I originally started learning Blender probably over a year ago, but never finished the snowman. I tried getting back on that horse last winter, but only made it through repeating the introduction to the UI and the basic tools to deform a cube over two days. But this week I got once again interested in texture painting rather than 3D modeling, and though I couldn’t find any good introduction or explanations for the kind of things I want to do specifically, enough little pieces of understanding some basic concepts fell out of the tiresome process that I thought I actually do already have all the pieces to at least get a rough model thrown together that I could do some painting practice on.

My plan was to see what I can accomplish with what I already know and only looking up what menu items or shortcuts I need to select to get the tools I already understood in 12 hours. There was a lot of trial and error throughout the morning, but after six hours I had this model finished, and never having done anything with texture painting before, I got this completed after only 9 hours.

And I think for the purposes of making assets for a game with the graphics style of Quake and Metal Gear Solid, this is already perfectly serviceable. There’s actually way too many polygons on this model.

I’m feeling really good about this. If this is any indication, I think with some practice it should be quite possible to eventually create a mid-scope asset like this with the right level of detail for Iridium Moons in two or maybe three hours. Making one after work and a couple on the weekends, and that would add up to quite a lot over a year.

Everything about Iridium Moons is all about wanting to make the things that I would love to have in a game, but nobody else seems to be making in the styles that I think would be the most amazing. As such, it’s greatly influenced by a number of older works that all contributed to shaping my image of the most wonderful game. With it probably still being many months until I have any images to share of my own creations, and possibly years until I could show any videos, I think that sharing the various works that inspire me and influence Iridium Moons the most might be a good way to give some kind of general idea of what I am trying to make.

Game Design Influences

• Fallout (1997)
• Thief (1998)
• System Shock 2 (1999)
• Deus Ex (2000)
• Morrowind (2002)
• Stalker (2007)

Very early on, when the vague idea of maybe making my own game coalesced into something of an actual concept, the thought that kept staying in the center of my ideas was “a game like Morrowind, but with game mechanics for exploring dungeons like in Thief”. And that’s been sticking around even when I decided to not go with a High Fantasy setting and go for a retro-futuristic Space Fantasy instead.

Even with modern tools and resources that are available for free, making a game with the size and amount of content of Morrowind by myself is out of the question if I want to release it somewhere in the next 25 years. But the same approach to towns and dungeons and NPC interactions would also work on a much smaller scope. In 24 years of playing that game, I still have never seen more than half of the map. I feel Fallout 1 and 2 are good examples of very similar quest design, storytelling, and open-world exploration, but at a much smaller scale. Making something that is the size of Fallout, but as a 3D ImSim instead of an Iso-RPG feels like something I could realistically complete.

And a good example of what that could look like is probably Stalker. Though that’s probably still more maps and larger maps than a completed Iridium Moons might have.

Visual Design Inspirations

• Moebius
• Ralph Bakshi
• Jim Henson
• Ralph McQuarrie
• The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
• Flash Gordon (1981)
• Return of the Jedi (1983)
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983)
• Dune (1992)
• The Dig (1995)
• Albion (1995)
• StarCraft (1998)
• Morrowind (2002)
• Knights of the Old Republic (2003)

Many movies and shows in the 80s had a really cool approach to depicting alien and fantastical environments that unfortunately disappeared in the 90s. Morrowind is the last popular example I can think of, and it’s the main thing that makes me love the game so much, even though I think its game design really isn’t very good. But this visual style was still around in many places when I was growing up, and I always thought it looks really cool. And we really need to see more of it again.

Music

Music is going to be the most difficult part for me because I won’t be able to make any myself, and the going rates for commissioning 30 minutes of music is more than I make in a year. Maybe there’s some future in which it could be crowdfunded, or by some miracle another hobbyist wants to donate some music that just fits my own idea of what the game should sound like. At this time, it’s impossible to say what’s going to happen in that regard, but here’s what I imagine playing in the background of Iridium Moons. Some of these are from sources that really aren’t great, but I think the composers at least did a wonderful job.

• The Empire Strike Back (John Williams, 1980)
• Return of the Jedi (John Williams, 1983)
• Dune (Toto, 1984)
• Ewoks: Battle for Endor (Peter Bernstein, 1985)
• Dune (Stéphane Picq, Philippe Ulrich, 1992)
• The Dig (Michael Land, 1995)
• Outcast (Lennie Moore, 1999)
• Tamriel Rebuild (ASKII, Rytelier, 2020)
• Rebel Moon (Tom Holkenborg, 2023)
• Dune: Awakening (Knut Avenstroup Haugen, 2025)