{"id":32645,"date":"2017-06-14T18:05:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T01:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/e3-2017-trend-indie-devs-are-courting-speed-runners\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T18:05:32","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T01:05:32","slug":"e3-2017-trend-indie-devs-are-courting-speed-runners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/e3-2017-trend-indie-devs-are-courting-speed-runners\/","title":{"rendered":"E3 2017 trend: Indie devs are courting speed runners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Independent game developers are taking notice of the growing speed-running community, showcasing a few games designed specifically for speed runs at this year\u2019s Indie Megabooth<\/a> at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. It\u2019s a bid to try to harness the power of a fully engaged community, which can serve as a loyal fan base that will spread word of mouth<\/a> about a game.<\/p>\n

The Indie Megabooth is the center of this phenomenon.\u00a0This year, it was part of publisher\u00a0Devolver Digital\u2019s parking lot expo across the street from E3 proper, where it acts of a\u00a0foil for the big triple-A booths inside the convention center. Megabooth, founded by Kelly Wallick, is\u00a0a collection of booths \u2014 or \u201cMegapods\u201d as they\u2019re referred to \u2014 that showcase a curated selection of indie games. Of all the developers featured at this year\u2019s Megabooth, here are two who designed their games specifically for speed runs.<\/p>\n

And with speed-running on the rise\u00a0thanks to events such as\u00a0Awesome Games Done Quick<\/a>, a week-long marathon of speed runners that donates proceeds to charity, the Wizard Fu and Serenity Forge studios are hoping to tap into its popularity. More than 100,000 concurrent viewers watched\u00a0AGDQ on Twitch in 2016, gaming news site Destructoid reported<\/a>, and it raised $1,216,309\u00a0in 2016<\/a>\u00a0for the\u00a0Prevent Cancer Foundation.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Wizard Fu and Serenity Forge have in store:<\/p>\n

Songbringer: <\/a>Wizard Fu<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Procedural generation has been trendy for a while. Hello Games, the studio behind space exploration game No Man\u2019s Sky, even started up a fund<\/a> for developers who are experimenting with procedural generation, and Wizard Fu is using it to create a Zelda-esque role-playing game.<\/p>\n

Songbringer is a fantasy-meets-sci fi RPG that focuses on exploration. When you start, it asks you to enter an alphabetical code, and an algorithm\u00a0creates a procedurally generated world. This code is your \u201cworld seed,\u201d and you can share it with friends to show them the world that you\u2019re exploring. After you finish your first run in a world, you can also re-use it to play through that specific world once more.<\/p>\n

Procedural generation can be thought of as a way to randomize content in a game. When a game is procedurally generated, certain aspects of it are generated algorithmically by the program so that each time the items, enemies, or landmarks may appear in different places on the game map. Procedurally generated games have a lot of parameters, though, so that the developer can maintain control over the quality of the players\u2019 experiences. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of bespoke elements that go into it all, like it always puts dungeon 1 a certain distance from the starting point. So it kind of orders things \u2014 the difficulty of the dungeons, stuff like that \u2014 based on how you should kind of go through it,\u201d says Nathanael Weiss of Wizard Fu.<\/p>\n

Being able to generate a new world but to also revisit it after you complete it the first time lends itself to speed runs. Each map can create a different kind of challenge, and Weiss said that he wants players to use those to get creative with the way they approach their speed runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many little secret walls and everything everywhere, so I\u2019m sure speed runners are going to find a way to like play the entire game in reverse, for example, or get to dungeon 7 before they go to dungeon 1,\u201d Weiss says. \u201cSo there are a lot of tricks that speed runners will be able to exploit to get really fast times, and I\u2019m really excited to see what they do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protagonist, Roq Epimetheos, explores alongside a drone, Jib, which can also be controlled by a second player for cooperative play. The two live in a desolate world full of mysterious high-tech and magical remnants, some of which are items that Roq can use as tools or as elements for crafting other objects. For instance, the blink orb enables you to teleport forward, but elemental abilities like ice, fire, lightning, poison, and fear can also enable you to interact with the world in different ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of crossover between the items too, and that\u2019s another aspect that will go really well for speed runners,\u201d Weiss says. \u201cOnce you get ice, you can freeze all the water and walk over it. But you can also get the blink orb and then get that upgraded to be able to cross over certain water. So there\u2019s a lot of crossover between the items so that players have a choice of how to solve the problems and get past the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The King\u2019s Bird:<\/a>\u00a0Serenity Forge<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Serenity Forge\u2019s The King\u2019s Bird is designed to make speed-running more accessible. Marketing director Kevin Zhang said that the studio drew inspiration from platformer games like the fiendishly difficult Super Meat Boy or Dust Force, both of which have captured the interest of speed-running communities.<\/p>\n

Zhang says that The King\u2019s Bird\u2019s core DNA is that of a precision platformer, which rewards exact technique (something speed runners adore), but the studio saw an opportunity to draw in an audience that might may find speed runs intimidating. The King\u2019s Bird started as a quick prototype, but when its art style garnered positive response, the studio decided to build it out into a full game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realized that our original intention was working, which is: Draw people in with the beauty of the game and then kind of encourage people who otherwise might be intimidated by precision platformers to give this genre a try,\u201d Zhang says, \u201cand to slowly teach them that hey, precision platformers are hard but it\u2019s still worth learning how to speed run these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The King\u2019s Bird features a flat design with a monochromatic color scheme for each level. It also prioritizes story and character more than its forerunners, which Zhang said are more focused on purely level design and fast gameplay. Short in-game cutscenes unfold as you play, telling the story of a girl who wants desperately to leave her kingdom, but is prevented by a series of magical pillars as well as a mysterious figure who stands in her way.<\/p>\n

The mechanics borrow somewhat from games like Dust Force, with wall dashes, but also innovate on a mid-air gliding action that is momentum-driven.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe built this entire physics system where everything is basically momentum-driven,\u201d Zhang said. He adds that some people have compared the mechanic to Sonic the Hedgehog games, which also featured gameplay that involved building up speed to execute certain moves.<\/p>\n

Serenity Forge is aiming for an early 2018 launch for PC, and it\u2019s also considering some console platforms. It soft-announced a Switch version at E3, but it hasn\u2019t locked in exactly which other consoles it will be releasing on. The studio is aiming for 35 to 60 levels in its main story mode, as well as additional challenge levels. In the future, it also plans on implementing local and global leaderboards to show players how they compare to the current record-holder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the game is more complete, we\u2019re definitely going to be reaching out to a lot speed runners and show them what this game is about,\u201d Zhang says. \u201cAnd also probably have a lot of speed runners play test our game as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>V<\/strong><\/em>entureBeat’s PC Gaming channel is presented by the Intel\u00ae\u00a0<\/sup>Game Dev<\/a>\u00a0program.\u00a0Stay informed about the latest game dev tools and tips.\u00a0Get the news you can use.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/div>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Independent game developers are taking notice of the growing speed-running community, showcasing a few games designed specifically for speed runs at this year\u2019s Indie Megabooth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. It\u2019s a bid to try to harness the power of a fully engaged community, which can serve as a loyal fan… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-media","category-gaming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t