Why the creator of GTA and the lead designer of Diablo II are making a Facebook game together g21

The enormous careers of Dave Jones (Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown, APB) and Stieg Hedlund (Diablo, Diablo II, Ghost Recon), are intersecting in ChronoBlade, an action-RPG published on Facebook. I visited Jones and Hedlund at their studio in San Francisco to talk about what brought them together, their thoughts on the value of independence, and the changing role of publishers in the game industry. Stieg Hedlund (middle) and Dave Jones (right) with two coworkers at nWay in San Francisco. PCG: You're veteran PC game developers. What's interesting to you guys about Facebook as a platform? Dave Jones: We've worked on many kinds of games across many genres, many platforms, many markets. What was interesting was, for the first time ever, I'd seen my wife, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law playing games, which they'd never done before. Mainly because of Facebook games. We can all call into question if they're really games or not, but hey, at least they were doing something I'd never seen them do before. Just because they were so easy to go into… You don't have to buy it. You don't have to go to the store. You don't need a gaming system. There was something about that. If you make it really accessible like that, it does break down barriers. That's when we came together. "Being on a huge team is really hard. But having all these new markets is just great." We thought it would be interesting if all these new generation of gamers were there, what if we did some of the games that we like to play, but made them what we call "hyper accessible." We thought it was interesting that Facebook allowed you to do that. But the tech was pretty low-tech. In those days it was still the original Flash. It was very low-tech. But at the same time, Adobe were talking about launching Flash 11 and saying, "Hey, we're going to start tapping into the GPU." For us as core gamers, that was pretty interesting. You could maybe do some decent-looking games on Facebook. That's what it all sprung from. We thought what would be great is if we could do a great combat-action-brawler game, because those have always been popular. We hadn't done one for a while. It felt like we were going back in time a little bit with this tech, back to Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, Tekken kind of games. But to give it real longevity, what if we added this great full RPG backend to it as well? So we felt that we had the design skills ourselves to do the moment to moment play control, but we needed someone like Stieg to… We wanted a really good backend, a complete Diablo-style backend for the RPG systems. That's how we put the team together. That was about 18 months ago now. "One of the other appealing things about Facebook in particular is that you have a really direct relationship with the audience." Do you feel like you sought out this situation because you value independence? You don't have to work with a publisher. Is that part of the appeal? Jones: It's definitely a part of the appeal, yeah. They don't bring any kind of preconceived ideas. They're not trying to change the model, which is always slow and cumbersome to do. It was easier to be independent and just do the classic San Francisco raise-some-VC-finance route. [laughs] That's why we're here. And just give it a go. Stieg Hedlund: I think one of the other appealing things about Facebook in particular is that you have a really direct relationship with the audience. You have a live game and you get feedback directly from them about what they like and what they don't like. Both in terms of comments they send in and the data about where they're going and what they're engaging with in your game. You can continue to refine the game and make it better and better as you go. As far as the game being kind of retro, I think we acknowledge the past, but particularly the first couple of generations of Facebook games were super backward looking. They were games from the '80s and '90s, really. The early '90s. We definitely try to take the feeling of games like Dave just mentioned, but really do a new spin on them. It's obviously a hybrid. It's all of those things. But I think we're making something very new and different, instead of just remaking things that already exist. Talking about the idea of independence, with Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight and lots of other publishing platforms—Facebook is one of them… I think a lot of people would say that we're entering an era where publishers are decreasing in relevance, decreasing in importance. I'm curious if you would agree with that, or if that's something you would celebrate. Jones: I would disagree with it. [laughs] It's not like there's one market for gaming and the whole market goes one way. I still love console gaming. I love the big budgets. I love E3. I love seeing what's new and what's coming. Those are big, expensive games to make. Publishers do back and do pay for some of those big, big titles. I'm looking forward to GTA 5. I would hate to be in a world where that stuff goes away. I think we need that as well. I would say about five to six years ago, I was more worried that the market was going the other way, where everything… There was only one market for video games and it was massive triple-A. Studios were dying. If it wasn't for this resurgence of new platforms—social, mobile, tablet—I'm actually grateful that we do have lots of different ways now. For a while I was worried about where a new generation of game designers was going to come from. Being on a huge team is really hard. But having all these new markets is just great. Notch is the absolute prime example, and going back to some of the great iOS games, Rovio and so on. For me, I think you need everything. I think you need the full ecosystem. I'm glad we have this. Hedlund: I'd agree with that. I'd jump in on the fact that there is a place for us as indies to say, "We're going to do something that's different." We don't need a big publisher buy-in to get it going. We've had a good response so far. We were able to identify something that people would like. Sometimes publishers can be a barrier to that, where they don't get it or they want to change the vision of the game so it fits more with things that they're familiar with. Check back early next week for a conversation with Dave Jones about the life, death, and rebirth of APB. The post Why the creator of GTA and the lead designer of Diablo II are making a Facebook game together appeared first on PC Gamer.

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XCOM: Enemy Within pops up on Korean ratings board g21

The XCOM franchise has received a lot of love recently, and it looks like the passion for making new XCOM games isn't wavering anytime soon. Someone with a knack for scoops found something called "XCOM: Enemy Within" listed on the Korean ratings board website. The name sounds like the perfect title for a sequel to the unforgiving test of tactics known as XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but that's just pure speculation. We don't know if XCOM: Enemy Within will even be a turn-based strategy game, but we sure as hell know what we'd want to see if that happens to be the case. Namely, more mission variety and less squad members looking like they came off an android assembly line. There's a chance we'll see Enemy Within rear its bulging grey head at this year's fast-approaching Gamescom convention, but it's impossible to say for certain. All we know from the listing is that the enemy within us will be making its way to the PC when it finally decides to blink back at us. We've contacted 2K Games for more information. The post XCOM: Enemy Within pops up on Korean ratings board appeared first on PC Gamer.

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Meridian: New World assembles a debut trailer g21

We were just talking about the new single-player RTS, Meridian: New World, a couple days ago, wishing we could see some footage of the newly-announced game rather than some logo-emblazoned screenshots. Well, it looks like our wish has been answered, as Elder Games has released its debut trailer for its debut game. Despite what the trailer says, it seems like Meridian will be somewhat similar to StarCraft II's single-player campaign.You chit chat with your crew members as the story rolls along while upgrading and customizing your units as you accumulate XP. And although you could make choices that impacted the story in StarCraft II, it sounds as though Tarsoly is aiming for even greater consequences, though we've yet to see something that proves that's the case. The out-of-place "Tired of the same bugs and templars crawling on your screen for the last 10 years?" jab aside, Meridian's trailer shows the game has some promise. "Equip your units with rocket launcher," may not sound particularly ground-breaking, but the list of things you can slap onto your units is impressive. If the game's sole creator, Ede Tarsoly, can get the balancing right, I can see Meridian: New World being more than just a fun diversion. The video doesn't show off any story beats, crew interaction or the promised level editor, though I suppose you have to pace yourself when the game's not due until spring or summer of next year. The post Meridian: New World assembles a debut trailer appeared first on PC Gamer.

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Programming with an audience: devs discuss alpha funding in games g21

Early buy-ins, crowdfunding, and early access have taken game development (and more importantly, game funding) into crazy new directions in the last few years. An extensive set of interviews at Gamasutra asks some of the biggest names in early access funding, like Dean Hall (DayZ), Markus Persson (Minecraft) and Chris England (Xenonauts), about their experiences developing a game with thousands of early adopters looking on. The verdict? It's a mixed blessing, for sure. "I think the biggest benefit is that you can get real momentum going for your game at the gestation period of the design," says Hall, the creator of the popular DayZ mod for Arma 2, which will soon launch as a standalone game. "Without doing this, the game can only become 'hot' when the design is already locked down and finished." Hall cites Kerbal Space Program as a good example: the game is a hit early in its development, and the income and attention has led developer Squad to add more features. "[KSP] became popular very early in its development, and allowed the scope and the direction of the game to adjust proportionally to this. If they had made the game completely first, I don't think its scope and direction would resemble at all where it is today." Markus Persson, founder of Mojang and creator of Minecraft, agrees. "For [an open-world] game like Minecraft, it makes sense to release early and fund early," he continues, "but for other games (such as story-heavy games) it makes no sense to release an incomplete product." As for the down-sides, the developers list fear of disappointing fans (who have already become customers), being overly ambitious and becoming locked into a game that you're afraid won't be fun, but has to be completed to send to already-paid-in players. Check out the full interview for more developers' thoughts on early access funding. The post Programming with an audience: devs discuss alpha funding in games appeared first on PC Gamer.

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First-person Dark Souls mod adds flailing and nausea to difficulty g21

Last year's Dark Souls was a fun third-person hack 'n slash, but everything is better with a little tinkering. Now a modder has adjusted the default view to zoom the camera right into the back of the player's head. The result is a nauseating journey into a world of flailing arms and upside-down elbows, but if it helps you get in character, I say go for it. Youtube user Soul Slasher posted the above video showing off the new view. At first everything seems pretty normal. Forearm holding sword, check. Backside of a metal shield, check. It initially looks like a cross between Dark Souls and Skyrim. Then the player starts running, glitching off of walls and battling the undead. The video is 11 minutes long, but I had to look away after less than half of that. The uploader notes that this version is mostly unplayable, and I have to agree. Still, it's a cool idea. A few years ago the addictive infestation shoot-em-up Alien Swarm was converted to first person with great results. Let this be a new trend: convert everything to first person, try to keep the glitching to a minimum and slap an Oculus Rift on it. It'll change everything. Thanks, Kotaku. The post First-person Dark Souls mod adds flailing and nausea to difficulty appeared first on PC Gamer.

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