http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... igin-storyFor Project Awakened, the origin story kicks off back in 2007 with a small team at Midway Chicago prototyping a video game. Named Hero, it was inspired by the character creation tools of superhero MMOs, but it would allow you to then take your newly minted cyborg ninja, flying clown, or vengeful aqua-guy and throw them into a full-on action adventure with proper shooting and brawling and plenty of blasting people with funny lightning spikes that burst from your hands.
"Hero started with same basic idea of, 'What if we, the developers, weren't going to tell a player what character they have to play with or how to play through an action game, but they get to decide those things and the game changes and adjusts around their choices?'" says Chip Sineni, director of Phosphor Games, the studio which has recently launched a Kickstarter for Hero's spiritual successor. "This is beyond what some MMOs have done, as those are not true core action gamer experiences. We want a real action game. Hero was approaching a vertical slice, where most of the systems are roughed in and started to hook together, so the rough vision of the game is there."
Enter adversity: in this case, the collapse of Midway in 2009. "We had to leave the code, engine, and assets behind," explains Sineni, "but that vision has carried forward, and grown. Hero was going to be a console game we put in a box and people would have to just enjoy our version of this grand vision. Now, with more powerful engines like UE4, with great PC distribution platforms and communities like Steam and others, and with pioneers like Minecraft showing the world the power and joy of an endless living beta, we can do a much better job of fulfilling that original vision and grow the game in countless ways over time."
That's the core of Project Awakened, then: a superhero action game with a focus on customisation, funded through Kickstarter and released digitally via a long open beta period. All of which brings us to your origin story.
So, what'll it be?
"You'll start with picking different visual parts for different parts of the character," says Sineni, explaining how Awakened's wonderfully complex create-a-character tools work. "Tops, bottoms, arm and leg accessories, hats, masks, gear, etc. Then you'll get to change the color on those items so you can really feel like you are customising them. We also want you to be able to actually do decals, tattoos, logos, etc. for the ultimate level of customisation. From there you will pick your abilities. And when we say abilities, we mean anything video game characters can do. Magic, mind powers, super powers, melee weapons guns, massive summons, stealth, you name it. If it's been in a video game, we want to eventually support it."
That sounds great - particularly when the team behind the game includes veterans of Psi-Ops and Stranglehold. How will Phosphor ensure the modular character components and skills and powers come together into something that feels coherent and genuinely superheroish, though, and not just like a bunch of atomic spiders got dumped into the sorting room of an old thrift shop? "It's a fair question," Sineni admits. "The first method is that we have been messing with the concept for a number of years, and have developed a sense of how different types of abilities will play off and against each other. We'll keep that up. The second method is that we want to have an honest to goodness closed beta, and then open beta, that really help shapes the game. We need the community to play the game, try stuff out, tell us and each other what works, what is too powerful, what breaks, what is awesome and we need more of. It's a game for the gaming community and we want them to feel a sense of ownership. Like Minecraft, or collectable card games like Magic the Gathering, balance and fun will be heavily crowd-sourced.
What about the single-player stuff? How will a game with this much player freedom actually unfold? "The main world of Project Awakened that we are making will be a mature, gritty sort of modern day where technology we now envision as being future sci-fi was all actually invented recently, and people are pretty much going through a new stage of human evolution of power," Sineni explains.
"There's a lot of chaos in such a change that we want to explore along with the player. The single-player story levels themselves will be designed so that how you choose to approach them really changes the experience. Say you want to get through a checkpoint. You can go in guns a-blazing, you can mindjack one guy and have him shoot the others, you can summon a huge tornado or title wave to level it. You can find a roost a ways back, lure the enemies into a trap, or snipe them one by one. You can stealth by without ever being noticed. The single-player game will be hub-and-spoke: there will be a central hub area that is more open world so you can get missions, gear, get a feel for the world, and of course have sandbox fun with your character build and abilities. The spokes will be those more linear story scenarios I mentioned. An hour of play would likely be some time in the hub messing around and gearing up, then taking on a story missions."
Create-A-Player Prototype Abilities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kn8xwa50O8Play How You Want Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyhzeOED6sUUnreal Engine 4 Tech Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyFicpOYlIg