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The death of Fallen Frontier and Moonshot's mobile resurrection
Downloadable console games were all the rage in 2009, the year that Damián Isla, Rob Stokes and Michel Bastien left Bungie and founded Moonshot Games. Stepping away from the AAA development halo, the trio envisioned a digital game for XBLA and PSN, and in 2010 they received two publishing deals for Fallen Frontier, a co-op platforming shooter with a wicked split-screen mechanic.By 2011, both of these publishing deals were dead."Here's the problem with that situation: When your game gets funded, you start spending a lot of time doing stuff that helps you make the game – lots of infrastructural stuff on the engineering side, lots of tool-building, lots of deep story and design work on the design side – but doesn't necessarily do a lot to help you sell the game," Isla told Joystiq. "So each time a development deal fell apart, it was a whole lot of time lost."Moonshot took Fallen Frontier to PAX East 2011 without a publisher, and players were "really receptive," Isla said. The money, however, had moved on."I would say that our main mistake was one of timing," Isla said. "We arrived at the XBLA/PSN space a year or two too late. If we had been showing the game at PAX 2009 rather than 2011, we would be telling a different story right now. But by 2011 the publishers' appetite for development funding in the console downloadable space had evaporated – probably for pretty good reason – and the only deals we were hearing them sign were distribution deals."
Ex-Bungie devs at Moonshot cancel Fallen Frontier, intro Third Eye Crime
Yesterday we mentioned the PAX East Indie Showcase lineup includes Third Eye Crime from Moonshot Games, an indie studio composed of former Bungie developers. As we know, with each new game announcement comes an equal and opposite game cancellation, and Moonshot's PAX East 2011 Indie Showcase game, Fallen Frontier, is dead and gone."I'll be writing a post on FF in the coming weeks, but the short answer is, FF is not going to happen," Moonshot co-founder Damián Isla wrote in response to comments on the Third Eye Crime announcement. "We're pretty bummed, of course. We'll tell as much of that story as we can at some point."Fallen Frontier was a co-op, 2D romp with grappling hooks that Moonshot was pretty excited about in 2011. We thought it warranted attention, as well. We've contacted Moonshot for more information on Fallen Frontier's cancellation.Third Eye Crime, Moonshot's new, stealth-puzzle game, is scheduled to launch on iPad in the spring. Third Eye Crime tells the tale of an art thief with telepathic abilities, set in a noir enviornment, and it will be featured in the PAX East 2013 Indie Showcase from March 22 - 24 in Boston.
Indies react: PAX East as a showcase for small studios
Like so many PAX shows before it, this year's PAX East showcased a ton of indie games -- the gaming equivalent of a Williamsburg dubstep show, if you will. In our experience at this year's event, larger industry players like EA and Bethesda showed off their titles with hired hands and private theater viewings, choosing to exhibit older demos rather than new content. The indies and smaller studios, on the other hand, were out in force. Beyond bringing playable versions of their games to the show -- even Fez was playable, for the first time in several years of development -- the indie studios brought themselves. They continued the tradition of directly engaging with attendees and, often, solicited game-testing feedback on the fly. "I approached PAX East as a three-day playtest session. I learned so much about what works and what doesn't just from standing in the back and observing how people played the game," Fez co-developer Phil Fish told Joystiq. "It's also an amazing morale boost to be told by so many people that your game is great."
Explore the Fallen Frontier with friends
Moonshot Games released a new trailer for the newly announced Fallen Frontier, highlighting the title's co-op gameplay. It's a combination of careful positioning, precision shots and oh my god that guy just shot a grappling hook. If you're at PAX East, you can try it at booth 759.
Bungie offshoot Moonshot Games sets off for the Fallen Frontier
There's good reason to pay attention to Moonshot Games. The operation, which spans two studios in Boston and Seattle, is helmed by some prolific ex-Bungie stars. Three members of the Moonshot crew have hand their hands on Microsoft's FPS: Managing Director Michel Bastien worked as a producer on the first three Halo games at Bungie, Director of Technology Damián Isla worked on developing AI for Halo 2 and 3 and Creative Director Rob Stokes was the Design Lead of Halo 3. The studio's first title, Fallen Frontier, will be making its debut at PAX East this week and it promises to "leverage the very best design principles" from the team's combined experience on the Halo franchise. The arcade action of the game's first trailer certainly makes it seem like "Halo in 2D." We'll find out more when we get our hands on the game this weekend.%Gallery-118558%
