Taking to the Skies for the Last Phase of Closed Beta news - Iron Grip: Marauders

The Iron Grip: Marauders beta has been coming along very well. Our batch of testers added most recently, a group of one hundred, have been particularly diligent in their playing. We are, as always, looking for more as we enter our last phase of closed beta--so please sign-up!

Anyway, with that out of the way, let's look at the latest news from the Iron Grip: Marauders community team!

TAKING TO THE SKIES...

Recently, the developers passed a screenshot to me of something they've been working on. They're actual Iron Grip airships! I can't wait to see what this means for the strategy aspect of the game, flying and ground units should make it a much more well-rounded game. There's no real estimates on when they will be added in, but I do know they are being worked on right now.

THE DESIGNING OF THE TERROR WALKER

Recently, I got a chance to sit down with Tony--our concept and 3D artist at ISOTX. He's been sucked into the world of Iron Grip: Marauders lately and his updates some of my favorites from the dev team. He always has a new airplane, tank, or other vehicle to look at each week that's being reviewed to be added into the game. This is one he's particularly proud of: the Terror Walker. It's something of a staple to the IG series--if you've played our first commercial game, you saw a Walker and probably didn't live to talk about it--and he's bringing it to life for IG:M.

Anyway, without further ado, here's Tony's thoughts on how he designed the Walker for Marauders.

The Marauders player faction has a conceptual direction that applies to the design of vehicles, aircraft and walkers. The goal is to create the look of antique technology specifically for the Marauders, who are using old black-market equipment from Kathos and improvising their own variations and upgrades. One visual characteristic is to expose the mechanics, so you can see functional parts without coverings or body styling. Gears, drive belts, steam pistons, large joints that look like they can bear extreme loads, and crude or heavy over-built cast metal parts all give more detail and character to the design.

Another IG Universe characteristic I used in this design is the helicopter-style cockpit. This cockpit detail is important since these are low-tech machines with human pilots, not robots. I used a round gunner's window detail borrowed from the Russian Hind attack helicopter, since it looks like a cyclops eye when paired with arms and legs.

My original vision for this unit was a buffed aggressive hero unit, shooting from the hip to take on waves of enemies single-handed. To give the impression of massive firepower, I decided to go with dual over-sized Gatling canons. The gun's drive mechanisms are belt linked to the engine. The engine is quite powerful and has over-sized details on the piston valves. Having all these details exposed isn't really practical, but allows the moving parts to be animated so you see a buzz of clockwork parts, bringing the unit to life when it fires.

The Marauders player faction has a conceptual direction that applies to the design of vehicles, aircraft and walkers. The goal is to create the look of antique technology specifically for the Marauders, who are using old black-market equipment from Kathos and improvising their own variations and upgrades. One visual characteristic is to expose the mechanics, so you can see functional parts without coverings or body styling. Gears, drive belts, steam pistons, large joints that look like they can bear extreme loads, and crude or heavy over-built cast metal parts all give more detail and character to the design.

Another IG Universe characteristic I used in this design is the helicopter-style cockpit. This cockpit detail is important since these are low-tech machines with human pilots, not robots. I used a round gunner's window detail borrowed from the Russian Hind attack helicopter, since it looks like a cyclops eye when paired with arms and legs.

My original vision for this unit was a buffed aggressive hero unit, shooting from the hip to take on waves of enemies single-handed. To give the impression of massive firepower, I decided to go with dual over-sized Gatling canons. The gun's drive mechanisms are belt linked to the engine. The engine is quite powerful and has over-sized details on the piston valves. Having all these details exposed isn't really practical, but allows the moving parts to be animated so you see a buzz of clockwork parts, bringing the unit to life when it fires.