Acknowledgment to Studio ZA/UM (Disco Elysium) for inspiring this post with their own and to mobygames for cataloguing a number of old box arts.
Over the years we have received questions from various people asking where Brigador: Up-Armored Edition came from. If you really want narrow it down to a single genre, were okay with being dropped into the Cassette Futurism bucket but we think it better to give you a list of further reading.
The following is not a comprehensive inventory of every piece of media weve ever consumed, but it should give you an idea of where Brigador came from and might just introduce you to something new.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/274500/

GAMES
Despite appearances, Brigador is
not an homage to either EAs
Strike Series of games or
Future Cop: LAPD. We have nothing against them; weve just never played either. Here are the video games we have played, and are still available to purchase and play on modern operating systems via the magic of DOSBox.

Enormously influential real time strategy. Sometimes we boot it up to hear the eight-minute loop of music again.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest PC games of all time, Star Control II weaved its lore in with its gameplay. Brigador attempts to recreate both, and was inspired by its balance systems in that even the smallest ships could take on much larger opponents.


An EA game we did play. Featured destructible environments, incredibly awkward controls (by modern standards) and live action FMV. Were still getting round to doing the last one.
TV

Legend has it Miami Vice was concepted on a memo that merely read MTV cops. Highly stylized. It was host to
an absurd number of celebrity guests over its five seasons, along with some of the best music on television.
FILM

Were big fans of John Carpenter and are honored to be living in the time period as he.
[previewyoutube=GnyNW8fvRrw;full][/previewyoutube]Mood, Vangelis, worldbuilding where to start?

Everything about
the first ten minutes of Lynchs Dune left a strong impression.

Have you got a 27B/6?

Ron Cobbs work on the first film cannot be overstated and both movies are always worth a rewatch.

Among other things meticulous thought is given to the settings infrastructure and logistics, and how the mechs are transported and deployed. This aspect is not made explicit in Brigador, but it greatly informs the games level design.
MUSIC
Did you know
John Carpenter is an accomplished electronic musician on top of directing some of the best films ever made? His music work informed the atmospherics and tone of Brigador. Heres
a Spotify link to his work.
Speaking of playlists, Brigadors campaign mission names are all directly inspired by specific tunes, which weve
collected into one 51-track playlist here.
BOOKS
Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism by Stephen Graham

Essential in thinking about how policies, politics and warfare play out in space, which is something we wanted to reflect in Brigador. Divisions of space, of "real" cities and "illegitimate" squatter constructions directly influenced how Solo Nobre has very dramatic and physical borders delineating the haves and the have-nots.

Obligatory for many games but especially so for Brigador.

The Lieutenant Fick portrayed in Generation Kill by Wright ended up writing his own, very moving book dramatizing the soldier's perspective.

Vital in making sure that even the Brigadors had identifiably human traits.
ARTISTS
Katsuhiro tomo
[previewyoutube=CCMLLBS2PSg;full][/previewyoutube]Best known for Akira, but for our purposes please refer to the
Memories anthology from 1995, specifically
"Magnetic Rose", and the
A Farewell to Weapons short from 2013.
Kow Yokoyama

Last and by no means least: the patron saint of kitbashing. The games various vehicle designs all draw heavy inspiration from Yokoyamas work.
Here is a primer on Maschinen Krieger/SF3D.
[ 2022-09-26 17:00:50 CET ] [ Original post ]