Kingdom Conquest: Dark Empire was a fantasy real time strategy game for iOS and Android that was being developed by SEGA Hardlight.
I worked with Hardlight as a Contract Senior Artist to develop this series of tower assets that could be contested and won by the player from other players or NPC's. Once the player had won a tower they would control that portion of the surrounding map and secure an advantage in conquering that region as well as improve their own stats, skills and abilities.
Hardlight's brief was that the towers should have a skill level to assist the player in deciding whether to attempt to claim it and that that skill level should be reflected in each tower's visual style. This meant creating 6 unique structures that became more fortified and complex in structure than the last, with Level 1 being a wooden structure through to Level 6 which was constructed from Iron and Stone.
Level 1 - Wooden Tower
Level 2 - Fortified Wood & Rock
Level 3 - Wood and Brick
The towers were modelled and textured using 3Ds Max and Photoshop before being lit and rendered in Max with Mental Ray. The renders were then used as sprites in Unity. This workflow meant that there were no limits in terms of geometry, lighting and texture resolution. As each environmental asset would often be rendered relatively small onscreen, various details were enlarged to add character and narrative.
Level 4 - Brick
Level 5 - Fortified Brick & Iron
Level 6 - Iron and Stone
Development on Kingdom Conquest: Dark Empire was largely complete with the title even entering soft launch in North America and Japan. Despite the game being extremely well received by players, the project was cancelled in Q2 2018 and it remains uncertain whether the game will be picked up again by SEGA at this point.
