Hello! I’m a professional environment artist in the game industry and I’ve spent the last year or so going through the streets of Sofia on google maps, gathering general reference from all corners of the internet to make an authentic setting for my new Half-Life: Alyx level. [Screenshots are here](https://imgur.com/a/3YgOw0K).
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Anyway I’ve already constructed a good portion of the level and while chunks of it are obviously westernized to a degree I’d like to see what I can do to make it more authentic.

For context for those who don’t know – Half-Life: Alyx is a VR game set in a non-descript post apocalyptic city (inspired by Sofia, Bulgaria) 15 or so years after transdimensional aliens have enslaved the earth. The year is sometime around 2015 and humanity is a shell of itself, and 90% of the human population has been culled in some fashion and the rest are enslaved. Thus structures like this school have long fallen into ruin and decay.

I was wondering if anybody had advice on things like signage, decor, or general aesthetic. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

4 comments

  1. As a Bulgarian im really impressed 🙂
    When are we expecting a demo to try it out ? Which reminds me I need to finally finish the main game.

  2. You could add portrait pictures on the walls. My school used to have ones of Bulgarian revolutionaries like Vasil Levski, Hristo Botev, Panayot Volov etc. Our biology rooms had jars with perserved animals in them, line snakes, frogs, fishes. The one that we used in 11th grade even had human embryos in the jars, dead serious here, no joking.

    Edit: There will also be posters with inspiring words and quotes from famous Bulgarians.

  4. Hi!

    Here is a [skit](https://youtu.be/m1Rxj_0MSCg) from the early 2000s. It’s made in a 2nd English Language High School in Sofia. The content is a joke, but you can see much of the school’s interior. I’m not sure it fits the age of the building you are making (yours looks like early communism architecture or even before, while this building is more like 70s-80s), but I hope it can still be helpful.

    Another thing that comes to mind is some art in my elementary school back in the 90s – [1](https://registarnauchilishtata.com/s/78-Sredno-Uchilishte-Hristo-Smirnenski-Bankya-1b.webp), [2](https://78su.net/uploads/2017/11/2343224017682549165206831537793340o.jpg). It’s a mural of the school’s patron – the poet Hristo Smirnenski, and it gives off very communist vibes, which are still common nowadays, and were prevalent in the 90s.

    Back then the desks looked like [this](https://www.informiran.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/%D1%83%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%89%D0%B5-%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B7%D1%8A%D0%BC-730×548.jpg) (students used to “engrave” stupid shit on them), and we were using only blackboards and chalk – white boards and markers weren’t a thing yet.

    If there is something, in particular, you are interested in, hit me up, I’ll try to help.

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