sheldon-pacotti
Latest
Deus Ex writer teams with BioWare designer for Sienna Storm
Sheldon Pacotti, lead writer of Deus Ex, has joined forces with Tony Evans, designer on games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, to create an ambitious sci-fi adventure dubbed Sienna Storm. Described as a "non-linear thriller," Sienna Storm uses sketchy, hand-drawn art to complement a lengthy story and a unique card game mechanic that takes the place of in-game combat. "Fluid situations are executed via an innovative card game mechanic that actuates the intel, gear, and skills you've gathered throughout the game," reads the game's description. "Persuasion is just as important as deduction in this sociopolitical thriller, in which the crucial moves in a dangerous multipolar world truly lie in your hands." Though full details on the card game component remain under wraps, the brief description offered by the developers makes it sound a bit like a less complicated take on Netrunner. Unlike most crowdfunding projects, which add minor rewards for each funding goal reached, Sienna Storm will reward its backers with an improved development team. Assuming the two stretch goals are reached, the aforementioned developers will be joined by Unreal Tournament composer Alex Brandon and Fallout designer Chris Avellone. Sienna Storm is seeking $179,000, and has currently raised $2,168. 28 days remain in the game's fundraising drive. [Image: Digital Knights]
Cell: emergence version 1.1 reacts massively on XBLIG, PC
If you're going to play something on Xbox Live Indie Games that doesn't involve mining, it might as well be an organic, massively reactive, cellular strategy game from the principal writer of the original Deus Ex, Sheldon Pacotti. Cell: emergence takes place in the body of a sick child, where players inhabit a nanobot fighting the smart germs of futuristic biowarfare. It's beautiful, for a battlefield.Cell: emergence 1.1 drops on XBLIG today and is out for PC via Desura, both on sale for $1 through February 4. Version 1.1 addresses the weak tutorial and steep difficulty curve by throwing in visual tutorial screens."The difficulty curve remains steep, but for most players it should now be challenging rather than mystifying," Pacotti says. He also wants to see Cell: emergence break out on Steam, and today began a campaign to get it approved through Greenlight.If you're interested but not sold, check out the free demo on Indie DB.
Game Blocks offers free, open-source game creation for novices
Sheldon Pacotti, writer of the original Deus Ex games and indie developer in his own right, created Game Blocks, an open-source library for making games, for the students in his video game writing course at the University of Texas. Game Blocks is designed to help novice developers craft their stories, animations and physics effects with a simple, snap-to interface, as demonstrated above.Game Blocks is able to compile platformers, adventure games, simulation games and arcade shooters for PC and Mac, and makes it easy to organize dialogue and story. Best of all, it's completely free. Anyone interested in messing around with game design or interactive storytelling, download Game Blocks directly from Pacotti's New Life Interactive.
Ex-Deus Ex writer Sheldon Pacotti on massive reactions in Cell: emergence
Sheldon Pacotti, principal writer for the original Deus Ex and its sequel, Invisible War, leads a quietly explosive life. He teaches game writing at the University of Texas, is a software architect at a business design, marketing and consulting firm called frog (capitalization is apparently out this year), and he recently founded New Life Interactive, which this year released Cell: emergence.Cell is a tricky beast to peg down, fusing voxel-based, strategic gameplay with mechanics that appear to be AI-driven, but are in fact "cellular automata," or the direct result of each player's organic style -- and all of this taking place inside the body of a sick child.This all may sound vague or convoluted (or both), so we'll let Pacotti fill in the remaining details on Cell and his influence on Deus Ex: Human Revolution -- though we can't promise you'll understand his terms any better, we do believe you'll feel intellectually enlightened regardless:
