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The many sounds of Dementium
In this latest trailer for Dementium: The Ward, the focus is on the sounds of the game. It follows the same theme as the previous trailers, combining live-action segments with in-game footage. As if we could have any more reason to absolutely need this game, we find ourselves at the point where we'd assassinate a foreign diplomat if it meant getting our hands on this title sooner. Harsh, we know, but how great does this game look?!%Gallery-4929%
Joystiq interview: Dementium's Renegade Kid
You may not recognize the name Renegade Kid, but chances are you're familiar with some of the more than twenty titles this tiny three-person development team in Austin has jointly had a hand in creating, including games such as XS Games' The Red Star, Aspyr's Stubbs the Zombie, and Namco's Sigma Star Saga. Now working as an independent developer under the Gamecock umbrella, Renegade Kid will soon launch its first title this Halloween with Dementium: The Ward, a first-person survival horror game for the Nintendo DS.We recently had a chance to gab some time with two members of Renegade Kid, co-owner and creative director Jools Watsham and fellow co-owner and art director Gregg Hargrove, and we spoke to them about what it's like to work under their Gamecock overlords (did I say overlords? I meant protectors), as well as as just how crazy they must be to attempt a game as ambitious as Dementium on the DS as their freshman effort. Read on.%Gallery-3636%
Renegade Kid talks challenges with Dementium
After Fountainhead's Anna Kang spoke about the "younger audience" the DS commands this week, it's refreshing to see someone taking the opposite position. Jools Watsham, Creative Director at Renegade Kid, the team behind Dementium, has a lot to say about M-rated games on the DS, a system that commands an audience of, well, pretty much everyone. While some companies may be worried about sales numbers before plotting out a game, the good folks at Renegade Kid were more interested in finding ways around those barriers, and Watsham was happy to tell us all about it."When I think about it now, there I was trying to convince publishers to pick up our game while putting up every red flag there is. They must have all thought we were crazy! Our hope was that publishers would think our game was good. And thankfully they did. Gamecock didn't want changes or anything watered down. They just told us to go for it," Watsham said, and we're glad to hear about Gamecock's faith in the new developer. With no other titles behind them and without an established franchise to lean on, as with some of the system's other mature fare, Watsham knew they were going to face challenges with Dementium: The Ward.%Gallery-4929%
Fresh hot craziness in latest Dementium trailer
Mixing in gameplay segments with live-action footage (you know, like they've already been doing), this latest trailer for Dementium: The Ward is a tad bit unsettling. There's lots of blood and creepy women covered in it, shouting and popping up in random places frame after frame. The gameplay, though, looks as good as ever. Seriously, this is one of our most-anticipated titles for the DS to date.How awesome is that whole wheelchair sequence?%Gallery-4929%See also: PAX07 hands-on: Dementium: The Ward
Friday Video: Putting your game face on
We just can't resist these Dementium trailers. They're fresh and different, which definitely grabs our attention, but they seem to demonstrate a great spirit as well -- a blend of comedy, "mature" content, and gameplay that we wish showed up in more trailers and commercials.Though we'll say one thing: if blood ever splashed up from our DS while we were playing a game, we think we'd be asking for a refund. After we stopped uncontrollably freaking out, anyway.
Dementium, with tongue firmly in cheek
If we weren't already interested in Dementium: The Ward, we certainly would be after this latest trailer. What it lacks in gameplay footage, it makes up in humor, and poking fun at ambulance-chasing lawyers never gets old ... particularly when they happen to sport an amusing moniker (like this fellow),The trailer itself is amusingly bad, like watching a low-budget film that is fully self aware and uses its cheapness to its advantage. We particularly liked the obnoxious, excessive gore, especially when "blood" looks as though it's being sprayed from a squeezy bottle of Hershey's syrup. Well played, Renegade Kid and Gamecock. Well played indeed. See it for yourself after the break, but beware -- mixed in among the funny, there are some squicky moments.%Gallery-4929%
Dementium: The Ward gets psycho on your DS this Halloween
Survival horror FPS, Dementium: The Ward, received an official release date today of ... (cue up haunting music) Halloween. That's Oct. 31 in case you just can't be bothered to remember. The Gamecock published Dementium is a little independent title by Renegade Kid which impressed us at E3 because of its intuitive design and solid feel. Granted, it's on the Nintendo DS, so we don't have many survival horror FPS' to compare it to, but it was fun and almost made us miss our next appointment.Dementium: The Ward is a mature rated game and uses the leeway that rating gives it. We're definitely looking forward to more DS titles from Renegade Kid. They seem to know what they're doing, getting Dementium together in about a year from scratch. With any luck, gamers will find Dementium and we can see more solid off-the-beaten-path DS titles from the company.[Via Press Release]%Gallery-3636%
Good news from The Ward
Can there ever be good news from the insane asylum? Only if it's coupled with news of a worthwhile gaming experience, and it looks like that just might be the case with Renegade Kid's Dementium: The Ward. Our evil masters at Joystiq got a little facetime with the shooter at E3, and they only had good things to say on the subject. The controls are smooth, says Alexander Silwinski, and certainly reminiscent of Metroid Prime Hunters, but since Dementium's pacing is a little slower, the game is easier to handle. Item selection is apparently a breeze, with the exception of a shortcut to the oft-needed flashlight, and puzzles make sense. The only downside is that the game apparently only takes about seven hours to complete, but maybe the story -- on which we have very few details at this time -- will make up for it.%Gallery-4929%
Joystiq hands-on: Dementium: The Ward
Pleasant surprises end up being more than pleasant because pleasant surprises are so few and far between -- Dementium: The Ward is a pleasant surprise. The first-person survival horror game for the Nintendo DS does the best it can with the hardware's technology and could, at a minimum, be a serious break-out sleeper hit. When you find out Renegade Kid will have finished this game with a development cycle of 11 months, with only three internal guys and five external guys working on it, you'll be surprised. The reason they could pull this off is because these developers are all veterans of the N64 and were "firing on all cylinders out of discipline" knowing how to work with the development software, for them the trick was how to incorporate the stylus, but it all came out just fine.The most shocking thing you'll notice about Dementium is how smooth it runs. It uses the Metroid Prime Hunters control scheme, but because the pacing is slower than MPH, the concept feels better. Left hand stays on the control pad with one finger on the left bumper for action, right hand uses stylus on the bottom screen. The top screen is uncluttered standard FPS fare. The bottom screen has a heart monitor which gives a standard thud-thud when you are at normal health and gets more rapid as you take damage. Currently the heart beat can't be turned down or silenced, the developers said that will put that option into the final game -- listening to a heart beat for that long would drive you Edgar Allen Poe telltale crazy. There is a simple action button when you need to open doors (loading times are nil) and an easily accessible notepad when you need to remember codes or keep notes to figure out puzzles. Items are easily selected by tapping them on an inventory tray which runs along the bottom of the screen. The only thing is that the flashlight is so important to seeing more than a few feet in front of you that a quick hotkey on the bottom menu would be nice -- especially because you can't use the flashlight as a melee weapon (hello Doom 3 irritation all over again). The map is great showing you where you've been and which doors are locked and unlocked. The game takes approximately 7 hours to complete, so figure a few extra hours if you take your time. Puzzles include stuff like finding a code written in blood that you'll need to input into a door and searching around a room for notes to play on a toy piano. Dementium looks like it'll be a great unflinching M rated addition to the DS library. The story is still under wraps, but if the story is as tight as the controls, this'll be a winner for the independent games movement.%Gallery-3636%
Full trailer for Dementium: The Ward
We've seen the tiniest of teasers, but now we can enjoy the full trailer for the upcoming title Dementium: The Ward. From this short video, the debut from developer Renegade Kid looks a little like the recent Touch the Dead, but with a few more character models. And should we be surprised? The games have a similar basic premise -- guy awakens in hospital and finds he must fight for his life -- but Dementium is more than just a shooter ... and it seems to have a few more character models to boot. Publisher Gamecock has really been all over the DS lately, and from the looks of these releases, we hope they decide to stay.
Today's most horrifyingly dual-screen video: Dementium trailer
When independent publisher Gamecock announced Dementium: The Ward, from developer Renegade Kid, they promised the game would "set the bar for mature handheld games." If this newly-released trailer is any indication, they're on the right track. Decaying corpses, flashlight exploration, and a hint of gun-play. And the graphics aren't too shabby, either.Dementium: The Ward will be on-hand on Gamecock's EIEIO party during Min-E3. Video, care of Gametrailers, embedded after the break.%Gallery-3636%
Gamecock announces DS survival horror, Dementium: The Ward
The first title to escape from the confines of developer Renegade Kids will be Dementium: The Ward, a first-person survival horror game for the Nintendo DS. Published by Gamecock Media Group, the game promises to "set the bar for mature handheld games" by combining first-person shooter and adventure mechanics into "one nightmarish experience". Presumably, that means the game will be scary and not, you know, Trespasser. The press release notes that Dementium: The Ward concerns an unfortunate protagonist waking up in a desolate hospital, one frozen in time and overrun by gruesome creatures and worse yet, "challenging puzzles." The initial batch of screenshots also indicates that you'll be shining a flashlight on strange lumps of meat, an activity which we honestly can't attribute to any existing DS game. "Dementium showcases what a powerful piece of hardware the DS is, while drawing in a mature crowd that's looking for a title they can really sink their teeth into," says Renegade Kid's owner and creative director, Jools Watsham.Targeting the DS for an original survival horror title certainly seems noteworthy, especially when the platform's current "mature crowd" is either sinking its teeth into Brain Age or a glass of water next to the bed. Renegade Kid's real challenge likely won't be finding an audience, but conveying an unnerving atmosphere on a portable device. (Don't read the concluding sentence, you'll regret it for the rest of your life!)%Gallery-3636%
GDC 07:The Ward sneaks into the news
Brand new for GDC week -- The Ward, a horror-themed FPS-plus set in a hospital. Developer Renegade Kid is brand new and looks to be bursting out of the gate with this one. Per their website, the company only received an official stamp of approval last month, and they're already showing off a (very short) teaser for the game. The Ward both sounds and looks interesting, and while the idea of waking up in a world gone wrong isn't particularly new, a game doesn't necessarily have to be the most original idea to be good. If we're to believe the developers, The Ward is an ambitious undertaking. "We're pushing the Nintendo DS to its' limits, with chilling environments, demented enemy characters, and real-world weapons all realized in 3D," says Gregg Hargrove, owner and Art Director at Renegade Kid. The nominal FPS is also set to contain many other gameplay elements, such as touchscreen exploration (a la adventure gaming?), puzzles, and oh, hey ... multiplayer!That's a lot of goodness out of nowhere. Let's hope it delivers! The Ward is set for this fall, if it finds a publisher, and our man on the floor at GDC, Andrew Yoon, is going to see if he can't find these guys for a closer look. After the jump, you can check out the teaser trailer and more screens.
