-pixel effect, the underlying fluid dynamics system triggers the spray particle systems (such as when an object falls into the water), and the spray particles will spawn a drip if they hit an non-absorbant surface, or a wet-spot decal on an absorbant surface.
@ Ricardo: It’s a pleasure
Comment by Rob Hewson — Sep 15, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
@Rob Hewson: many thanks for that Rob. Sounds like the “wet” system will do all the cool water effects I have fantasised avout for years and more
What is it with water effects that enchant me/us all so? I guess it’s a free body of movement that, when done correctly, enhances our acceptance of the environment as a tangible “world”. Ho-hum.. Oh yeah, it also looks real purdy 
Good luck with the title Rob & Co and thanks for taking the time to speak to the community.
Cheers,
Moose
Comment by moosehound — Sep 18, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
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