Dev Diary – August 2020

[FluffyComeHome]

We are with you 100%

Thank you for letting us know and for taking care of your employees/company the way that you do. Glad to hear everyone is safe and healthy and I hope that continues!

TLD fans will continue to support you while we all work through these crazy times together. We would rather everyone be safe and wait until you have a product you are happy to share with us. :)

Cheers

[Admin]

Thank you for all the great feedback so far.

Just as a point, please when referring to COVID-19 use that name or the more general "Coronavirus". Calling it by highly politicized names or names that target a specific group are likely to get the conversation off topic.

[Karl Grylls]

I can't get rid of the impression that the prison looks like "not being plausible". First i thought it is a strange villa. Then i noticed the watchtower and the fence and thought of a prison. But what prison in the world has windows that large? 😬

Sorry for being negative again, but i just don't look correct to me. It' a mix between a villa and a prison and fits neither of them

Edited August 27, 2020 by Karl Grylls

[acada]

On 8/28/2020 at 8:26 PM, Dum_Gen said:

Yeah, for me it looks like a Gothic cathedral rebuilt into medieval castle to defend against foreign conquerors. And in modern times, fence and watchtowers were built to reuse the castle as a prison.

Not sure how it fits Canadian architecture though.

I think it was not cathedral. The shape is not church-like building. It seems like more fortress or something rebuilt to strange mansion. But hey, it seems like Great Bear is home for little bit excentric people, so the architecture can fit to taste one of them.

[Mistral]

I agree that the outlook doesn't fit the rest of the game... aesthetically I love style like this and I imagine it would look amazing on different lighting settings, but it still looks too fantasyish. However, even as it is it could be repurposed as a mansion (minus the fences), which could be at least semi-feasible even on Great Bear, if the thing was close to a town or airport or somethig.

[Valuable Hunting Knife]

38 minutes ago, Dum_Gen said:

I was thinking about Gothic cathedral because those Lancet windows are typical for Gothic churches, but not very useful as arrowslits. At the same time, the towers at the top don't have any arrowslits or embrasures that were typical for medieval fortresses, while merlons at the top were common for such fortifications.

Maybe the devs were inspired by The Ohio State Reformatory, which was used for filming of The Shawshank Redemption, or maybe Kingston Penitentiary from Ontario, as both prisons actually have those Lancet-like windows. 

(The Ohio State Reformatory).

that's a great spot- I did spend some time browsing through Canadian prison photos and general North American gothic architecture when the image was released, but that's a better match than anything I found.

 

It does have the feel of something repurposed- maybe an old Mounted Police outpost founded along with the first mining settlements on the island, that became obsolete and then was reused as a maximum security prison due to its remoteness?

 

 

 

[Karl Grylls]

ok, interesting they built prisons like that. I didn't expect that, but i still can't help that this doesnt fit

[velonews]

On 8/28/2020 at 2:26 PM, Dum_Gen said:

Not sure how it fits Canadian architecture though.

We know that Hinterland has taken inspiration from real-life entities on Vancouver Island in the past, so what if we google something like "Vancouver island prison" just for kicks?

Hmm, would you look at that!

It's the Vancouver Island Regional Correction Centre, constructed in 1914.

 

[velonews]

Some additional North American buildings in a similar style, and constructed around the same time:

Haydn Hall - 1901

Mather Memorial Building - 1911

Check out the windows on the Portsmouth Naval Prison - 1912

These are just ones that I was already familiar with because I've lived near them. I'm sure that if you researched, you could find ones specific to the Pacific Northwest.

Edited September 7, 2020 by velonews

[oplli]

On 8/22/2020 at 5:19 AM, nicko said:

Wow at first i thought castle, then seen the barbwire and tower guard so yeah must be the Prison. Looks awesome. Love the huge mountain behind. Will be interesting to see what other areas we get to explore. some more teaser photos soon maybe? Keep up the great work Hinterland.

i would like different mountain style depending on the regions. hushed river looks different than timebrwolf so it would be wonderful if blackrock too looks different 

[StoryAddict]

Altgough i can't wait for the next episodes to be released, I hope that the extended time will be spent on developing longer, more interesting story, than the E3 presented... I  really liked episodes 1 and 2. So yeah, I'd rather wait a bit longer but have a great experience in the end, so please take your time and give us something special this time

Edited October 12, 2020 by StoryAddict