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Midnight Star is a mobile FPS that works (no, really)
From the mind that co-created the Halo universe, Midnight Star is a robust, alien-infested first-person shooter – for mobile devices. Wait, where are you going? Hang on! Just – hang on. Midnight Star is a good mobile shooter. The game comes from Alex Seropian, the man behind Halo, and Tim Harris, a former comic store owner and co-founder of game studio Seven Lights. Together at Industrial Toys, Seropian and Harris have been promising Midnight Star as a mobile shooter with innovative controls that make sense for the touchscreen platform, something the jaded mobile masses can believe in. And so far, Midnight Star delivers.
The sci-fi all-stars behind Morning Star Alpha
Morning Star is a huge gamble. It's an interstellar FPS for mobile devices built by a crack team of geek-industry experts at Industrial Toys, all hoping to break stigmas of handheld, hardcore gaming. Morning Star Alpha, the tie-in graphic novel for the game, is an even bigger risk. Add-on apps for games have earned the reputation of being rushed, shallow and of poor quality, and most players don't take these digital comics seriously, no matter how fanatical about the series they may be. Convincing people to play a new shooter on their iPhones is one thing – getting them to read a digital comic about that game is another world of salesmanship. So far, Morning Star Alpha has three things working in its favor: It's free, it offers a new way of reading on-screen comics, and it comes from an all-star team, written by award-winning sci-fi author John Scalzi, drawn by Marvel and DC artist Mike Choi, and overseen by Halo creator Alex Seropian. And a fourth thing – it looks really cool.%Gallery-193419%
The evolution of Morning Star's ugly-cute bad guy, the Renfield
Morning Star, from Halo creator Alex Seropian and Seven Lights founder Tim Harris' studio, Industrial Toys, pits players against a variety of alien enemies in a hardcore FPS for mobile devices. The Renfield are a race of agile, bulldog humanoids subservient to the main conquering race, the Dust, who are vampiric monsters bent on destruction. The Renfield take their name from Bram Stoker's Dracula and its secondary antagonist, R.M. Renfield, a psych ward patient with a penchant for consuming living organisms. In the novel, Renfield is under the control of Count Dracula, just as the Renfield in Morning Star are slaves to the Dust. Marvel artist Mike Choi designed the Renfield in Morning Star in one sketch, and from there the enemy has evolved into varying classes: sniper, trooper and "some surprises," Harris writes. Get a good look at the Renfield on the Industrial Toys blog.
'Morning Star' is a mobile, space FPS from Halo creator's Industrial Toys
In 2132, Charlie Campbell boards the MSRV-Joplin, an interplanetary research vessel outfitted with modern military equipment, to investigate a signal emanating from Saturn's largest moon, Titan. His team reaches the signal and discovers an alien artifact distributing an SOS call – but it's more than a cry for help. It's a powerful portal. The artifact transports Charlie and his crew to Oberon, a barren, devastated planet wrecked by war and lorded over by the Dust, an evil, vicious race responsible for the surrounding destruction and bent on slaughtering everyone in sight. And then:"Some bad shit happens," Industrial Toys co-founder Tim Harris tells Joystiq. "Awful, awful shit goes down."Awful shit, such as Charlie's entire crew dying and the artifact causing the sun to implode, instantly incinerating the Earth and every human on it. The Dust, it turns out, have sabotaged the portal to destroy the system of the creature that finds it – though perhaps not permanently.It's an alien artifact, an SOS signal, a portal, a remote killswitch, and, apparently, a time machine, potentially allowing Charlie to undo what the Dust have done. In the battle for humanity's survival, Charlie is our only hope, and Industrial Toys is pulling his strings. %Gallery-173069%
The comic nerds, sci-fi writers and grizzled vets of Industrial Toys
Industrial Toys was created by three self-described and proven industry veterans: Alex Seropian (Bungie founder), Tim Harris (Seven Lights founder) and Brent Pease (Bungie San Jose). They came together in Pasadena, California, in February 2012, with a mission to create hardcore games for mobile, touchscreen devices.Since then, Industrial Toys has picked up sci-fi writer John Scalzi to help build its worlds, Marvel's Mike Choi and DC's Phil Tan as artists (and to balance the company's comic zen), and a handful of "grizzled veterans and fresh, new talent," president Tim Harris told Joystiq at E3.There are a total of 15 employees at Industrial Toys, split down the middle between those new to the industry and those who may have seen too much of it, Harris said.If splitting an odd number of employees into two even groups seems like an improbable feat, know that it isn't the most ambitious of Industrial Toys' goals: By the end of the month, Seropian and Harris plan to release information about their first title, a sci-fi shooter with a world potentially as large as World of Warcraft's.
Halo mastermind takes his sci-fi shooter chops to mobile gaming with Industrial Toys
Alex Seropian, Bungie co-founder and creator of the Halo franchise, has a new studio focused on creating mobile, hardcore games, and his first title is going to be -- wait for it -- a sci-fi shooter.As a hardcore game, Industrial Toys' sci-fi shooter utilizes Unreal Engine and will exist in a world similar in size to the Elder Scrolls or World of Warcraft universes, Seropian said. As a web-based title, it may have some similarities to Team Fortress 2, president Tim Harris suggested after we asked about any online multiplayer capabilities:"It's interesting you bring up TF2," Harris said, laughing.That's where the familiarity from Industrial Toys ends: Seropian and Harris, the latter formerly of Seven Lights, are looking to innovate the touchscreen-control space in a major way, while adding community features integrated on a level other mobile games can't, well, touch.
Halo co-creator Alex Seropian founds Industrial Toys, focused on mobile
Halo co-creator and Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian has embarked on yet another new venture. After founding Wideload Games almost ten years ago and then joining Disney Interactive as head of game development for a few years, Seropian has now started up a company named Industrial Toys. Along with "some kickass art talent from ex-Marvel and DC guys," as president Tim Harris (formerly of Seven Lights) puts it, Seropian and the rest of the company plan to make hardcore games for mobile platforms. "We're going deep on story and community and all sorts of nerdy goodness," says Harris.While we have a while yet to wait on actual game products, the company has already jumped onto Twitter in a big way. It's also posting updates on Facebook, sharing some pictures of the HQ under construction in Los Angeles (those are network wires hanging from the ceiling). It all sounds exciting, and Seropian and friends certainly have pedigree enough to make something really interesting.
