Last month we introduced the second installment of Chicken Police to the world! The reveal of Chicken Police – Into the HIVE! was accompanied by a neat reveal trailer that I'm sure you've already seen, but just in case you haven't, you can find it here:
In this blog we'd like to take you through the birth (hatching?) of Chicken Police, how we the idea came to fruition, a bit about the world of Chicken Police and the making of the reveal trailer. Let's get started!
The Master Plan
The idea for Chicken Police started more than 10 years ago. Our two main characters, the titular "Chicken Police" Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken, were hatched very early on, but a lot was still very much a blur. What media are we going to use? What style will it have? First, it was going to be a comic book, then an animated film, then even an idea of a grand novel started to take shape, until we realized that it had to be a game. It was as if we were struck by lightning!
Years later, here we are again. We just announced the second Chicken Police game, Chicken Police - Into the HIVE!. It's a surprisingly dark and mature, but equally weird and funny adventure. How did we get to this point? Well... it was a cluckin' challenging journey.
But the most important question is - what exactly is this game, and why does it even exist? Why would someone make a game with 3D and 2D photo-manipulation techniques, weird anthropomorphic characters, colorless and set in a fictional film-noir inspired world? Who would be interested in such a strange mixture? Well... that was the question we were NOT looking to answer. We just set out to make the game of our dreams.
The Wilderness, Clawville and the Hive
The world of The Wilderness is a fictional world populated by animals. With a thousand years of history, this world has its own religions, politics, and cultures. While the world – and our stories – are inspired by American film noir from the 1940s, we've expanded it to create a world that is truly ours. At the heart of it all, we have Clawville, the city where the story of Into the HIVE! begins.
The world of The Wilderness is a fictional world populated by animals. With a thousand years of history, this world has its own religions, politics, and cultures. While the world – and our stories – are inspired by American film noir from the 1940s, we've expanded it to create a world that is truly ours. At the heart of it all, we have Clawville, the city where the story of Into the HIVE! begins.
The Reveal
Chicken Police – Into the HIVE! will be full of heart and humor. Full of colorful and exciting characters. Above all else though, it's a NOIR story, all capital letters. So when we started outlining the basics of our debut trailer, one thing was for sure: it had to be slow but meaningful. And dark. And someone had to get hurt. Our heroes had to jump into action, as if they had nothing to lose, even if we know they definitely have something to lose. These were our basic ideas, and with the story of the game already established, we knew exactly who our characters would be. Who's going to shoot... and who will take the bullet.
Well... all of these ideas were nice and all, but the implementation was less obvious. We used photos and 2D animations to create the characters, in combination with fully 3D models posed from photo references we made ourselves. The backgrounds were also created using a combination of 2D technologies (photos, painted parts) and 3D renders. As an example, the city in the last shot and all the car scenes are entirely 3D, while some other shots have both 2D and 3D elements in combination with live action footage.
There were some parts that we recorded with actual real live footage that had the feel of the old FMV cut scenes of games like Tex Murphy and such. These were recorded during long and often quite absurd photo shoots.
But what's an exciting reveal trailer without fantastic music, a heart-pounding trumpet, and tense piano melodies? Well, simply not as exciting! Music and sound is an important cornerstone for the trailer, and the game as a whole. There is no better way to set the right mood for what's happening on screen! Sonny Featherland is voiced by the brilliant actor Kerry Shale, and the music and soundtrack are made by Strayboom.
Last, but definitely not least, came the magic of post-effects and video editing, which really brought together a mixture of a hundred different techniques in a fantastic way, and created the visuals and atmosphere we had been trying to achieve from the initial visions and sketches.
So that's all for today! There are plenty more blogs like this coming, in which we talk about what you can expect Chicken Police – Into the HIVE! and show what it's like behind the scenes. If you'd like to stay up to date and support us leading up the the release, be sure to wishlist the game: Store.steampowered.com
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PS. As a thank you for reading the blog, here's a picture of Mr. Cute!
