The Last Goodbye Act I - Prava Overture
The Last Goodbye is a pulp thriller running on the Goldsource engine. In the Gothic metropolis of Prava, the gun-for-hire Lucille - better known on the streets as The Banshee - takes a job from enigmatic entrepreneur Ark McLean. Her target: Bullseye, the deadliest gangster in town. On her travels through the criminal underworld she meets all manner of friends and foes, with plenty of action and intrigue along the way.
The opening four levels of Act I had to rapidly and confidently lay down the style of Prava. Across these levels the player visits a cathedral, two commercial areas and a residential street with an optional house to explore. The cathedral provides a backdrop for an action-packed opening sequence involving a shootout with several gangsters, and also setting up the mystery of what their larger goal is. After that, the player can relax and be drip-fed new plot-relevant information whilst they learn about the domestic and commercial sides to life in the city.
Research was conducted into different types of period architecture and several styles were mixed to evoke the feeling of Prava having a long cosmopolitan history. Neoclassicalism sat with Stalinist design, Haussmann, Art Deco and German Expressionism. A large library of reference images was assembled, bolstered by my own photgraphy.
The levels were lit in an expressionist manner, though player progression was also factored in. The usage of darkness and fog helped reduce the visual noise that comes with sharp photo materials used for the world textures. The colour palette of black shadows, blue fog and gold street lights reflected the Banshee herself. I was careful not to make the colours too vivid as a gaudy aesthetic would undermine the game's gritty tone (plus the game is intended to be played in black and white).
You can download the game here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-goodbye
Early concept art of Prava, painted over a photo of Vienna. Concept art was dropped early in pre-production in favour of directly working from real-world references.
Concept illustration based on Jindrisska Street in Prague. Prava's aesthetic included more science fiction and retrofuturist elements in the early days.
One of several locations featured in the opening montage sequence. The usage of vertical urban design was inspired by the film Dark City.
A municipal district. These montage locations initially started as prototype levels which were then imported into Blender and given appropriate lighting for a render. This render then had photographic elements overlaid in Photoshop.
A red light district with a canal (in the vein of Amsterdam) was an early goal, but the level was dropped and recycled into a cutscene backdrop after it became too unwieldy for Goldsource to handle.
Jindrisska Street was revisited for this scene, and features the only appearance of a tram. More were planned but it became hard to find space for them. The distant building at the back was based on the Power Tower in Prague.
The player's starting location is a cathedral. Due to level size limits the scale is far smaller than desired, it's more of a chapel than a cathedral.
Catacombs under the cathedral. The blue fire lighting may seem fantastical, but has scientific basis in the burning of certain sulfur compounds.
Storage room in the catacombs. The player is introduced to the concept of usable lights and the world map which shows TLG's unique setting.
Cathedral interior. The specific denomination of this establishment was never considered a priority, and the paintings depict Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox saints.
Drinkable holy water, confession booth and candles.
Cathedral nave. The bench models were a late addition, made for performance reasons.
Cathedral entrance. The style of the building as a whole was influenced more by technical limits than any specific aesthetic. It just had to be a church that fit in a certain space.
Cathedral graveyard. The gravestones were based on those seen in Prague's Vysehrad Cemetery and feature readable inscriptions.
The "sub-street", which was used as a buffer zone to space out the cathedral and the residential area.
The general aesthetic of this location was inspired by indoor shopping centers.
Burgundy Street was based directly on a real place I used to live in. The distant mural is also real, and taken from the large collection of photo references I had assembled during pre-production.
Some reference photos of the house exterior. This property is now abandoned to my knowledge.
Yard exterior, with front light active.
Front room. The player must break through the window to enter the building.
Kitchen. I was unable to take photos inside, so I had to rely on memory for the interiors.
The real house sported three bedrooms arraigned vertically on each floor. The windows looked out to a high street, but for optimization purposes I had to make the windows opaque.
It is a common theme in TLG for seemingly benign or cosy locations to have a dark twist, in this case a criminal agitator has acquired a gun and is planning something dangerous.
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) was a major influence on Prava's atmosphere.
Many different cities were referenced for TLG such as Prague, London, Vienna, Chicago, New York City, Budapest, Paris and in this case Edinburgh.
A red light district. Time and resources were saved on creating prostitute NPCs by having a character mention they prefer to stay inside for their own safety.
This location was build as a connective space, but became handy for promotional images due to its strong vertical composition.
Several areas in TLG were made by first creating each building individually (often modelled on real ones) and then arraigning them in interesting and dynamic layouts.
