The Joystiq Indie Pitch: OverDose
Being a giant, beloved video game site has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk Gavin Stevens, lead designer of Team Blur Games.
How did you or your company get started?
Back in the Quake 2/3 modding scene, I created a high resolution replacement pack for Quake 2 which (in those days at least) bumped up the detail of the stock enemy textures quite a lot. Another regular I used to chat with saw it and said "Well wouldn't it be just awesome if somebody made the entire game that way?" That other person was Nicolas, Team Blur Games' best (and only, at the moment) coder. Together, we hit upon the idea of Quake II Evolved: OverDose. It would be a single player and multi player game based on the Quake 2 universe, and ... and that's where it got complicated, because again we would be dealing with somebody else's IP, and it would never really be our own baby. So, we went away to think. Many beers were downed. Many pizzas consumed ... and thus, Team Blur Games' "OverDose" was born.
Why did you want to make games?
I think it's safe to assume the guys here are geeks. Hardcore players. It's not so much a case of "Did you get Fallout 3?" yet more a case of "How have you not hit the 100 hour mark yet?!" Games are in our blood, we grew up with them. For me, it stems back to the old SNES days. I would wake up at 5am before school would start just to load up Donkey Kong Country. We get such a huge buzz from making something from nothing. It's an amazing feeling to see an idea turn into a concept, turn into a drawing, turn into a rough mesh, turn into a textured game asset running around a world YOU have created. It's like playing God, but with pixels!
Why be independent rather than try to work for someone else?
Honestly, this boils down to what we believe is the current emotion towards a lot of games this days: ambivalence. We're excited about the prospect of Generic Sequel 19, but at the same time we just know it's gonna be the same old, same old. A publisher doesn't want to see you taking a risk with its investment; It wants to see a huge guaranteed return on it. The facts are simple, if an IP does well, it stands to reason that a sequel to that IP will sell well. But we don't want to make a sequel. We have our own ideas, we have fresh takes on things, we have plans that say "eff you" to standards that people expect.
What's your game called, and what's it about?
Our game is called OverDose, and at its heart it's an intense, semi-realistic/semi-arcade shooter. OverDose is an over-the-top, team play orientated FPS with tons of options for customisation. What exactly makes us think we can compete with the likes of the heavy hitters such as Call Of Duty?
Here are a couple of bullet points:
• Player Customization – Player classes can be customized in a variety of physical ways, from simple features such as gear and skin tones, to clan logos, badges and the like. Every weapon has multiple configurations and attachments, allowing you to create your own arsenal that suits your needs.
• Freedom Of Movement – OverDose takes team play to the next level with "TeamActions," allowing you to help your team mates in the field. See a ledge you can't mantle onto? Give your friend a boost up there and then ask for a pull up. Your buddy down and waiting a medic but the area is too hot for support? Get over there and drag him out! Need to get into cover quickly while under fire? Sprint over there and slide into cover directly. OverDose takes the basic staples of the genre and turns them up to 11, the way Baby Raptor Jesus intended.
• Full Online Ranking System – Players gain XP per game which promotes them in rank, which in turn can be used to match you up with players of similar skill. Whats more with the system being fully saved in conjunction with our master server, stats and rankings can be tracked online!
• FREE – And that's the big one. OverDose is a FREE-to-play indie game.
We don't want to make a sequel. We have our own ideas, we have fresh takes on things, we have plans that say "eff you" to standards that people expect.- Gavin Stevens
Do you feel like you're making the game you always wanted to play?
Oh hell yeah! The thing about OD is that its got so much of our soul in there, its totally "our" game. A key aspect for Nicolas is movement, he wanted various ways of movement so we designed that. So you get your prone, and your sprint, but also leaping, sliding, dragging, mantling, climbing etc. Its really gonna surprise a lot of people when they see how in-depth the movement system is. As for me, it had to be gore. Way back in the day when I was rocking my Maxi Gamer 3D, I used to be amazed at how head shots in Action Quake 2 made that *squish* sound. So of course, for me, it was a total requirement that headshots are full on, with the head pretty much exploding into a shower of gore, eyeballs, brain tissue and bone fragments. Likewise with gibbing; If some sucker explodes near you, prepare to have a messy screen.
What's next?
We keep on going! We have a deadline to meet, with a playable build for the public (it's already in closed) out in the first six months of 2011! The original time line was "before Duke Nukem Forever" but Gearbox have messed that one up for us by actually releasing it. A lot of the really good stuff we keep behind closed doors of course, there's many maps, models, features and all sorts we are saving for a constant media stream of features over the next six months to keep interest up.
After OverDose? Well, we have our iPhone side project codenamed "YoHoHo" which is an RPG in the style of A Link To The Past, that's gonna be fun. In fact, working on that is a breath of fresh air, as it's so much easier! But our future is heavily invested in OverDose for the time being.
Want to check out OverDose for yourself? You can follow the game's progress at the official site. If you'd like to have your own shot at converting our readers into fans, email justin aat joystiq dawt com, subject line "The Joystiq Indie Pitch." Still haven't had enough? Check out the Pitch archives.
