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Seen@GDC 2014: Animal masks and fan art at Devolver Digital
Surrounded by fan art inspired by its games, including the recently released Luftrausers and cult-hit Hotline Miami, Devolver Digital invites press and partners to its meeting space donning animal masks and wielding deadly mimosas. "We're a very serious business," Devolver Digital's Nigel Lowrie tells me before exiting the meeting space. When asked for his official job title, public relations rep Stephanie Schopp confirmed it as: "High school boys wrestling coach/youth pastor/philanthropist." "That's what happens when he leaves the room," she says.
Overheard@GDC 2014: What being hunted in Alien Isolation sounds like
The Creative Assembly is clear that its new game, Alien: Isolation, is a survival horror game directly inspired by Ridley Scott's 1979 classic film, Alien. That means there are no big, James Cameron-developed pulse rifles. No gruff marines. Just you, Amanda Ripley, attempting to survive. In Isolation there is only one big bad; one lethal and intelligent xenomorph hunting you down. But does the horror and tension work? Is a single alien enough to jolt you out of your seat? A few sounds from a recent demo make us think Sega's next alien game is on the right track. [Image: Sega]
Overheard@IndieCade: What's IndieCade?
The Los Angeles International Airport is crowded with League of Legends swag, the "2013 World Championship" logo plastered across backpacks and t-shirts, character pins on shoulder straps, Riot Games peeking out from under ponytails. The League of Legends world finals concluded at the Los Angeles Staples Center on Friday night, sold out to 11,000 fans – and on Saturday morning, a lot of them are heading home. They could stay and revel in even more video game joy at IndieCade, the indie game festival in Culver City, just 15 minutes away from the Staples Center. It's a casual, outdoor show featuring tons of new, innovative games on a variety of platforms: PCs, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Oculus Rift, tablets, phones and more. One game takes place with Oculus Rift and a light gun, inside of a human-size hamster ball. It's hard to miss. But at LAX, the League of Legends fans have missed it. I ask two if they'd ever even heard of IndieCade. "No," one fan holding a poster of the League of Legends champion Katarina tells me. "I'm not from around here, so I've never heard of it." His friend, wearing a bright red World Championship shirt, a branded backpack and a Rammus hat, shakes his head. "Nope."
Overheard@GDC: The craft of mining
Minecraft creator and recent millionaire Notch held a fireside chat with Spyparty's Chris Hecker, seated alongside a pixelated fire roaring across a plasma screen in one of the large halls at GDC. Hecker and Notch kicked off the chat with two bottles of Sierra Nevada and a cheers, and for one hour, a roomful of fans and developers listened to the pair of them talk about the intricacies of Minecraft's development in some of the most riveting, "you had to be there" moments.But one thing Notch said applies to everyone, even those who weren't cool enough to be in the room:"There is one thing that hasn't been found," he declared, referring to the Easter Eggs and cool tricks buried in Minecraft gameplay. Grab a beer (or legally applicable beverage) and get diggin', folks.
Overheard@GDC: Homefront devs 'put a baby in a dumpster' (and then took it out)
Kaos Studios' Homefront has gone "gold" and is under two weeks away from being released. We found out yesterday afternoon about one scenario that didn't make the cut: protecting a dumpster ... with a baby in it. Lead single-player designer Chris Cross (real name!) related a story about the team's process of involving civilian presence in the game. Cross said his team wanted to "make it relevant without making it cheap." As it turns out, relevant became a little crazy -- at least initially. "We went through all kinds of crazy crap! We put a baby in a dumpster and were using that as a bullet shield," Cross explained, heartily laughing. "We were trying a bunch of very strange ideas." We'll be doggedly exploring every dumpster we find in Homefront in search of secret (baby) easter eggs when the game ships on March 15.
Overheard@GDC: Credit where credit's due
"What physics engine did you use for Angry Birds?" --Man "Box2d" --Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio "Would you be willing to credit it?" --Man "Yes" --Vesterbacka "I'm the creator of Box2d." --Erin Catto, creator of Box2d Following this exchange -- which took place during Rovio's panel on its multi-million-dollar franchise -- a smiling, caught-off-guard Vesterbacka said that the company would credit Box2d as the physics engine it uses if Catto would see him after the Q&A session. [Image: The Clock Blog]
Overheard @ Gamescom: Competitive Kinect fighting is dangerous
Since shortly after the Wii Remote first brought motion control to the masses, we've known that over-enthusiastic use (and slippery hands) can lead to controllers (and other things) getting broken. So what happens when Kinect's 3D camera turns your entire body into the controller? Well, not surprisingly, it turns out you're the one that could get broken. "Versus mode was a bit too dangerous," Fighters Uncaged producer Luc Verdier said when asked about a competitive mode for his newly announced Kinect-enabled fighting game. "It's possible to do, but people just end up hitting each other." Thus, the game's only multiplayer mode is a cooperative battle, where two players work together against the artificial intelligence. Of course, people don't usually end up killing one another while playing games like Just Dance, even if four players are moving about in an enclosed space. But Verdier said motion-controlled games where multiple players are synchronized are safer than games where the players can just "do whatever." We'd also hazard to guess that dancing players just tend to be less intentionally violent than fighting game players, especially when those fighting game players are actively playing.
Overheard@GDC: The Cliff Bleszinski Pie Analogy
[Flickr: Ephemeron] "Save your fork, there'll be pie. The game is the fork and the pie is the DLC." –Cliff Bleszinski After confessing to having a big appetite for Borderlands, the Gears of War developer used the pie analogy to explain to Joystiq how games without any sort of DLC "hooks" are becoming increasingly rare.
Overheard@TGS: A high five from the real Dante
"Well, you know, I do think Dante would approve of our game. He was a man ahead of his time," supposed a Dante's Inferno developer about Dante Alighieri, author of 14th-century epic poem the Divine Comedy; the first part, Inferno, serving as the game's source material ... in theory.
Overheard@TGS: Putting the 'crack' in Crackdown 2
During a behind-closed-doors presentation of Crackdown 2, Ruffian Games lead designer Steve Iannetta broke it down like this: "The orbs are the 'crack,' in Crackdown." It's true, and Iannetta says that orb fiends will not be disappointed when they go hunting for the returning collectible in Crackdown 2. Stay tuned for gameplay footage and our hands-on impressions of the upcoming sandbox title. %Gallery-74365%
Overheard@TGS: At least someone's happy ...
While rushing to make an appointment to get hands-on time with Crackdown 2, we overheard two Microsoft exhibitors discussing the reception of the recently released Forza Motorsport 3 demo.Microsoft Rep #1: "Seems like a lot of people like the demo."Microsoft Rep #2: "Yeah, well we really like that GT5 release date!"With Gran Turismo 5 launching in 2010, it looks like Forza Motorsport 3 won't have much traffic to contend with when it launches this October. And boy, is Microsoft happy about it.
Overheard@PAX: Harmonix talks Nickel-smack
Harmonix's Caleb Epps: So, you guys probably heard about Nickelback saying negative stuff about music games ... Crowd: (Boo!) Epps: I just want to extend an olive branch to Nickelback, and say that if they want to put their music into the Rock Band Network ... Crowd: (Emphatic boo!) Epps: Well, guys, it's peer-reviewed, so you can just vote them way down. Crowd: (Emphatic cheer!)
Overheard@GamesCom: Kicking babies is bad
The protagonist in Activision's Singularity has the ability to age and, um, youth-enize people and objects, which led to a burning question on the minds of a few people during a presentation of the title during GamesCom. See, when you age enemies, they'll turn to dust. However, when un-aging them, they'll turn into "Reverts," creatures in an unnatural state that can assist or attack the player. It only seemed reasonable to those in the room: Why wouldn't they be turned into babies?An Activision rep explained, "If we start turning them into babies, and kicking babies, we're going to run into ratings issues." Oh, come on! There's the ... and the ... okay, we can't really argue with that. It's also worth mentioning that Singularity's violence is edited on the show floor -- something about German censorship issues. %Gallery-45668%
Overheard@E3: STUNNED!
While toiling away in the press room on Wednesday, entrenched and blogging the scoops, we heard a couple of other game journos discuss the sheer magnificence of one Square Enix. Apparently, these guys were big fans.Game Journo #1: "Did you see Final Fantasy XIV?"Game Journo #2: "Yes, and I was stunned. STUNNED!"Game Journo #1: "That company is amazing. Playing their PS2 games, they looked like PS3 games."
Overheard@E3: Brutally Jealous
Activision Rep: "Have you been to the booth yet?"Xav: "Not yet. I want to check out Brutal Legend... wait sorry, that's EA. You guys used to have it."Activision: "Yeah. Don't rub it in."For the record, this happened yesterday ... which makes today's law suit even more hilarious.
Overheard@E3: Doing his business while getting something down on paper
While relieving ourselves in the bathroom across the hall from the E3 media room, it sounded like someone was trying to unload in the stall. Not in the way one would normally expect from an attendee who had consumed mass quantities of coffee and convention center food. No, this guy was having a seriously legit business conversation. A loud, almost comical discussion where he was arguing the merits of a licensing deal with EA and about some of the general events going on at the show. If it sounds like we hung around the men's bathroom longer than we needed to just to see what he'd say next ... that would be absolutely right. Anyway, this is just a friendly reminder that business folks shouldn't conduct conversations in the bathroom stalls during a media event. Especially when there are perv journalists standing around and listening to every word they say.
Overheard@E3: Get off that mic, Rapstar!
"Internally, we used that as the architectural model of how not to do this game" -- Paul Coyne, Executive Vice President of 4mm Games on (the comically terrible) Get On Da Mic versus Def Jam Rapstar.
Overheard@E3: We're here to learn
"We're not here to have sex. We're here to learn something." -- Quantic Dream's David Cage on the objective in a new Heavy Rain scene debuted during a breakout session today.We quietly chanted the mantra as the character, Madison, was forced (by consequences in the game demo) to strip down to her bra and thong, bend over, and shake it, shattering the fourth wall and our tolerance for dark rooms packed with strangers.
Overheard@E3: God of War has money to make
"Obviously, there's a lot of money to be made." -- God of War III director Stig Asmussen on the possibility of another PSP God of War game. (Note: Stig's only confirming the obvious.)
Overheard@E3: Dark Void knows its roots, but it's better
"Dark Void coming this fall, better than the Rocketeer" -- Capcom rep. on the show floor getting people to play the game.
