Description

Break thru walls, tear down buildings, and send structures crashing into each other in Instruments of Destruction, a vehicle-action game featuring advanced physics-based destruction. Pilot a variety of vehicles across dozens of missions and high score challenges in this highly-interactive world.

History

Working on Red Faction

After starting his career in games in 1997, Luke Schneider first worked as the lead Red Faction II multiplayer designer while part of Outrage Games in 2002. A couple years later, he joined Volition as a designer on The Punisher, then started to work on Red Faction: Guerrilla in late 2004 (the 4th member of the team at the time). He continued to work on RFG and its DLC for the next 5 years, both as lead tech designer and lead multiplayer designer. About 6 months after last working on RFG, Luke left Volition to form Radiangames, a one-man independent studio.

Post-Speed Demons

Nearly 10 years later, Luke was beginning a big new project and had to choose between a variation of Speed Demons (racing with an overhead viewpoint) or a destruction-based game. He prototyped both for a short while and decided on the destruction game. After getting the initial structure system implemented without too much trouble, the next big decision was what the moment-to-moment gameplay would be.

OR-BE

While messing around with different ideas, using a rolling sphere to smash through the buildings and use a vortex to pull the debris towards the sphere was quite fun, so Luke continued that direction for a few weeks, with the sphere morphing into an Obliteration Robot: Ballistic Edition. OR-BE gained many powers, including a Katamari-like ability to absorb broken pieces into a larger and larger ball of debris. A couple different control types were attempted, and it was pretty fun to smash through walls, jump high in the air and slam down, and use collected debris to take down other buildings.

The Missing Replayability

But something was missing, and Luke was distressed by the lack of replayability outside of the destruction itself being satisfying. The setting itself was also unclear, and the art direction wobbled between cel-shaded-like visuals and a simpler direction. After some hesitation, Luke went in the direction of making OR-BE himself more complex, and using physics-based attachments instead of choosing various upgrades from a grid of possible powers and modifiers. The difficulties in taming the physics system and combining parts into one cohesive unit would be the largest technical challenge the game would face, but slowly the problems were overcome.

Robots vs. Monsters

At this time, Luke was also discussing the game with a potential partner. In one of the calls, the partner mentioned robots weren't particularly appealing to a lot of people and would pose marketing challenges. They asked if monsters or medieval contraptions were be a better fit. Luke's preferred solution came to him while driving a couple days later. Construction vehicles were a perfect fit for the theme and direction of the game, and he'd enjoyed doing the 3D modeling on Speed Demons (another vehicle-heavy game). Throw the destroyable buildings onto an island so there's some danger/tension from falling into the water, and the final direction for Instruments of Destruction seemed obvious in retrospect (the name took a few weeks to decide on).

A Perfect Fit For Early Access

Though the partnership didn't work out, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because of the platform constraints it would have meant. The obvious target platform for the game was PC and Steam Early Access, and Luke was now able to focus all his efforts on making Instruments of Destruction the best it could be on one platform. Vehicle building games are highly-replayable and have been one of the standout genres in terms of their fit with Early Access, and the addition of an advanced physics-based destruction means there are even more possibilities to explore.

A Pivot Towards Destruction (and Vehicles)

Though the game received 94% positive reviews on Steam, it was also getting a relatively high return rate (16%). The most consistent feedback was the game wasn't what players expected. They wanted to just drive cool vehicles and blow stuff up. Building vehicles is an intensive and difficult task for many people, and throughout Early Access, the vehicle build mode was becoming more powerful, but not easier to use. Even easy-to-use vehicle editors still have a couple inherent difficulties for players to overcome: It's difficult to come up with cool/fun vehicle ideas, and it's difficult to make them work (in terms of design, engineering, and physics). Doing so is very rewarding, but it's also a very different kind of fun than many players wanted.

So the game's focus shifted in 2023, though it'd take until version 1.0 for that full shift in focus to be realized. While the vehicle building is still present and more powerful than ever (and the focus of an epilogue campaign), it's now a bonus to the main game: Piloting over 100 unique vehicles in a 50+ mission campaign. Instruments of Destruction is now primarily focused on delivering a variety of vehicles for the player to pilot, where each mission uses a different vehicle, and every mission also provides a secondary challenge mission with another unique vehicle. In addition, there are 24 more bonus vehicles, and 13 more-relaxing bonus missions where the player gets to choose which vehicles to pilot. [NOTE: Players can actually pilot any vehicle in any mission *after* completing them with 3 stars, or even build their own.]

Features

• ADVANCED PHYSICS-BASED DESTRUCTION - You can demolish every structure in the game piece by piece. In addition, every object you see in the game world is part of the physics system. Each element of the world interacts with each other and together they create a physical, visceral world to play with.
• TWO CAMPAIGNS - The main campaign takes around the world and beyond with over 50 action-packed missions and tons of vehicles to pilot. The optional secondary campaign teaches you to build vehicles of your own across 25+ missions.
• OVER 100 VEHICLES TO PILOT - Pilot over 100 unique vehicles, from basic Bulldozers and Excavators, to heavily armed tanks and cannons, to devastating mechs and helicopters, to even more insane vehicles that defy description.
• BUILD UNIQUE VEHICLES - In the secondary campaign, you can build a vehicle your way, with an ever-expanding array of parts and pieces. Using a powerful vehicle construction system that also lets you customize your vehicles' appearance and controls, you'll always have fun creating your next awesome invention.
• SANDBOX MODE - Jump into one of 10 maps designed for Sandbox play (also seen in the campaign as bonus missions), along with 53 main campaign maps and 28 secondary campaign maps. Build your own, use any unlocked vehicle, or download from a library of thousands on the Steam Workshop. No objectives or limits, just freeform fun and experimentation.