Colony Wars: Redux
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I’m so happy to announce this on the Amaranth Chronicles Blog. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been spearheading a remake of the PlayStation 1’s Colony Wars and Colony Wars: Vengeance. I’ve wanted to remake this game since the PlayStation 2 came out and I imagined what could be done with the brilliant design direction of these two games.
But first a quick story; I fell in love with these game after getting to play them for the first time at a Blockbuster Video on El Camino Real & Kiely Blvd in Santa Clara California. I grew up in Santa Clara, the heart of Silicon Valley, and the town of a single Blockbuster. Yeah, looking back I’m surprised too. In 1997, The internet was brand new and every Tuesday marked the release of new Nintendo 64 and PlayStation games. Remember this predated Google. If there were new games out, or coming out, your best bet was to search the shelves of your favorite electronics or rental store.
Me, my dad and my little brother stumbled into the store one Friday night looking to grab a few rentals for the weekend. There was a small crowed of teenagers hovering over a PlayStation kiosk. Its funny to think that in those days, the Kiosk only came out for special events. It wasn’t like a GameStop with a permanent setup to try out the latest games. Needless to say, when the kiosks came out at Blockbuster, it attracted an audience.
A teenager clutched the PlayStation controller in his hands as he locked on an enemy target and launched a missile. “What game is this?” I asked out loud approaching the kiosk thinking it was a PC to PS1 port of Star Wars: Rebel Assult. But no, this was something new, something original and something infinity more playable and fun than anything Star Wars related on PlayStation. This was Colony Wars:
In 1997 “Colony Wars” landed on the PlayStation 1. We joined the League of Free Worlds and their epic struggle for freedom, now we join them again. Join the resistance, hop in the cockpit of your Dark Angel and join us as we take the fight to the tyrannical Earth Empire.
Doesn’t it just drip with 90’s nostalgia? Gives me chills. While everyone else was transfixed by the game, I scurried off and grabbed the last copy they had to rent. I got home, popped in in my PlayStaion, listen to that boot screen and the rest is history. That night I fell in love with the greatest console flight sim of all time.
Colony Wars: Redux - Demo Trailer
A classic game for a modern era
I put this trailer together to advertise the project, get our Youtube Channel going and to launch the website Colony Wars Redux. We’ve come a long way since what was shown here. I can say, this project attracted some of the most talented people I’ve ever known and we can’t wait to post the playable demo.
Rebuilt from the ground up, “Colony Wars: Redux” brings the first two games in the franchise into the modern era with modernized graphics, improved enemy A.I., all the space combat action of the originals, and an entirely new 3rd game that will carry on the legacy.
Modernizing the 3d models
In order to get this project off the ground, I had to provide a vision of what this remake could look like. Reviewing the original PS1 models straight from the original disks, I created a modern version of the default player craft, known as the Hex, from the second game. This was to set a bar for the look of our remake.
PlayStation 1 model
Redux Model
Modernizing The User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX)
I can honestly say that the most challenging part of designing Colony Wars: Redux is building the art assets and behaviors that you think you remember. For many in our target audience, its been a good long time since their last romp through the Gallonigher system. For others in that audience, they’ve played through these games semi-recently and have seen how antiquated certain aspects of the originals are. For instance, the original games displayed a full screen resolution of 640 X 480 pixels. It would seem straight forward enough to create 4k versions of the screens, however I had to take into account that the original games UX centered around placing a disk into the PlayStation. That is something I as the project leader had to take into account when rebuilding the assets from first two games as well as combining their features, levels and briefings into one easy to navigate menu structure.
The original menu systems for both of the first two games were similar but very different in some key areas. For instance, the first game had a database, library, nested in the menu system that gave descriptions and background information for the world of Colony Wars. Its important to me that we don’t lose that aspect, but would it make sense to have that database buried deep into the menu structure of the first game? Or, can I bring it to the main menu to craft a more uniform experience over all three games?
Colony Wars: Redux Menu
I’m satisfied that we've preserved the look, feel, sound and charm of the original menu systems while modernizing them. After all, it isn’t just the retro, the original, audience we’re aiming to please but a totally new one as well.
New graphics
As you can see, we’ve come a long way since the graphics we showed off in the announcement trailer.
10 minutes of Gameplay from Colony Wars: Redux
Diving deep into Unity Game Engine’s High Dynamic Range Pipeline, we’ve been able to preserve the original look while raising the bar on the original designs to compete with modern graphics.
If you’re an old time fan like I am, I hope you’ll give our Youtube Channel a like, share some video and even play our Demo. And if you’re new to the series, I hope what we’ve crafted here will interest you enough to give it a try.
I’m happy to have made it this far with Colony Wars: Redux. I’d be lying if I said some of the story elements didn’t play a role in shaping the vision of The Amaranth Chronicles. But then again, all great things share common threads…
