some of you may remember one of my WIP-postings a couple of years ago showcasing a level I had made for a small mod project called "Zeitgeist". If I remember that correctly, it was in 2008 or 2009; now it's 2012, and that mod project is being developed by a team of 14 artists and could probably end up being a full-grown HL2 total conversion.
The Story:
The story behind Zeitgeist takes place in the 1930s of a fictional time line. The 'Great War', as it is called, did not end in 1918; with the Lusitania not sunk, the Russian Revolution failed and Italy having left the Entente, the war lasted until 1929 when most of the reserves were gone and the continent's economy finally collapsed. Now, in 1934, a league of nations is about to be founded in London: an end to war and a solution to all the national conflicts.
Then, a terrible attack crushes the hopes of the european people in a heartbeat, and the next and probably final episode of the Great War seems inevitable. Peace now depends on Richard Czerny, a journalist who happens to bump into the terrorist right after he planted the bomb in the conference hotel. In a race against time, Czerny, wrongfully accused of being the terrorist himself, must defend himself against the police, a radical militia and an ancient secret organisation trying to keep the flames of war burning.
The Setting:
Zeitgeist features several European cities such as London, Prague and Venice. The fictional 1930s allowed us to place intact old towns, baroque and renaissance buildings next to modern art deco, art nouveau and bauhaus-architecture. Neon signs and imperial insignia might appear in the same scene, just as horse-drawn carriages, steam trains, Zeppelins and highly modern streamlined vehicles. In order to keep the technical and historical background's credibility high, we spent years on recherche and employ a trained transportation designer.
The Images:
As by now the number of finished or almost-finished levels has risen to almost four dozen, I'll try not to show more pictures than necessary to give you a first impression of the visuals we're trying to create for Zeitgeist.
I will regularly spam more images into this thread if you want me to ; ).
The Books:
I'm currently working on three novels about Zeitgeist. Actually, writing the books was only necessary for the creation of a plot and a cast for the game. Then it turned out to be more fun than I was hoping for, I developed a kind of workflow and now the first novel totalling 700 pages is mostly ready for printing. I am still looking for a publisher - in case I'll find a solution for that, I'll have the books translated into English by a professional. Naturally, there are lots of minor characters, locations and story twists that will not make it into the game because of their complexity and the enormous amount of time needed to include them, so reading the novels might be an option for those who'd like to know more about the story.
The Trailer:
The Zeitgeist prologue trailer. Thanks to Stefan Bermig for the Prussian P08!
Our Communities:
We are active in lots of different communities so we can maintain connections with other developers and creative artists all around the globe. Zeitgeist has the following communities, accounts and pages:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/zeitgeist
Our most regularly updated community; if you want to know more about the history of Zeitgeist's development, our "news" section is a perfect backlog with all the important updates between 2009 and today.
http://www.facebook.com/zeitgeist1934
The facebook page & group. Started only yesterday.
http://www.twitter.com/zeitgeist1934
I'm still too stupid to use that properly.
http://www.zeitgeist-thegame.de
The official Zeitgeist website featuring the Ouverture.
http://www.northcapestudios.com
Our showcase & studios website.
Last but not least: our Steam Community.
If you feel like wasting some time, please do visit us. I've got a feeling that we will need all the support we can get considering the dimensions of the project and the road that lies in front of us ; ).
