Making an exploration game [tribute game] Tips?

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Good evening,

Let me introduce myself my name is Jordy,

As everyone here I have this big dream of a game I want to make; and perhaps as always to big? I have experience in 3d modelling with gmax for train simulator and I love making scenery and certain enviroments, but there was one place that inspired me the most; and a sad story since that place is being demolished for the most part: Hasard Cheratte. Once I have visited this place I always wonder why so little was done with it, but when I thought about it is is quite obvious… the place is big and full of details.
Here are a few IRL pictures of the setting, for more search Cheratte, Belgium at google maps or earth… it even has it’s own streetview inside now.







Idea of the game is that you explore the abandoned mine and uncover artifacts, do mini games and such to unlock more of the mine to explore until at the end you enter the shaft itself.

Anyway I started a few tutorials on the left on right and so far it works out, but I do notice that it still feels like I am delving to deep into some things. But I atleast got somewhere haha

So my question is for; the result I want; where do I look first? Except for my gmax experience I don’t got much on Unity or javascript. And considering the large classical looks of the buildings making hallways and windows will be a tad tougher than just making squares so how do you guys make complex building? Any tips or tricks will be great :slight_smile:

Best regards and good evening,

from Jordy Smeets

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If you have photos or physical access to the place I would suggest Photogrammetry to build accurate models and textures, then populate the scene in Unity and bake all of the lighting statically. Gmax isn’t really going to cut it if you want something really good, so you’ll have to get familiar with PBR pipelines and related softwares.

For the most part with an exploration game you really don’t need any programming. If you have some time you can learn PlayMaker and basically make little node based logic controllers to handle things like picking up artifacts or doing a simple inventory or whatever - without bothering to learn C#.

The majority of work will be in the art assets and the graphics within Unity. It’s unlikely that you’ll need significant resources outside of what stock Unity offers (compute shaders, etc) for a basic exploration game so it all boils down to how good you can make the art content look. There are loads of tutorials in the Learn section of the unity website that cover almost everything you’ll need to know.

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