Devlog #3 — Two Factions, One War
Building an RTS from scratch — one session at a time
It's been a big week for VICI: Ashfall. When I wrote devlog #2, the game had one faction, placeholder sprites, and a flat grey background. This week everything changed.
Two factions are now fully playable. The map has a real look. And I opened Blender for the first time.
Let's get into it.
Choose Your Faction
The biggest feature this week is the faction select screen. Before you load into the game, you now choose your side — The Architects or The Remnants. Each faction gets their own buildings, their own units, and their own playstyle.
The blue vs orange split isn't just visual — it tells the whole story of the two factions at a glance. Cold and precise on the left. Rusted and aggressive on the right.
The Architects
"Order from chaos. Strength from design."
The Architects are the turtle faction. They build slowly, spend heavily, but their units hit hard and their defenses are nearly impenetrable. They believe the Collapse was necessary — a painful reset that only they have the discipline to rebuild from correctly.
Unit roster:
Rifleman, Grenadier, Sniper, Engineer, Rocket Soldier
Tank, APC, Artillery, Missile Vehicle, Scout Tank, Transport
Their aesthetic is cold geometric grey with blue energy accents — clean, precise, military.
The Remnants
"We survive. We adapt. We endure."
The Remnants are the swarm faction. Cheap, fast, aggressive. They don't have the Architects' firepower but they can flood the battlefield before the enemy has time to react. They scavenged what they could after the Collapse and built an army out of rust and fire.
Unit roster:
Infantry, Grenadier, Rocket Soldier
Tank, MG Vehicle, Missile Vehicle, Shotgun Buggy, Scout, Transport, Salvage Crawler
Their aesthetic is rust, orange fire, patchwork metal — jury-rigged and dangerous.
Meet the Heroes
Every faction has a hero unit — one per mission, deployed once, cannot be retrained. Death means mission failed. They're inspired by Tanya from C&C Red Alert — powerful enough to turn the tide, precious enough to make you sweat every decision.
Mara — Remnants Commander
Mara is the heart of the Remnants campaign. Weathered, pragmatic, ruthless when she needs to be. Rust coat, orange goggles, a rifle that's seen better days but still hits harder than anything the Architects can field.
Her abilities:
Fire Strike — calls in a fire bombing run on a target area
Rally — nearby Remnants units get a temporary attack and speed boost
Salvage — instantly repairs a damaged friendly vehicle
Director Vael — Architects Commander
Director Vael believes the Collapse was inevitable. Necessary. He doesn't mourn the billions lost — he sees it as a hard reset that only the disciplined deserve to survive. Caped geometric armor, glowing blue laser rifle, and the kind of cold certainty that makes him terrifying to fight against.
His abilities:
EMP Pulse — disables all enemy vehicles in an area temporarily
Shield Deploy — places a temporary energy shield on a target building
Precision Strike — a long range instant-kill shot on a single target
Hero implementation is coming soon. For now they exist as concept art and campaign backstory — but they'll be on the battlefield before the demo.
The Map
The grey cracked ground is gone. The game now runs on a proper hand-painted map — a transition zone between wasteland and lush green territory.
This is Map 5 from the campaign arc — the pivot point where both factions are fighting over contested ground. Wasteland on one side, paradise on the other. The Remnants base sits in the rocky ash zone. The Architects base is in the green.
It's not a final map — proper maps with chokepoints and resource placement are coming once I get into the map editor phase. But it already tells a story just by looking at it.
I Opened Blender
I've been putting it off. But this week I just opened it and started.
One hour later I had a tank. It's not textured. It's not detailed. But it's recognizably a tank, it's mine, and it proved something important — it is possible to start creating 3d models in blender.
The plan is to model all units and buildings in Blender at a 30-degree isometric angle, render them with transparent backgrounds, and drop them straight into Godot. Same filenames means zero code changes — just a visual upgrade.
The Luma concept art becomes the reference. The Blender model becomes the game asset. And because I render at whatever resolution I need, the assets will look sharp on any screen.
This is going to take time. But it's started.
What's Next
AI opponent — the enemy needs to actually build and attack
Proper map — using a map editor to build a real level with chokepoints
Blender pipeline — first complete unit rendered and in game
Fog of War — after the AI is working
The demo target is still Year 1. One session at a time.
VICI: Ashfall is being built solo by a developer from Belgium with no prior coding experience. Follow the journey on Twitter/X and Bluesky, and read all devlogs at vici-ashfall.hashnode.dev.
Tags: gamedev, indiedev, godot, rts, indiegame, devlog