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Race'n'Chase: Original GTA design docs posted
The original concept for Grand Theft Auto would see players committing only a few crimes, according to design documents posted by developer Mike Dailly that date back to sixteen years ago today. At that time, the early concept was for a game called Race'n'Chase. Its aim was "to produce a fun, addictive, and fast multi-player car racing and crashing game which uses a novel graphics method." The story? "The game will be set in a present-day world." (Period.) While it would take two and a half years -- and narrowly dodging cancellation, by another creator's account -- to flesh out the eventual game, Grand Theft Auto, the designers did have some inkling of the direction they would ultimately take, as detailed in the original pitch. "There will be 3 cities with a different graphic style for each city (e.g., New York, Venice, Miami)," wrote the heads of then DMA Design (now Rockstar North). "There will be many different missions to be played in each city." The initial mission types consisted of "a straight race across the city," a free-roaming demolition derby and a bank robbery. Other seeds for the mega-franchise-to-be were also planted in the early documents: "Pedestrians will be wandering about all of the time," notes one section, suggesting bystander types could include "schoolchildren" and a "lollipop lady." "They can be run over by cars." "It will also be possible for players to get out of their car and steal another one," the designers propose in the opening pitch, adding, "Trying to steal a car may result in an alarm being set off which will, of course, attract the police." Later, it's clarified that "police will be able to get out of their cars and shoot at the robbers." [Image credit: Mike Dailly; source: mikedailly/Flickr]
Exclusive: Aion's Beshmundir Temple goes hard mode
Assault on Balaurea has been a part of Aion for nearly two months now. Are you getting bored yet? If you feel like you've done all of the new content so much that it's a snooze, get ready for a new challenge. Beshmundir Temple is going into hard mode. Aion developers have been hard at work on this for a long time, and they've prepared a huge guide for the PowerWiki. You'll find advice, walkthroughs, details on the named bosses, and much more. The guide will be released next week, but Massively got an exclusive look at it ahead of time. We've formatted it all up into a handy overview for you, so follow along after the jump for a look at what Beshmundir Temple hard mode has to offer!
Will Wright gifts design docs and personal papers to Museum of Play
We already knew that Super Fun Club's Will Wright was a swell guy, but his recent donation of "personal papers and design documents" to the Strong National Museum of Play places him firmly is really swell guy territory. The International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) -- an institution within the museum -- has collected nine notebooks from Wright, featuring "original drawings, sketches, and notes for four of his SimCity, The Sims, and Spore games." Some of his donation will be on display this coming November as part of the "eGameRevolution" exhibit on the museum's second floor, for those interested in taking a peek. ICHEG director Jon-Paul Dyson spoke of the donation in a statement (via 1UP), "These papers document the creative process behind some of the most important games of our time. They have transformed our society, and we are pleased to preserve this record of how Wright created them." Wright lavished the ICHEG with equal praise, saying, "I know of no other institution that is covering the topic as comprehensively as they are." Wright's work will otherwise be housed alongside an enormous arcade collection -- what the ICHEG deems "the most significant games ever manufactured -- from Computer Space (1971) and Pong (1972) to Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) to Donkey Kong (1981) and Tetris (1988)" -- as well as an over 10,000-strong console game library. In other news, we totally know we're going when the Zombie Apocalypse goes down.
