I am always fascinated to hear developers talk about how the ideas for their game first come into existence. Sometimes it can be a revolutionary moment of clarity where all the stars are aligned and pure wonder takes on physical form. Most of the time however, it starts with taking an already well-defined idea or mechanic and adding your own spin to it. Through that process of iteration, the idea is slowly refined until it’s polished to a mirror shine.
I recently spoke with the fine folks of Pixelscopic, the studio behind Delver's Drop. They shared some information on how their top-down, dungeon-generating, action-RPG started as a tilt-controlled, bumping RPG for the iOS devices.
“Zelda meets pinball was our internal pitch for it. Then we started expanding those ideas,” said Ryan Baker, vision director, CCO and co-founder of Pixelscopic. “The first kind of idea that I had, picturing it in my head would actually be a motion-controlled iPhone game where you just tilt, slide around and bump into enemies. When you bump into them, your character automatically slashes with their sword.”
When gamers argue about whether or not a game is survival horror, they tend to focus on the scares. Jump scares are a particular bone of contention because they can be effective only a few times before they get predictable. The forthcoming title from Zombie Studios, entitled Daylight, hopes to solve some of that predictability by introducing procedural generation to the equation so that players aren't going to experience the same game twice.
Starting in an ever-present safe room, creative director Jared Gerritzen showed me a freshly created maze of rooms in which a player would explore. Lit by a smartphone flash, a player will have to navigate a dark and dank atmosphere with the advantage that's different every time you play. "I never know what I'm walking into," Jared explains, "and the whole idea of it is that it's a maze... kinda tapping into that [desire of] wanting to be scared."
The PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade versions of Terraria are coming out a bit sooner than you might have expected. How's next week sound? 505 Games has announced March 26 and March 27 release dates, respectively. The pricing ($14.99 / 1200 Microsoft Points) is more than what PC players are used to, but this is not a straight port.
Knowing how well these types of sandbox games sell on Xbox 360 in particular, I'm really curious to see if Terraria can similarly catch on with the console audience. Hopefully, it will -- these guys deserve all the success that comes their way.
Welcome to another edition of Destructoid's Friday Night Fights!
It's that time of the year again; the time when everyone and their Hamza heads to Boston for a weekend of partying and hugging and they all leave me behind. But it's OK. I'm not bitter. How could I be! I have all you wonderful FNFers to keep me company!
Wait... what's that? You're all gone, too! Well screw you!
Resident Evil 6 is out today on Steam and all I can say is, hey, points for trying. If you want to play this game, doing so on PC is by all accounts the way to go. Following up on its announcement of a crossover with Left 4 Dead 2 and Valve, Capcom has shared a video of what happens when the two franchises collide. It's every bit as weird as I expected, but that's far from a bad thing.
This footage shows off Coach, Nick, Ellis, and Rochelle in the new The Mercenaries: No Mercy mode as well as The Witch and Mini-Tanks that help add to the already chaotic on-screen action. This content will come by way of a free update on April 5, 2013.
The best part of this arrangement is that with the arrival of Coach in RE6, we're one step closer to having Uncle Phil in a Resident Evil game. Do me proud, modders.
Thanks to a delay, those of you who own a copy of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for both 3DS and Wii U have missed out on the ability to transfer save data between the two versions. That's no longer the case, as Capcom has confirmed that the free transfer tool is now accessible from the 3DS eShop.
What's more, the Wii U eShop has gotten the Packet Relay Tool, allowing 3DS users to play Ultimate online by connecting to an online-enabled Wii U console. Go on, don't resist -- let Monster Hunter consume you. If I owned a Wii U, curiosity would've gotten the better of me by now.
If you intend to play Diablo III for the first time on PlayStation 3, this new sizzle reel from Blizzard shows what to expect, and I really do mean that -- the video is unafraid of spoilers, including the final boss. Of course, those familiar with the story will tell you that, sadly, there's not a whole lot to be spoiled in the first place.
One trailer moment that stands out is a certain boss fight, which now seems to feature a dynamic camera better suited for direct control of your character. Props to Blizzard for that. I have to wonder what other lesser-known tweaks have been made for consoles and, for that matter, what this looks like running on PlayStation 4.
That's right folks, Max and myself will once again be convening to host another live Destructoid Show today. Our officially-appointed YouTube dominatrix Nick Robinson will also be in the chat giving out Steam codes for Bastion , Black Ops II , and The Walking Dead (the good one, not Survival Instinct .)
Join us at 3:30pm PST over on youtube.com/DTOID and you might just win one!
