Right out of the gate, SpeedTree is starting to show up in some great looking games being developed in Unity 5. P.A.M.E.L.A. was one of the games featured in Unity 5’s showcase reel at their Tuesday morning GDC announcement. P.A.M.E.L.A. is NVYVE Studio’s first project, an open-ended survival horror game that that builds on the team’s background of creating compelling environments. Its unique visual style utilizes all that the new Unity 5 engine has to offer, including SpeedTree for their foliage.
Working in one room, NVYVE Studios are four programmers and artists who have branched off of NVYVE, which uses Unity to create interactive architectural and product visualization. Drawing visual cues from games like Mass Effect and Mirrors Edge, P.A.M.E.L.A. takes place in a massive floating city with environments ranging from the brightly lit mall to dark nightclubs and wooded areas. The GDC demonstration hooked us in with its visuals and after hearing more about the game and the dystopia they are creating, we were even more intrigued.
The premise is thus: an artificial intelligence awakens, cures, and releases you into the pristine future city Eden, but you are not alone. The city is filled with infected citizens who aren’t too happy that you’re awake and pose a constant danger. This might all seem very familiar, if not for the unique approach to designing the world of Eden. One of the foundations of the horror genre is the corruption of the familiar. The family home becomes a death trap, the child’s doll becomes a possessed murder, the underwater utopia becomes a waterlogged nightmare; it’s a time-honored premise. In most games, the common practice is to place you within an environment that is covered in gore or crumbling architecture to create a dark mood. P.A.M.E.L.A. reverses this premise, placing you instead in a world of gorgeous architecture and lush environments. This can create a tension between the beauty of your surroundings and the horror that takes place inside its walls. Eden is a dystopia, just one that is better maintained than most.
NVYVE Studio is using a combination of our SpeedTree Assets and our modeler for the trees in Eden and is a great example of SpeedTree’s integration into Unity 5. P.A.M.E.L.A. is still very early in its development, but the team is hoping for a 2016 release. We look forward to seeing how this project continues to grow!
