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Jazzy noir stealth game, Third Eye Crime, lands on Steam
Third Eye Crime has jumped from mobile devices to Steam, available on PC for $5. Third Eye Crime is a jazzy, telepathic stealth game where you play as a criminal who is able to predict where enemies will move as they attempt to capture or stop your ne'er-do-welling. Players are able to lay traps and plant false leads in a top-down world. Third Eye Crime has three acts, eight environments and more than 120 levels. The game comes from Moonshot Games, a team of former AAA and Bungie developers, and it launched on iOS earlier this year. Moonshot started work on Third Eye Crime last year, after funding for a download-only console shooter, Fallen Frontier, fell through. [Image: Moonshot Games]
Telepathic crime and noir stealth due in spring with Third Eye Crime
Third Eye Crime, the telepathic stealth game from a team of former Bungie developers at Moonshot Games, is due out in spring for mobile devices from publisher gameblyr. Moonshot will have a playable iOS build at PAX East later this week. Third Eye Crime stars Rothko, a criminal with the ability to predict the moves of his enemies – Rothko must use his telepathic powers to set up false leads for the authorities, allowing him to get away with nasty deeds. It's top-down puzzle and stealth in a noir setting, and it was almost a completely different game. Moonshot Games entered the indie industry with Fallen Frontier, a downloadable co-op shooter for consoles, but funding fell through. Moonshot switched up its business plan, targeting the mobile market, and until now it funded Third Eye Crime from the team's own pockets. "Post-PAX [2011] we came to the grim realization that the market had shifted pretty substantially since we first started working on the game," Moonshot co-founder Damian Isla said in 2013. "The console downloadable platforms had plateaued somewhat, and publishers were less excited about investing there. A game that had sold itself easily the first two times all of a sudden became a much harder sell the third time. By that time, the real interest and the accompanying dollars seemed to had moved on to mobile and social." We'll see if Moonshot is still on the right path with Third Eye Crime in spring. [Images: gameblyr]
Third Eye Crime combines a stealth game with a psychic twist
I saw quite a few really terrific indie games at GDC last week, but Third Eye Crime was one of my favorites on iOS. It's being put together by a studio called Moonshot Games, made up of game industry veterans working on mobile games together after having some bad experiences with console publishing. Third Eye Crime is a stealth game, where you need to sneak around a series of levels while trying to avoid armed guards. But the twist here is that you've got some psychic ability, so not only can you see where the guards are looking (always important in games like this), but you can see where they're planning to look next, and lay out your escape route accordingly. It's very interesting just how much this changes the game. In Third Eye Crime, guards never really give up, so once you've attracted their attention, it's a game of diving in and out of various hidey-holes, constantly trying to dodge your pursuers. And you literally have to stay one step ahead of them, keeping an eye on where they are and where they're going, so you can duck out safely. Fortunately, you get access to a few other tools, like a "patsy" spell that will create a fake clone of you, or other various abilities. But your enemies have some extra moves as well: I saw sniper enemies that can take you out with one shot right away. Unfortunately, Third Eye Crime isn't quite done -- the graphics looked good, but there were definitely a few optimization issues and rough areas that still could use some smoothing out. The idea is quite well-done, however, and it should have enough juice to keep the game rolling for the expected 80 to 100 levels. Third Eye Crime is set to arrive on iOS sometime around early June.
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.
PAX East Indie Showcase to include Spaceteam, Saturday Morning RPG
The indie games featured in this year's PAX East Indie Showcase have been revealed. Seven games will be showcased at the event this year, which highlights excellence in mobile games we've never heard of.The full list includes Sleeping Beast Games' iOS party game Spaceteam, Little Chomp by ClutchPlay Games, PagodaWest's Major Magnet, Trinket Studios' puzzler Orion's Forge, Saturday Morning RPG from Mighty Rabbit Studios, Time Surfer by Kumobious and Third Eye Crime by Moonshot Games.
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%
Three ex-Bungie vets form Moonshot Games
Tired of telling the tale of Master Chief and all of those spinning rings in space, three Bungie veterans have packed their bags and left the company, GI.biz reports. The trio -- Michel Bastien, Damián Isla and Rob Strokes -- have decided to embark on their own adventure together as Moonshot Games, a studio based in both the Seattle and Boston areas.There's no word on what the new studio will be focusing on, but with all three having spent years making Halo 2 and Halo 3, we'd say it's safe to assume the studio's new project won't include any AI constructs or multi-billion dollar cyborgs. Well, unless they decide to stick to what they know best ...
