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Vicious Engine 2 adds Wii, PS2 and PSP
[smilingsquid] Vicious Cycle today announced that the second iteration of its Vicious Engine is getting set to ... viciously tear apart the innards of the Wii, PlayStation 2 and PSP. Wait, that doesn't sound very nice at all! What we mean to say is that the engine that brought you Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond for XBLA is heading to ... okay, that's not helping too much either. Anyway, for the past year, Vicious Engine 2 has been available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but today's news announces the game creation tools' ubiquity across pretty much everything else. Vicious Cycle will be next showing off the engine for the aforementioned consoles at GDC next month, where game industry folks and journalists will get a chance to see it in action. With any luck, they won't be deterred by the "Vicious Cycle" signs surrounding the booth.
Vicious Engine offered to PSP Minis developers
We've seen a few titles which will soon be offered as bite-sized PSP Minis, but a recent Vicious Cycle Software press release makes us think we're about to see a whole lot more. The company recently partnered up with Sony to grant access to its Vicious Engine to PSP Minis developers in order to "create quality downloadable titles both quickly and cost-effectively." Though you may not be familiar with the technology, you've probably played a title or two built upon the Vicious Engine -- Puzzle Quest, Dead Head Fred and Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard all used the engine as their building blocks. Sounds like fairly versatile programming -- it even caters to the increasingly popular "hotel training sim" genre.
Hilton uses Vicious Engine for 'salt' training game
Click to Hilton-size Vicious Cycle Software has announced that Virtual Heroes used the Vicious Engine to craft a Hilton hotel employee training game, which we first reported in January. The press release notes that the PSP game, titled Hilton Garden Inn Ultimate Team Play -- catchy -- was deployed to all Hilton Garden Inn hotels in February. Don't bother yourself with puzzling questions as to why a company would retroactively announce that the "game" uses its engine. Just forget about that. You want to know about the gameplay ... and we've got you covered.There's some drivel in the press release about it, but why bother reading that when you've got screenshots? Judging from the image above, the game involves luring customers with piles of toast -- while menacingly keeping the patrons in your crosshairs -- and managing your hotel's supplies of precious salt.%Gallery-50095%
Moar Graffix! Vicious Engine 2 announced
The somewhat popular Vicious Engine (primarily a PSP and Wii development tool set) will be giving up its spotlight soon, with the announcement of the much newer and powerful Vicious Engine 2. Vicious Cycle Software revealed the Vicious Engine 2 will make its debut at this month's Game Developer Conference and is targeting next-gen consoles. Vicious promises their updated engine will allow for development on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 simultaneously, which not only speeds up the dev cycle, but also makes the entire process cheaper. (That deserves a manly Tim Taylor grunt.) Will this new Vicious Engine make developers forget about the omnipresent Unreal Engine 3 or the crazy-powerful Crytek Engine? Highly doubtful, but who knows. We could be surprised at GDC with a hefty helping of graphical beauty and devs turned into true believers. [Via Big Download]
Wii pair getting Vicious, Engine that is
Smack Down Productions is doing its part to fill bargain bins with punny titles like Build-A-Bear: A Friend Fur All Seasons and Koh Lanta, a party game based on the French flavor of Survivor. Now the French developer is working on a pair of unspecified titles for the Wii, each based on "high-profile licenses" and built using Vicious Cycle's self-titled Vicious Engine. High-profile or not, middleware doesn't make the game. No other details on either project are known, though with titles like disturbingly-named Fatal Furries to the developer's credit we can hardly wait to see what Smack Down has in store. Hardly.
SCEE providing Vicious Engine to developers in India
In an effort to spur development on the PSP and PS2 platforms, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has announced a partnership with Vicious Engine to game developers in India. There is a burgeoning games development scene in India, and Sony is trying to make it as easy as possible for developers to work on their platforms."We looked for an all-inclusive game engine that provided flexibility and a rapid development cycle," said Jim Ryan, COO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. "The Vicious Engine is both intuitive and easy-to-use, an excellent choice for our program in India.""Working with up-and-coming developers has always been part of our long-term strategy," said Eric Peterson, president and CEO of Vicious Cycle Software. "This is an historic program, and we are looking forward to all the amazing titles Indian developers will create using our engine."The Vicious Engine has been used in a number of games, including Dead Head Fred and Puzzle Quest on the PSP.
Frozen Codebase, Vicious Engine liplock over Elements of Destruction
The bottle no longer spinning, its narrow mouth points squarely at Vicious Cycle as the company's middleware solution is taken in hand by developer Frozen Codebase to the closet for a little lovin'. The Green Bay, Wisconsin-based studio selected Vicious Cycle's increasingly popular (not to mention educational) Vicious Engine to power its upcoming XBLA title Elements of Destruction. As the title suggests, Elements of Destruction will focus heavily on blowin' stuff up using "spectacularly destructive powers of nature." The game follows last year's Screwjumper and marks the second XBLA release from the studio, which was founded by industry veteran Ben Geisler and is staffed by vets from such companies as Raven Software, Radical Entertainment, and GarageGames. As with Screwjumper, Elements of Destruction will be released by THQ -- as soon as they can get that closet door open.
Vicious Engine made available to Indiana University students
Developers Vicious Cycle Software have offered up the studio's cross-platform Vicious Engine middleware to students attending the Indiana University School of Education, giving those aspiring to a life of game development some helpful hands-on time with real-world tools. But don't go expecting the university to churn out the next Puzzle Quest or Dead Head Fred, as according to the school, students will be using the engine to make so-called 'serious games." Students' games will be "designed to teach various subjects of their choosing," and will be part of a larger university study on "how people learn through games." Even so, we imagine the experience will likely prove invaluable for those students wanting to eventually grease the wheels of game development with their sweat and blood.
Joystiq Interview: Puzzle Quest, Vicious Cycle's Eric Peterson's 'Holy Grail'
On paper, the genre-bending Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords reads like a madman's manifesto, meshing together elements of classic puzzlers like Bejewelled with those more commonly associated with traditional RPGs for an experience that is anything but traditional. Nonetheless, the game proved to be one of 2007's surprise hits, as it tapped into both the casual and hardcore gaming communities like few games before it. It also helps that in the span of just a few months Puzzle Quest has managed to be ported to nearly every platform under the sun, including the game's most recent incarnation for the Wii. In the wake of this release, we got some face time with Eric Peterson, CEO and president at Vicious Cycle Software -- one of Puzzle Quest's two development partners, about this latest release, the series, and which version, to him at least, represents the definitive Puzzle Quest experience (Hint: It's not the Wii version). More on these topics and more after the jump.
GDC 07: Vicious tries a new control scheme
The Vicious Engine was on display at GDC, and I'd have to say I came away unimpressed. The engine, which is scalable for PSP use, didn't seem to push any "next gen" or even "new gen" graphics. It's currently being used in the WIi/PSP title Alien Syndrome, which may be indicative of a somewhat distressing trend: are graphics on the Wii comparable to those on PSP? Will publishers look to make quick ports that look similarly on Sony's handheld and on Nintendo's latest console?At least the Vicious Engine promises to offer Wii developers the ability to easily create motion controls. The software includes built-in controls that developers can easily access. One interesting control scheme allowed one to control the camera using the nunchuck: tilting the nunchuck would adjust the camera. Certainly, it's an interesting alternative to a dual analog setup, but the build that was playable didn't seem to feel 100% intuitive.
Vicious Engine envisions creative Wii FPS controls
While at the Vicious Cycle booth, we got a chance to view at Vicious Engine, now working on the Wii, and how the team sees to implement controls for first-person and over-the-shoulder titles. Essentially, only the nunchuk is used for camera and movement. The top joystick moves and strafes your character, while left and right rotations trigger the accelerometer and rotate the characters perspective left and right and a forward / back roll with cause the camera to look down / up, respectively. In play testing the control scheme, using the accelerometer control to move the camera feels awkward, and the rotations seem to move in 15 degree spurts (as opposed to fluid movement). After a few minutes, however, the movement became more intuitive. With the simplification of movement in one hand, the other hand (and, more importantly, the infrared motion sensor) is free to control whatever -- sword-fighting or off-of-middle cursor positioning. Level Designer Bryan West told us, rather bemused, that with how the control scripts are implemented in the engine that even he could build a game with what's available. Visually, the engine looked slightly better than Red Steel, especially the character model we saw. West talked with us and lamented about the common trend of ignoring Wii's graphical capability and simply upscaling textures used for PSP titles. We're assuming, then, that we won't be seeing the same issue with Alien Syndrome, a PSP and Wii title using the Vicious Engine. West also told us that they are working on a Wii game internally that involves the Vicious Engine but cannot currently discuss at this time.
