This one was strange. A game about escaping from a coffin and which you played from inside one. When I first read the press release for Rezzed I said to myself “No way in hell!” but this was my first Rezzed and if I didn’t do it I know I would’ve regretted it. Continue reading Rezzed 2015 – Taphobos
Tag: Interview
Rezzed 2015 – The Weaponographist
Every time I saw the booth for The Weaponographist there were three things in common: first, I couldn’t do anything but chuckle at the silly name. Second, Danny the developer was helping people play and offering commentary and talking to everyone around—he’s a really nice gent. And thirdly, it was full.
You see, Danny Garfield (one of the developers) from Puuba did something very interesting for his game. He put up a challenge: the best three times clearing the demo would get free games at the end of the day! When I spoke to him and tried my hand at the title a few times, I couldn’t beat even the lowest of record, while the guy next to me had already broken his own like four times. In fact, he came back the second and third day and did the same! By then he was playing at ludicrous speed!
The title came from a brainstorming session. Danny tells the story and I will paraphrase it as I didn’t have a recorder on me at the time: “So, me and Dave, the other full-time member of the team, were talking about t and throwing out names. At some point, I just said ‘The Weaponographist!” and he gave me a look and said ‘What does that even mean?’ I started thinking ‘He…draws…weapons? He draws weapons! Yes! That’s it!’ And the name stuck!”
The Weaponographist tells the story of Doug McGrave, famed demonslayer-for-hire. When he’s passing by a town, a Witch asks for his helps against a demon incursion but because she can’t pay his high fee, he refuses…so she curses him. The only way to lift the curse is to save the town. The problem is the curse itself. Everything he holds turns to dust eventually, from his weapons to his gold and even his experience level.
Because of this, the currency you use in-game is “Goop,” a weird secretion left by monsters. It’s not that it’s currency in the town but it’s what they’re willing to take from you in form of payment and as proof of your demon hunting. It ties nicely into the plot while still being completely disgusting! You’ll use Good to upgrade your basic combat skills by weapon categories, so that you get more out of your weapons next time you use them. You can also—Danny mentions—have someone lift bits of your curse, lowering the speed at which everything degrades.
The game handles a lot like the classic game Smash TV, a run-and-gun. You go through square rooms filled with enemies and once cleared you go on to the next until you reach the boss. At the start, you only have your fists as weapons but killing enemies will sometimes make them drop theirs for you to pick up. But be careful, because of the curse all weapons in your hands will degrade over time. Every attack drops the weapon’s durability by a given amount. It’s actually quite interesting how you need to strategically pick up items and make the most out of them before picking up another. Some weapons are much more powerful than others and will have fewer hit points. You can carry a main weapon and secondary ones, which tend to have very little health, but on the other hand, they’re pretty powerful. My favourite was Dog Collar because with it I left flaming patches on the ground wherever I went. It was so cool!
The demo only had the first stage of the game, a few rooms with random enemies and a badass T-Rex boss with pulsar cannons, but the enemy variety was clear right from the start. I must have fought over 20 unique enemies in that short demo, from Satyrs throwing their horns as boomerangs to mobsters with Tommy Guns, and it’s so much fun you won’t care about the anachronisms or the weird creatures. It’s just top-down killing fun!
I did mention to Danny it would be awesome if the bosses dropped weapons, similar to Dark Souls’ Boss Soul Weapons and he gave me a bit of a bewildered look and said, “That is actually an awesome idea…I think we can add that!” Good to know I could have some positive effect there.
The most interesting aspect of it all, for me, is the Combo System. Killing enemies starts up a combo, and the longer it goes, the higher your stats are. This is because your Combo is actually your character level, constantly degrading, so you need to keep it up with kills so it doesn’t go away. If it does (as it will at the start of every new run) then you’re back at level 1.
Danny describes the game as being Rogue-light. There is the death and upgrade mechanic we see in many rogue-likes but you don’t lose the character.
From a development standpoint I was curious about the game’s engine, thinking it would be another Unity title, but Danny surprised me by telling me the entire thing had been done in Java. They built their own engine and made the entire game for it, which is always awesome when you consider how small the team is: two developers/designers and about 4-5 artists working freelance.
The Weaponographist is coming out very soon. The demo hits in 3 weeks on Steam and the full release three weeks after that! For those of us who attended the event and played at the booth, there were flyers with an early access code to the demo. And you can bet your ass I’ll be streaming it soon to show you all just how fun this game is!
Rezzed 2015 – Zombie Vikings
You know, I’m happy I didn’t just keep to my schedule. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the chance to try Zombie Vikings with Zoink Games PR-Man Mikael Forslind. When I approached him and asked about the game, he immediately said, “Want to give it a go?”
How could I say no to that? So I took the 2nd gamepad and played a two-man coop with him, with another person joining us afterwards as we cruised through a couple of the demo levels killing monsters as our zombified Viking warriors while we spoke about the game and its development and everything else!
Zombie Vikings is a 2D sidescrolling beat-em-up in the same vein as Final Fight or Double Dragon where you control up to four undead Vikings, called into service by Odin himself. Loki has stolen his remaining good eye and made off with it for some nefarious purpose so he needs you to go get it back for him!
The game is very easy to pick up and get into, with the familiar control and game style. Each of the zombies has a basic attack and a signature one and you can charge both of them. For my zombie, a burly female Viking, her charged main attack was a spinning one that reminded me so much of Link in The Legend of Zelda. Her signature was throwing out her arm like a hookshot if you allow me more Zelda comparisons, dragging her towards enemies, but when you charged it, it made her big muscles get even larger and then blow up, causing area of effect damage. She would then pop-up without losing her health.
In fact, there is no health in the game and as zombies your characters can’t die. They will however lose body parts. During our playthrough, Mikael’s character lost his head quite often and it was my responsibility to pick it up and bring it back to his body to get him into fighting shape again. In fact, picking other characters up is a valid playing strategy as there are some escort side-quests (more on that further down) and you don’t want them to get hurt. Besides, when you pick things up the characters will raise their weapons and the objects or people will just hang from them. It’s quite hilarious.
The two sidequests we did were an escort mission and a fetch quest. The first one was to find a blind witch’s cat, or what she thought was a cat, and the reward was a nice sword shaped like a skunk’s tail. I really enjoyed this quest because it wasn’t just escorting the witch and finding the cat while wading through enemies but there was also a PVP element to it, as you need to deathmatch for the weapon. With zombies not dying, this meant fighting until someone lost their head. We were playing a 2-man game at the time so it was a simple match, but it left me wondering how fun it would be with all four players there in a free-for-all. Oh and by the way, I won!
The second mission I found to be even more enjoyable. First, it was rather short, just getting a jar of medicine from a goblin. We had our third player with us at this point and while Mikael and he distracted the creature, I quickly snatched the jar and took it to the doctor waiting for us.
The second reason I liked this quest much was because it tied to and demonstrated something Mikael mentioned when I asked about the characters: the four of them are unique, each with their own personality, and personal goals and stories. During the campaign, the players would experience those different stories. In this case, the person the doctor was asking the medicine for was one of the vikings’ mothers, their estranged and almost forgotten mother, and seeing the mother speak to her undead child was both weird and funny and very touching.
One of the things Mikael was very keen to point out was that this wasn’t just a random button masher. There are cutscenes, side-quests, exploration and subplots to help break up the pace of the game and help it not become monotonous. Adding the colourful art-style, it also gives the game plenty of personality and charm, something to raise it above others in the genre.
During our playthrough we saw a few of the cutscenes, the first one with Loki speaking to a mean looking troll and the others being mid-mission and serving as side-quest and NPC introductions. The scenes themselves aren’t animated, just still images with text, but they work wonderfully for the game’s style. I’m not sure if they have audio—we didn’t have any headsets and I couldn’t hear anything over the rush of people in the venue.
The ‘cinematics’ also helped tell you about the zombies’ personalities. One of the characters told the witch with the skunk ‘cat’ something like “Lady, that isn’t a cat!” showing his perhaps brutal honesty or just bewilderment at the weirdness of it all, but he was quickly interrupted by my character berating him, “Shut up! She’s giving us loot!” I couldn’t help but laugh at this.
As we played through the demo we collected loot from the quests and gold from enemies and chests and when I asked what the gold was for he told me there would be upgrades between stages, from more damage to special actions like double jumps. I followed it up asking if those special abilities would allow for greater exploration, maybe find hidden areas and he replied that of course, but also certain characters would have access to specific areas tied to their story and the same applied to the side-quests. If he hadn’t been playing his particular Viking, we wouldn’t have gotten the medicine side-quest, as it was a character arc quest.
In terms of exploration, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the stages themselves aren’t completely flat, but have several layers. At one point, to get the witch’s side quest we crossed a bridge I thought was pure scenery, and it took us to a new area, a new foreground, with everything else moving into the background. The only thing I could say was, “This is awesome!” It’s such a simple element, such a tiny mechanic but it adds so much to the exploration, as I’m sure I’d be looking around for every branching path for secrets!
The game’s inspiration, for me, was clear. Norse mythology with some variation on the Einherjar myth, but Mikael told me there was more to this. Sure, there was the Norse myth connection and there would be Norse characters popping up throughout the game, but the real inspiration was old buddy-cop and road-trip movies, where the journey itself is the important bit, as well as all the strange things that happen on the way.
While we played, I wondered about what game modes there would be on release, thinking it was perfect for an arena-type mode, where you get waves you need fight off. He said it was a good idea but they didn’t have plans for that yet. He did mention, however, a secondary mode and it caught me off guard. It was something I didn’t really expect: soccer. But this being Zombie Vikings, it’s not a ball and you won’t be kicking it. Instead, you’ll compete to pick up goblins from the ground and chuck them into dragon mouths. Not exactly soccer but hey, it works!
Zombie Vikings is set to release later this year on PS4, PC, Mac and Linux and is currently in development using Unity, which was the tool of choice for most developers in the event. This is one I’m keeping an eye out for—I can’t wait to play it with my friends online. It would also make an awesome party game with local multiplayer!
Rezzed 2015 – Fireproof Games – Omega Agent & The Room Three
When I read what Fireproof Games had to offer at Rezzed I immediately jumped at the chance to interview them about Omega Agent. VR games have always interested me and I couldn’t wait to try this one out as well as the Samsung Gear VR, to compare it with the Oculus Rift experience. They were also showcasing The Room Three, but at the time I had no idea what the series was about, though that changed rapidly. Continue reading Rezzed 2015 – Fireproof Games – Omega Agent & The Room Three
Rezzed 2015 – Sublevel Zero
I’ll say this: I hated Descent, the original big daddy of the Six Degree of Freedom genre (6DoF). I found it confusing, dizzying and uncomfortable. Then again, at the time I had no choice but to play it on a keyboard only setup, so that might have had a lot to do with it.
So as I sat down to play Sublevel Zero by SIGTRAP Games I thought I would thoroughly hate it. There were two versions on show: the first using gamepad or keyboard + mouse and the second using dual joysticks and the Oculus Rift. There was someone on the Rift version so I took a couple of shots at the demo with the K&M…and I liked it. I really did. It wasn’t even disconcerting to change pitch and inclination and roll around and change my perspective. It all felt really cool and I had a blast, no pun intended.
By then the Oculus version was free so I jumped on it and I sucked at it. The VR worked wonderfully and one of the coolest things they did was alter your point of view depending on how close you are to the sensor. If you moved away from the screen, you would see more of the cockpit, and if you moved closer, it was like leaning over the edge—very interesting and adding a lot to the immersion.
I tried my best with this version but the turning/pitching stick was a bit too over-sensitive for my clumsy hands and I spent most of the time in a constant barrel roll and not the fun laser-deflecting kind. By the end, I did catch my bearings and started progressing but the VR version had a time limit and I’d gone way past it.
As I stood up, Luke Thompson—one of the developers and SIGTRAP founders—asked me, “So, what did you think?” And I told him everything. His reply to my barrel roll was simply, “Yeah, it might be a bit over-tuned, but that one’s a really good and precise joystick…the other one is just complete crap and it’s much stiffer!”
When I asked him how the title came to be, he told me it was something that came naturally from a conversation between the team members. One of them had just come out of making a procedurally generated dungeon crawler. Speaking about it and being big Descent fans, Luke tells me he said, “Wouldn’t it be awesome to have [a procedurally generated] Descent?” The idea caught on quickly between them and when a third friend suggested the underground theme, Sublevel Zero was born.
SLZ was one of the few VR-focused games I saw at Rezzed and like all of them, this was a title conceived for the technology. According to SIGTRAP Games, the right way to play it is with the Rift and the dual joysticks, with single-stick and keyboard being the second best. As much as I enjoyed the Keyboard & Mouse controls, they made it perfectly clear that this was the wrong way to play it, but didn’t judge me too harshly.
I won’t lie to you, SLZ was a hard game and now I know it’s going to be even harder on release because of its rogue-like mechanics. If you die, that’s it, start from the beginning with another ship and give it a go. Luke did say, however, that there would be some hard checkpoints at various intervals in the game so you could start from that point instead of from the beginning, and like other rogue-likes, your earnings and collections in one play would carry over to the next so you can craft new items and systems. There will also be a New Game+ and I had to ask: “If you die at New Game+, can you start from NG+?” I was worried he’d say no and in that case, the game would be BRUTAL, but thankfully, he didn’t say that!
Technology and the pursuit of it are at the core of Sublevel Zero’s plot. The game’s setting is that far into the future where the universe itself starts collapsing and no one can figure out why. Your character and his teammates find an unused research station that might have all the answers and perhaps a solution to the crisis. Collecting technology then not only becomes a mechanic but part of the game’s story and progression. Enemies will drop random loot mostly in the form of weapons—with variable stats—and items, and bosses will drop larger pieces of ancient technology, unusable by the player but part of a plot collection.
Luke went a bit further on the upgrade mechanic and how it tied to the loot system. Using the crafting system, once you’ve collected the corresponding blueprint, you can combine some of your weapons into new ones. This adds a level of strategy and risk/reward management to it because you might not want to combine weapon A with B until you find a higher valued version of the two of them.
One thing that I didn’t see in the demo version was the inventory system. I mentioned to Luke that there were items you collected by interacting with them and others you just had to touch. He explained that the former go to your grid-like inventory, and the others are just consumables. He admits they need to make it a bit more clear, though.
When I asked him on funding and if they would attempt any form of early access or crowdfunding, he said no because Mastertronic had already picked them up straight out of the game-jam where they first built a demo for the game and have been funding the development ever since. In his words, “They’ve been amazing and I really have nothing bad to say about them!”
Sublevel Zero is coming this year to Steam and the Rezzed build will be available soon for download and testing, and I’ll be sure to let you all know when that happens! It might be time I get my hands on an Oculus Rift (or a Samsung Gear VR)! And it might be wrong, but I think I’ll stick to Keyboard & Mouse for this…sorry SIGTRAP but I suck at dual joysticks!
Rezzed 2015 – Machiavillain
Machiavillain was a game I was incredibly curious to see. I’ve always liked the role reversal games, where you’re the villain. My friends know how much I love the Overlord series. And while I’ve never played it, I’ve always wanted to give Evil Genius a shot. So when I saw what French studio Wild Factor Games were doing, a Dungeon-Keeper style game but featuring classic horror monster and horror film rules for killing teenagers, I had to check it out!
Machiavillain makes you the mastermind behind a monster mansion. At the start, you’ll have a façade and gold to buy, but only Mummies and Zombies to do your bidding. The first thing you need to do is build your house, add furniture and make sure to add accommodations for your monsters. They might be minions and possibly soulless but they deserve room and board just like anyone else!
Then it’s time to start bringing in the victims, ranging from jocks and cheerleaders to geeks and virgins. Killing them drops loot and materials you can use to craft and feed your minions. Your zombies like Geeks very much because of their big brains! The more you kill the better your reputation is and you can recruit even more monsters to your mansion. But if too many victims escape, you get too much notoriety and then the authorities show up, followed by hunters if things get worse.
Monsters shuffle around rather slowly, but you can increase the game time to make time go faster, but you need to be careful because overworked monsters will abandon your mansion.
Each of the monsters has a different power. Zombies infect, Dracula can turn into a bat and hypnotize victims, The Werewolf is fast, etc. When I went through the monster list I saw there was a Freddy Krueger one and I immediately turned to face Wild Factor Founder and Lead Programmer, Alexandre Lautié, and Zimra the artist, and asked them “What does he do? I’m a massive Nightmare on Elm Street Fan!” They beamed at me for this but then gave me an embarrassed “We don’t know!” Poor Fred had just been added to the roster and they still weren’t sure what to do with him. And being big fans just like yours truly, they wanted him to be special. I can respect and applaud that. Only the best for that depraved monster Freddy!
On their inspirations, they mention Dungeon Keeper on the gaming side, but Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods as well. For the Horror game rules, a mix of classic horror films and the Scream series. I joked with them, saying, “Rule, don’t ever say ‘I’ll be right back!’” and we shared a nice laugh between us film geeks.
My turn with the game was terrible, but I had a ton of fun losing. I built a simple 1-room house and made the mistake of rushing to get victims in before my minions had finished. A couple came in and caught my monsters brick and carpet-handed and they both escaped to fight another day, while my minions kept at their original tasks completely embarrassed. I’d seen screens of them cleaning up blood and I didn’t even give them that!
You get victims into your house by putting up ads, and they range from generic ones that bring you random teenagers to specialised ones to bring in some of the bigger fish, such as the virgins and geeks! Then you just need to make sure your monsters are prepared and you have enough traps to lure the stupid teenagers away from each other. Remember, you can only kill them when they’re alone, unless they’re having sex! For this particular scenario, Wild Factor have even included a bed that folds on itself, as seen in Freddy vs Jason. You can’t imagine how delighted I was to hear that!
From what the team told me, you can build as large a mansion as you want, there’s enough space for it. The only limitation is you can’t build upper floors, though they did tell me the finished version of the game will have basement for the house’s spirit energy generator. To prove their point they loaded a previous game and the mansion made everything you’ve ever built on any of The Sims to shame! Compared to that, my little murder shack was sad and pathetic, but they assured me I would one day have my own monster murder mansion!
I found the visuals quite charming. Everything, including the monster carnage looks just so bloody cute! The first thing I did with my mummy was make it hide as a lamp by wearing a lampshade. It was too cool!
I can’t wait to know more and will be keeping an eye on this game and try to get as many previews as possible as they move from Alpha to Beta to release!
Rezzed 2015 – Mighty Tactical Shooter
Mighty Tactical Shooter isn’t the most subtle of names for a game but the directness of it is certainly charming. When I first read the press release and arranged for the interview with the nice people of Sock Thuggery, the concept of a Turn-Based Shoot’em Up (SHMUP) intrigued me. I’m used to the fast-paced nature of SHMUPS and the thought of stopping them for moment-to-moment decision-making was really odd for me.
But I had to give it a shot. The game opens with the presentation or a new type of fighter ship, the first of a fleet of millions. But just as they’re getting ready for the test flight, the space station they are in falls under attack and life support systems fail. Here is where you regain control and the first choice you have in the game is to pick your would-be pilot. The problem is there isn’t anyone qualified around, just clerks, janitors and in my case, an accountant. The ship’s AI quickly gets you into the cockpit before the ship falls and crashes into the planet below.
This is where the game really starts and works as a tutorial stage. The controls are fairly simple: there are two reticule around your ship, you drag the larger one to where you want to move and you use the smaller one to add curves to that path. With a right-click you access your weapons menu and select what kind of attack you’ll do, from a normal shot to even a V-shaped and a back shot, or none at all.
But how does the firing work with the turn-base? Well, as you move, and he longer you do so, you’ll see horizontal lines branching off from the path one, these are the moments your ship will fire and you’ll need to carefully plot out your trajectory so the shots fire at the right times and places to hit enemies. In fact, these predictive lines don’t just show how your stuff will work but will also predict enemy movement and fire, allowing you to either kill them or avoid them by taking advantage of the predictions.
It’s actually quite difficult to master but incredibly fun, turning the reflex-based SHMUP into a deep thinking strategy game. I was blown away by it. Better yet, once you’ve finished the level, you can watch a real-time replay of it. I saw mine, it looked like an effortless level clear instead of the hard-earned battle it was!
Beyond the flight and firing, there are other supporting mechanics. First of all are the buddies, the ships AIs, each with their own distinct personality, one more outgoing and aggressive and the other much more protective, almost maternal. It’s a nice bit of characterization, giving game mechanics a voice and personality. One takes care of your weapons, and makes sure they keep recharging, while the other does the same for your shields. They work automatically and you don’t need to worry about them, just enjoy their commentary.
Your shields represent your health and as you take damage, you start losing systems, which means you lose your weapons until your health recharges. As I didn’t know this at the start, it confused me a bit because I just kept losing access to the cool weaponry, and no one likes that, right? Johnny admits he needs to put a bit more of an explanation in the game, but once I knew what it was about, I took better care of my health!
Your weapon energy level determines just powerful your shots are. If it’s high enough you’ll fire three parallel lasers for a boost in damage but if you let it get low enough (by continually firing) then you’ll get one measly little laser. This adds another layer of strategy to your play…unless you’re me in which case you’ll just go through it with the single shot, because patience is not one of my virtues!
I really liked the visual design, which the artist tells me was like that because they wanted the old-school Atari or Amiga SHMUP feel. It really looks old school, with only the turn-based mechanics betraying that. In particular, the level design reminded me not of a SHMUP but of Super Metroid, something about the greenery in the jungle stage.
As we spoke about the release plans, they mentioned they weren’t sure it would make it to Mac, as there are elements in the time-travelling story that were perhaps too dark for Apple to consider, and they didn’t like the idea of having to change the story for that release. Following up on his, Johnny told me the plot involves several points of time travel but he wouldn’t reveal much more than there are five zones with a few stages each and that you would be able to re-visit them at any point.
The stage revisit is also to work with the objective system. Each level has a set of checkpoints separating different areas and waves of enemies, and there are objectives listed at the start of each, such as killing X enemies with Y shot, or take Z damage. If you complete the objective, you get elements that you can use to upgrade some of your ship’s systems. Some of the objectives however, are ludicrous, like beat a boss in under a second. It’s for these you’ll need to revisit later on when you’ve unlocked better weapons as you progress through the story.
As of now, the game is still early in development and there are still things they need to work on. The latest addition was the upgrade system, the one you use the elements for, but it’s at a state where they still don’t know how it’ll mesh with the rest of the game. I personally thought the auto-scroller could use a little boost in speed, but overall I loved Mighty Tactical Shooter and would keep playing it. I don’t have the best reflexes in the world but I love puzzles so this seems like the best way for me to enjoy a SHMUP. And I only played a level using the basic weaponry. I’ve seen videos of missiles and gravity wells and so much cool stuff that I can’t wait to try out.
The Sock Thuggery team are confident they can release it this year on Steam (PC, Mac & Linux), but you won’t be seeing it on Early Access because they already had a successful Kickstarter campaign!
There are also discussions for a Vita release, but they’re still discussing the legalities of it.
Rezzed 2015 – Mushroom 11
The very first interview I had planned for Rezzed was with Untame Games about Mushroom 11, an amazing puzzle platformer where you control an amorphous green blob in a post-apocalyptic world. Nature is weird and mutated and there are only remnants of human civilisation, but we as a species are gone from this dangerous yet tranquil world.
I sat down to play it after watching someone give it a go, and it helped me realise the biggest challenge the game presents its players: you’re not pushing the blob. When you first see the cursor and your ‘protagonist’ your first instinct is to use it to push the thing along, but that’s not what the cursor does. It’s an eraser and it removes cells from the blob, making them grow on its opposite end. So if you remove a chunk of it from the right side, it’ll grow out of the left. It’s an interesting concept but it takes players ages to wrap their heads around it.
With controlled erases and gravity you create momentum and if you’re hugging a wall or a vertical shaft, it helps in climbing. You can even split it into multiple blobs. When that happens deleting a bit of one makes the other grow and that is something I often had to do for some of the puzzles, as I needed to have one bit of it push down a button while the rest crossed a gate. It’s trickier than it sounds, but also extremely fun and quite addictive. The Untame team have come up with so many challenges for you to navigate through, from buildings sinking into lava, forcing you to rush up a shaft with splitting pathways, to filling up a derelict elevator and weight it down to use as a platform and so much more. Every scenario requires careful erasing but also sometimes quick judgement. The good thing is that there are plenty of checkpoints around and even if you die you’ll just pop back up in one of those and you can try again.
I interviewed Julia and Itay Keren, one of the two couples working on the game. I asked Julia about the name of the game, thinking it might tie into the creature’s origin, maybe that was its code name, but that wasn’t the case. The name came from the Game Jam where they first worked on the concept, and Mushroom 11 was just one name they threw out and it became the final title. The theme of the Jam was Ouroboros, a snake eating its tail. Their take on it was this fungus creating itself from the bits you erase. It certainly fits the theme and it’s also one of the most ingenious and creative mechanics I’ve played with in all my years of gaming. Even with just a few minutes into it, it was extremely satisfying to finally make it up a ridge by carefully erasing cells from my blob.
Something I realised while playing and later Julia and Itay confirmed was that while there is a story, there is no exposition at all. You can see the story all around you in graffitis and murals. This is a post-apocalyptic world without humans, they’re all gone and you can see at least one possible way they went out with a crude drawing on the wall at your starting location. It’s very subtle and everyone will look for something different in the game. Some will focus on the puzzling experience while others will look through every nook to find the next bit of lore. I fall somewhere between the two to be honest and I was already coming up with my own theories in the short time I had to play the game.
When I asked Julia about the world without humans she said it was because they were all tired of how all post apocalypse stories revolve around humans still surviving, so they wanted to explore a world without them, one where only nature remains. As someone who’s never been a fan of the traditional post-apocalypse survival stories, this is right up my alley!
Speaking of nature, your blob can eat up any organic matter it finds. At first, Itay mentioned, they tried to make it grow as it ate up creatures but that soon got out of hands so they decided on the blob having a fixed size and kept the eating itself to enhance exploration. Every time you clear a chapter, a score will pop up, telling you how many poor creatures you devoured. I thought I’d gone through the entire first chapter area but by the end, I discovered I had only one-quarter of the organic matter, which meant there was still so much more to explore! The score itself might be meaningless but it’ll drive the exploration and that is always a good thing. When I finally get my hands on the full version, I’m definitely taking my time to finding every creature out here!
The demo consisted on two chapters but I only cleared the first one, which even included a boss fight of sorts. It was another puzzle, one where you had to put everything you learned on movement and climbing into action while dealing with a plant-like creature spewing fire and flailing around madly. It took a few tries but eventually I ate its fruit and it died, falling into a pool of magma. After following it and escaping through a narrow path on the left, I left the area and completed the chapter. I had to leave the booth but I saw how much the second chapter raised the difficulty. You start at the edge of chasm with a massive magma pool with only a small vertical shaft a few feet away. I gave it a try but could never make it into the passage without falling into the deadly pool. As an adventure gamer and avid puzzler, a part of me wanted to stay and finish it, but I just couldn’t at the time. Made me sad really because as soon as you wrap your head around the erasing, the game is so much fun.
One of the biggest hooks in their press release was the fact that Future Sound of London was doing the soundtrack and I had to ask Itay about that. As a lifelong fan of FSOL, he wanted to have them work on this and knowing the worst case was being ignored he made the call and they’ve been collaborating ever since. As someone who didn’t know much about FSOL, I could only judge the music by itself, and it really fits. It might be techno but not the full on blasting rave-like we all imagine when he hear that word, but much subtler melodies to enhance the mystery and the urge to discover everything this barren landscape has to offer.
Mushroom 11 is coming this year on Steam, and I will most definitely get and review it when it comes out. The game info page is already up on Valve’s service if you want to take a look for yourself!
Interview: Agustín Cordes – H.P. Lovecraft: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Earlier this year, Senscape, the developers behind the upcoming Asylum and founded by the mind behind Scratches, Agustín Cordes, launched a Kickstarter Campaign for the Lovecraftian Adventure Horror game, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
A few months ago, I contacted Agustín for a small interview about the game. Here are his replies. Enjoy!
First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
It’s my pleasure, thanks for having me!
In your announcement of the game, you mentioned this would be the first official H.P. Lovecraft game. Could you tell us more about that?
Yes, this is the first game that would use both the name H. P. Lovecraft and the title of one of his stories. Up until now we have seen lose adaptations or spin-offs, but never a straight translation of his work to a videogame. For example, Shadow of the Comet and Dark Corners of the Earth are very loosely based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth. What we did is negotiate a license with the Lovecraft Estate established in Providence, the same organization that has been maintaining original manuscripts, letters and photographs from Lovecraft for decades. This is how dedicated we are to bringing a exceptionally faithful adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward to video games.
Can you tell us what made you choose this The Case of Charles Dexter Ward as the Lovecraft work to adapt?
While it wasn’t our first choice, it was a solid second option. It’s a wonderful story to be turned into an adventure game, full of fascinating aspects of investigation, exploration, and intrigue. And of course, lots of horror. It was almost natural the way in which the story became a game.
How much of the original novel are you adapting and how much is original content?
We’re retaining as much as possible from the original novel, and the changes being introduced are minimal. In fact, when it comes to the storyline, little has been changed — rather, we introduced slight modifications to the ordering of sequences or pacing for best effect as an interactive game, all while retaining the spirit of Lovecraft’s timeless story.
Following up on the previous question: What are the challenges of adapting a novel into a game?
It depends on the novel being adapted, of course, and in this case the transition has been quite smooth. Pacing is the major challenge, as Lovecraft was very slow-paced and descriptive, which can be a deal breaker in games these days. The general idea is to detect which parts of the story can be turned into interactive elements, such as an adventure game puzzle, and fortunately Charles Dexter Ward has plenty of them.
With the impending release of Asylum, how are you dividing work between the two titles?
It’s important to note that the Kickstarter campaign didn’t succeed, so our current team is 100% focused on Asylum. With the proper budget, we could have divided the work between two different teams.
Speaking of Asylum, as a Kickstarter veteran, do you have any advice for indie developers thinking of crowdfunding? What do you think is the most important thing they should have before doing it?
Crowdfunding can be deceiving and Kickstarter has become very unpredictable, even if you invest lots of effort in the campaign. My advice would be to build a strong community before tackling fundraising, otherwise your campaign may not receive enough attention.
Will The Case of Charles Dexter Ward be a First Person Adventure game, much like Scratches and Asylum? If so, will players be able to move with the keyboard or will all movement be using the mouse?
No, we’re planning the game as a third-person adventure, very much like games such as Broken Sword, Gabriel Knight or many LucasArts classics.
On a more technical level: how are you developing the game, what engine are you using for it?
We’ve recently switched to Unity for our productions, and we’re happy enough with it. What we’re using is a sort of hybrid between Unity and features from our in-house engine called Dagon. It’s working out pretty well.
On which component of Charles Dexter Ward are you currently working on?
Nothing for now, I’m afraid, as we don’t have funds to produce the game. We’ll see what 2015 brings!
Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers that we haven’t covered in the previous questions? (Say as much as you’d like)
I’d simply like to thank you all for the support and patience throughout these years. Even if our Kickstarter campaign for Charles Dexter Ward failed, we still managed to raise $110.000, which is no small feast these days. We’re still hard at work on Asylum, ensuring it fulfills its promise of an engrossing horror experience, and then hopefully tackle our new projects.
I’d like to once more thank Agustín for taking the time out of his busy schedule to respond for this interview.
This will also probably the last article published on The Mental Attic for 2014. See you next year!
Interview – Olga Ryzhko – Frogwares – Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments
Sherlock Holmes, Crimes & Punishments is an adventure game, developed by Frogwares. It places players in the shoes of the great detective Sherlock Holmes, solving six independent cases, using all the deductive tools in his arsenal.
Recently, before playing the game for our review. We contacted Olga Ryzhko, Frogwares’ Marketing and Business Development Manager, to ask her a few things about the game and its design and development. Below are her replies. Enjoy!
First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
My pleasure!
Where does Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments fit in the series’ chronology? Sherlock certainly looks younger than he does in The Testament of Sherlock Holmes.
One of my most favourite questions. I always have a hard time answering it 🙂 So here we go:
1888 – Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper
1894 – The Awakened
1895 – Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsène Lupin
1897 – Secret of the Silver Earring
1898 – Testament of Sherlock Holmes
1899 – The Mystery of the Mummy
Crimes & Punishments takes place definitely before The Testament, Black Peter case is set in 1895, so it’s in between.
Previous titles in the series had one large case that made up the plot, with the investigation (and puzzle solving) revealing more aspects of it, but Crimes & Punishments focuses on smaller investigations instead. What made you decide to shift to a collection of shorter stories instead of a larger one?
Smaller cases in Crimes & Punishments are now similar to the novelettes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. On the other hand, one of the biggest things in the game is your ability to make your own decisions during the investigation. Remember, every decision in the game has its own impact? I tend to believe those choices play greater role in the smaller cases rather than in one big story.
Early gameplay trailers show there are decision points in the game, on accusing the different subjects and how the arrest and punishment should be handled. Can you tell us more about this ‘morality’ system?
Right, there are two types of choices to make.
First, decides on the guilty party, as there are several suspects in each case and all of them seem to have their own reasons to commit the crime. So there are plenty of chances to accuse the wrong suspect if interpreting the clues in the wrong way or making the wrong deductions.
Second, once you are confident on the culprit you can choose to condemn or absolve them. It’s not about approving the murder but you might justify their reasons of why they did it. Our morality system doesn’t judge if you are good or bad, there is no black and white here. We only communicate your decisions and we respect them.
With the focus shifting to criminal investigations and clues, will there still be logic puzzles like those found in previous titles, such as the puzzle boxes found in Testament?
Crimes & Punishments is not that heavy on the puzzles as our previous instalments but there is a big variety of puzzles to solve including logic, detective and others.
Aside from Sherlock and Watson, are there any other familiar characters coming back for Crimes & Punishments?
Sure! You will meet Mycroft Holmes, Mrs Hudson, Baker Street Irregulars, Inspector Lestrade.
On design: the Sherlock Holmes series has always had very intriguing puzzles (the number sequence ones being my kryptonite), what goes into designing them? Do you revise the puzzles as they go along, tweaking the difficulty and clues?
Thank you! Indeed puzzles play rather big role in Sherlock Holmes game and it is difficult to satisfy all the players. There is a delicate balance in puzzles difficulty and we continue our experiments with every game we develop. Our biggest challenge with Crimes & Punishments was to insert puzzles into the story and to make sure they do not distract you from the actual gameplay. We discussed our puzzles in the devblog here.
Have there been puzzles you’ve had to scrap? Do you forget about them or do you shelve them to use in a future title?
It’s a usual thing – sometimes you need to keep the designers grounded otherwise they have no limits. Some puzzles didn’t fit the game, we physically were not able to make others, we omitted all 2Ds and focused on 3D puzzles instead, some were not possible due to technical restrictions, etc. Do we forget any of them? – Never.
Speaking of scrapping, were there any features you had to remove from the final version of the game, for time or budget reasons? If so, will they be made available at some point via DLC?
We do not plan DLC for Crimes & Punishments; it’s our first ‘episodic’ game and we never made any for the previous games.
Speaking of the features – it’s similar to puzzles: some didn’t fit, others were technically impossible. Do we forget any of them? – Never.
For the team: What’s the most fun part of the game (case, puzzle, character, dialogue, etc.) for you and why?
I will list them from the funniest to less fun (according to the team interview): developers themselves, deduction space, characters, and cases.
For the team: How do you prefer to play the game: First or Third Person Perspective?
So I’ve made a poll on Frogwares internal website asking to explain my colleagues’ preferences; as expected, there is no single answer, voices split into 50/50. Some prefer 3rd person camera, others enjoy 1st. Arguments relate to seeing Sherlock Holmes himself and feeling being him, making fun of his wardrobe (you can’t see it with 1st person camera) or paying more attention to the Victorian setting instead to the character; there are those who switch depending on the locations. So we are happy to have both cameras in the game.
On the development side: how large was the Crimes & Punishments development team? Was there an overlap with the Call of Cthulhu team or does each title have its own staff?
Rather large, especially for Frogwares. I’d say around 50 with peaks of 80 people.
Both games have their own teams. The development of Crimes & Punishments and the one of Call of Cthulhu do not match in time – when we started CoC, we were finishing Sherlock Holmes game. So it’s pretty easy to switch people if needed; thankfully it’s not very often to happen.
Were there any challenges with using the Unreal Engine 3? Also, with the release of the UE4, are there plans on using this engine in future titles or remake previous ones?
Crimes & Punishments is our second game built with UE3, so it was easier for the tech team.
Do you have any advice on adventure game design for independent developers?
I’d advice to create what they want, not what they expect people to want.
What’s next for Frogwares after Crimes & Punishments? Is there anything you can tell us about the upcoming Call of Cthulhu or future Sherlock plans?
I’d be happy to share our future plans but it is too early now. So I suggest we talk some time in future.
Once again, thank you for your time.
Thanks for your interest and thank you for letting me share this with you.