BRAID (2008)
Girls - I did not expect such a combination of warped sexuality and genuine sincerity. I do love this show.
CastleStorm is a cool genre-mashup for XBLA that I’ve been working on since I started at Microsoft. 2D physics destruction meets tower defense meets brawler sound like enough genres? Developed by the fine folks at Zen Studios (all the way in Budapest!), in the game players defend a castle against assault from enemies who spawn out from many locations, often including a rival’s castle. By using a ballista weapon with a wide range of ammo types (including deadly sheep), you can shoot the enemies and bombard the enemy castle, which breaks apart in all the physics-based glory you would hope for.
The perspective is similar to Angry Birds, but unlike that title, this is a fast-paced precision skill game, where you not only fire projectiles but also spawn troops, deploy magic, and take to the battlefield as a hero character. It’s also impressively deep with features, with online and offline PvP, skirmish modes, and a full castle editor you can use to customize your castle. Oh and a story that’s Monty Python by way of Eastern Europe…
Zen is mainly known for their pinball titles, including the popular XBLA title Pinball FX, so CastleStorm is quite a departure for them, and fortunately for all of us it’s tons of fun and gets super hard toward the end of the epic campaign. Working with Zen was great - they were fast at turning around changes and eager to take notes. I mostly worked on them on controls and balancing, helping them do a type of game they’ve never done before - but really this project was 99% Zen.
When’s it coming out? Should be pretty soon, we’ll see what the Cert Gods have to say.
http://www.castlestormgame.com/
http://www.twitch.tv/microsoftstudios/c/2284562
Great day of talks at UCSC Interactive Storytelling Symposium.
From the top:
- Michael Mateas with opening remarks about story structure and what that means for games
- Warren Spector comparing us to other mediums (Psycho again)
- Clint Hocking talking Far Cry 2 during our “game-oriented” panel while Michael and Telltale’s Kevin Bruner gaze at his slides,
- ARG-ish panel with Brenda Laurel, Tawny Schlieski, Matt McLaurin and Susan Bonds (whose slide about NIN’s Year Zero ARG is up on the projector)
- Downstairs in the museum they had Space War!
- Ending on an emotional note, Brenda Romero telling moving player-centric stories about all the times Train has been played.
Sorry Emily Short, Asa Kalama, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, and Stephane Bura, my camera failed to be cool enough to take a picture of your Tools & Authorship panel. Thanks to Michael Mateas, Jane Pincard et al for organizing and having me out. Great fun was had by all.
