Back in 2003 I saw the early versions of Prison Architect and I really digged the simplicity of the artstyle and that influenced this little thing for sure. Desert Rats is basically a predecessor of my Nitro Acid concept. The idea is pretty much the same but this prototype was developed using Virtools. It is a survival action top down shooter where the player would explore the environment on foot or driving a vehicle searching for supplies. I implemented a basic day & night cycle in addition to looting, driving and shooting mechanics.

As I was working on desert rats using Virtools an engine that was practically already dead for years I thought it was time to move on and pickup Unity. My firsts steps with Unity where not very successful and I was pretty frustrated about that. I just could not get close to what I was able to do with Virtools given the fact I had years of experience with it. So I buried this game and started with something simpler, a small little training project to get comfortable with Unity which then became Cyberpunk 3776.

I even went so far making a level builder for desert rats where I could place loot spots, props , buildings, lights, vehicles and spawn triggers which then could be saved and loaded by the maingame.