Gladiator Trials II - Making Of

Gladiator Trials I
Late 2004 - Early 2005

If you've ever had an idea for a game and went to some internet forums posting about your great idea, you'll quickly come to the realization I was about to come to. It's almost impossible to get people onboard when you have nothing to offer them in return for their hard work, and when you manage to convince someone to join, it's even harder to keep them.

After posting on a forum asking for artists to help with my new idea for a game, I managed to snag a new artist who was willing to help bring my vision to life. Of course I was greatful for the effort he provided, he created a simple camp animation and a peasant model with a hand warming animation before dissappearing. It was with so much personal debate that I came to the conclusion to take on the task myself, and let me get this out there before anyone else.. "I am not an artist", you can quote that.

I remembered a program I had been messing around with years earlier and decided to see if it was still being supported. Sure enough, Poser was there to save the day. I know some people outright hate Poser, but given enough time and skill you can acheive some amazing results that barely resemble Poser. When I first started using it for Gladiator Trials, I had no idea what I was doing. You can easily tell from the early screenshots that I failed to take lighting into account or anti-aliasing.

Screenshot 3 shows off the new buildings (or areas as I referred to them in game) that I created in Poser. Most of the areas didn't really change much over time, in fact the graveyard that is visible in this screenshot was in GTII right up until a few weeks before release. The Inn and Bakery areas were actually one single area in the original game, peasants never ate and thirst/water wasn't around.

The GUI underwent dramatic change several times throughout the development of the game. Below are two screenshots (4 and 5) showing off the 2nd GUI, which lasted only a few months before being replaced. As you can see day and night was included in the game, with the edges of the GUI changing to represent the time of day. This was purely visual, and had no effect on the gameplay.