Backstory & Mapping Progress news

Hey everyone, Spencer here.

I thought I would give a quick overview of the back-story for the world of Tension.

Tension is set in the aftermath of catastrophic climate change. Upon the greenhouse effect reaching its apex, polar ice has diminished entirely and the oceans have ascended so tremendously that only the peaks of the Earth's most colossal mountains remain above sea level.

Foreseeing the overwhelmingly-drastic effects The Flood, as it later would become known, would have on the planet, world governments recognized the inevitability of the human population's decimation. Cooperating in an effort to create microcosms of human society designed to endure the reshaping of the Earth, the expedient construction of “peak cities” began preemptively. These safe-havens, located atop the world's highest summits, became the last, desperate hope of survival mankind had left, as the new climate conditions in these locations made them reasonably inhabitable.

Intended to be inherently self-sustaining, peak cities were built to operate entirely independent of now inaccessible, pre-Flood resources. Petroleum, timber, and standard farming techniques now stood fully replaced by solar, tide and wind power, ore, oceanic float-farming and the like. The fruits of the most extraordinary advances modern science could yield were employed in the design of the peak cities, and amidst the worldwide panic, they were a promising escape from the impending Flood.

But it was clear only a meager fraction of the world's populace could be accommodated by the peak cities. They soon became grossly overpopulated; droves of desperate refugees flocked to them and forcibly settled. Now decrepit, volatile and beyond the power of the standing governments to manage directly, the cities fell under capitalistic control, where resources, goods and services dictate a person's worth. Distribution of basic survival necessities is under control of both government and entrepreneurial entities.

As the protagonist in Tension, you take on the role of an operative in a squad of technologically-equipped mercenaries employed to address the ever-increasing civil-unrest in the peak cities.

However, I cannot divulge anything more than that. Alex and Cooper have more updates below.

-Spencer

Hey all, it's Alex

I know it's been a while since our last update, but we are all simply very busy with our lives outside of amateur game development. Although it may seem like we are dead sometimes, have a little faith, heck sometimes we are just so focussed on Tension we forget to update.

Anyways on to the video, this quick video basically shows off some of the newer island maps we are working on and how we are progressing from a style standpoint. We are getting the hang of making something pleasing to look at and even more pleasing to play.

Map Progression
Note: Epic nerd voice at 28 seconds =]

We hope to keep developing the style piece by piece until a more polished game slowly emerges from the orange rubble. As always any input in the the form of comments,messages or E-Mail is appreciated!

- Alex