Random Wednesdays
Ken Levine evidently took to the stage at BAFTA to discuss the development of BioShock Infinite and the evolution of its heroine recently. Guardian readers had a chance to score free tickets, even. It was also revealed that the game’s soundtrack features a rendition of the hymn Will the Circle Be Unbroken, sung by the voice actors that voiced the game’s main characters. It actually sounds pretty good, just two vocalists and a guitar.
Infinite is evidently in the middle of a crunch right now, something Levine feels is necessary to deliver a signature BioShock experience. Levine also recently explained his motivations for killing the BioShock movie.
Rowan Kaiser, writing at Joystiq, penned an article looking at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, praising it for getting the “single-player MMORPG” formula exactly right. The kinetic, fun combat of the game plays a big part in this success, he argues.
Speaking of video game movies, by the way, here’s a bit of an interview with the producer of the upcoming Deus Ex movie. And Square Enix has been on a bit of a spree, lately, trademarking various Deus Ex-related titles. Expect the series to expand a lot in the next year or two!
Okay, so…Neverwinter is in full PR/media blitz mode. Over the last few days, we’ve seen previews for the Control Wizard class, the character creation process (featuring a half-orc), a trailer about the game’s undead critters, some more about the Control Wizard, and even a couple of interviews.
I’ll confess: I signed up for the Neverwinter beta. Haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, though.
Also, it would appear that at least one person doesn’t think ArcheAge is all that it’s cracked up to be.
Not reporting on Thief 4?
I did last week. Missed seeing anything in the feeds by the time I wrote this that concerned it, although I have some articles in the queue now for next week.
What game doesn’t crunch at the end? I guess those that are done for fun, but those typically don’t make much money. The whole “crunch” thing is something that’s happened since the dawn of deadlines. There’s actually some saying that I can’t remember, something about the last 10% taking the longest. Anyone remember?
In general it’s the last 20% that’s the hardest (and the most critical).
The pervasiveness of crunch times in the game industry is actually what finally turned me away from trying to get into it. I’ve achieved a pretty decent level of success with development otherwise and would like to be able to keep my family and not end up in divorce court because I was too busy making Halo n to see my son take his first steps 🙂
That being said, I am still dying to make my own indy game if I can ever convince myself to get off my arse long enoughn
And some sound effects I’m releasing into the unexplored wilds of the public domain:
http://eightvirtues.com/sanctimonia/misc/Footstep%20Sound%20Effects/
More to come!
Very nice! Mind if I put these into a couple downloads for the Lycaeum?
That would be awesome. I’ll be putting more effects in that directory as I record and edit them, so I’ll post or tweet again when I have another batch ready. Still trying to figure out how I’m going to do the two snow effect sets. Maybe I’ll buy a few bags of crushed ice if I can find it.
Ok, I broke them into two downloads for shallow and medium.
http://lycaeum.ultimacodex.com/shallow-water-footsteps/
http://lycaeum.ultimacodex.com/medium-water-footsteps/
Glad to see new content coming together. Thanks for releasing them!