Some facts about the sandy diner (Patreon)

Today, I'm going to tell you some interesting (or not so interesting) facts about my latest completed location, the sandy diner “Dikke Flamingo”. By the way, I made a post about this location right here a long time ago! You know, behind every location, even the smallest one, there is always a story and some interesting details that an attentive player can notice. Ready?

1) When creating this location, I was inspired by two things: first, it's a map from Overwatch. I've never played Overwatch, but I know that one of its maps has a retro diner (I think the map is called Route 66, but I could be wrong). When I saw this map in an 18+ video (I don't watch other Overwatch videos), I immediately decided I wanted one! The second source of inspiration is the Mad Max universe. Yes, it's about an arid post-apocalypse, Australian sand dunes, dried-up seas, cool custom cars built from scrap metal, and colorful chases with explosions and gunfire. I really love the first two films with Mel Gibson, the 2015 Mad Max with Tom Hardy, and the 2015 game. So my diner ended up buried under tons of sand, and the main character will have to do some cleaning up to be able to explore it. But unfortunately, or fortunately, Immortan Joe won't be hunting the main character, and Max won't give her a ride in his Interceptor;

2) So why are all the inscriptions in the diner in Dutch, except for the retro posters, which remain in English? The thing is, a few years ago, when I was just starting to create game locations, I decided that the main character would find herself in a place where she would get lost because she didn't know the language. To solve this problem, the player would have to find a dictionary for their character, this is a part of the gameplay. So I asked a friend who has been living in Holland for over ten years for help, and she agreed to translate all the necessary text for me. Do you know Dutch? I don't, for example. And none of my friends know it (except for one). I decided that a retro diner located somewhere in an alternate Holland would be a very suitable place for the main character to get lost for a while and think about how to overcome the language barrier. But you may ask me: what if the game itself is translated into Dutch, and Faeena learns to speak it? Most likely, the game will not be translated into Dutch, as well as into many other languages. I don't have the money to pay for translators, so the range of languages available for the game will be limited. Of course, there will be Russian and English. There will be no voice acting, only text;

Today, I'm going to tell you some interesting (or not so interesting) facts about my latest completed location, the sandy diner “Dikke Flamingo”. By the way, I made a post about this location right here a long time ago! You know, behind every location, even the smallest one, there is always a story and some interesting details that an attentive player can notice. Ready?

1) When creating this location, I was inspired by two things: first, it's a map from Overwatch. I've never played Overwatch, but I know that one of its maps has a retro diner (I think the map is called Route 66, but I could be wrong). When I saw this map in an 18+ video (I don't watch other Overwatch videos), I immediately decided I wanted one! The second source of inspiration is the Mad Max universe. Yes, it's about an arid post-apocalypse, Australian sand dunes, dried-up seas, cool custom cars built from scrap metal, and colorful chases with explosions and gunfire. I really love the first two films with Mel Gibson, the 2015 Mad Max with Tom Hardy, and the 2015 game. So my diner ended up buried under tons of sand, and the main character will have to do some cleaning up to be able to explore it. But unfortunately, or fortunately, Immortan Joe won't be hunting the main character, and Max won't give her a ride in his Interceptor;

2) So why are all the inscriptions in the diner in Dutch, except for the retro posters, which remain in English? The thing is, a few years ago, when I was just starting to create game locations, I decided that the main character would find herself in a place where she would get lost because she didn't know the language. To solve this problem, the player would have to find a dictionary for their character, this is a part of the gameplay. So I asked a friend who has been living in Holland for over ten years for help, and she agreed to translate all the necessary text for me. Do you know Dutch? I don't, for example. And none of my friends know it (except for one). I decided that a retro diner located somewhere in an alternate Holland would be a very suitable place for the main character to get lost for a while and think about how to overcome the language barrier. But you may ask me: what if the game itself is translated into Dutch, and Faeena learns to speak it? Most likely, the game will not be translated into Dutch, as well as into many other languages. I don't have the money to pay for translators, so the range of languages available for the game will be limited. Of course, there will be Russian and English. There will be no voice acting, only text;

3) How does the main character end up in such a strange place, thousands of kilometers from her forest and clan? Well, I don't want to spoiler it too much, so I'll just say one thing: portals. Yes, interdimensional rifts are always a great way to whisk your characters to places impossible to reach by traditional means. And so, in one level, Faeena will use portals that take her to several very different, yet very interesting, places!

4) This mini-location will be the only place in the game without any NPCs, not even animals or birds. All visitors, workers, cashiers, and others, upon learning of the approaching sandstorm, fled in haste, abandoning their belongings. Faeena will be exploring the chaos and disorder alone, which will be depressing for her, as she is a very social dryad who hates being alone;

5) Most of the meshes for this cafe have a unique texture - a sandy coating that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game. Sand is everywhere, wouldn't it be Anakin Skywalker's nightmare? However, our heroine doesn't seem to mind the sand at all, even though she's lived in the forest her whole life. I also plan to add a fun animation of her shaking off sand every time she leaves the mini-location (yes, she'll be bouncing back and forth between different locations throughout the level to complete the story quest);

By the way, another location where Faeena appears through portals is the sci-fi factory I made a long time ago. The third location is the library-museum, also already finished. So, the entire level is almost ready!

That's all I wanted to say about this diner. It's an unusual place, abandoned due to a natural disaster, thousands of kilometers from the main character's home. Thank you for your attention, and stay in touch.