I’m going to be pro-active this time with my next status update, and write it faster than I expected.
I received quite some feedback on my latest status update, here on the forum but also in the form of plenty of emails with suggestions. I even found out which of my friends were secretly monitoring what I was writing here
Lots of the reactions contained quite some interesting ideas, my favourite one being that we should hire a hypnotizer who can make people think they are extra-terrestrial chickens with an attitude, and challenge everybody at the show to take the ET-chicken test. If you’re wondering what that has to do with any of our next Divinity games, it doesn’t, but it’s relevant for our Iphone game, which does deal with ET-chickens
If you’re curious about the Iphone game btw, register for our contest and you’ll get the quick design pitch as an example.
Speaking of which (yet another shameless plug) participate ! The first batch of ideas we received contained some pretty good ones already, and if your idea wins, chances are you might make quite some money (you’d of course do it for the honour etc… but a little cash on the side might always be welcome). Go to
www.larian.com/yourgame for more details. Given that most of our community are RPG players, I’d expect at the very least some pretty good Iphone RPG ideas too.
So what’s up at Larian these days? Well, as those who come here regularly know, we’re preparing for Gamescom and the announcement of Project D.
Now I read on
www.rpgwatch.com, one of the two sites I check in the morning to see what the competition does (the other being the madness that is rpgcodex) that Moriendor (whose opinions ring a personal note as he visited our studio in the early days to help us out with testing the first Divinity) thinks we’re going to make:
a) A Real sequel to ED full price game to be released on all major platforms
b) An Isometric low budget spin-off to possibly only be distributed digitally
c) A Browser game of some sort
d) And finally a multiplayer-focused title, either an MMO (seems unlikely that they would invest in a full scale MMO but maybe a browser MMO) or something with an emphasis on cooperative gameplay
He concludes with “that would cover all of the bases as far as the current trends in gaming are concerned”.
So to respond - Project D is none of these and project E, which I think I already mentioned has a top-down camera, can hardly be called low-budget. On the contrary, it makes us bleed, but we have high hopes for it
Speaking of E, I’m very happy to announce that we managed to convince David Freeman (
http://www.beyondstructure.com ) to help us out with the script. He arrived yesterday in Gent with a surprisingly low dose of jet lag, and will be working together with us over the next couple of weeks with fine-tuning the storyline for E. I’m pretty curious what he’ll come up with, especially considering the ambitions we have for E’s storyline and how you’ll interact with it.
David wrote a book “Creation Emotion in Games” and also teaches the biggest screenwriting class in Los Angeles & London. If you have an interest in stories in games, get a copy (
http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Emotion-Games-Craft-Emotioneering/dp/1592730078 ) and you won’t be disappointed, but better yet, if you ever have a chance, participate in his class, you won’t regret it (and it puts the ideas of the book completely in perspective, which might otherwise be hard to get completely) Get on his mailing list so you can figure out when he’s in the neighbourhood, those things are usually packed but who knows, you might manage.
Now, I’m mentioning all of this because his book contains a chapter which talks about “meaningful non linear response” or MNLR for short, and it’s one of the things we’re trying to do & get right in E. If you get the book, you’ll get why this could something really cool. If not, ask David, maybe he’ll send you a chapter. If you can’t guess, I’m pretty hyped about having Jan, who wrote all the dialogue in DKS and David work together, and am very hopeful that the outcome will make for a fantastic new Divinity story.
Anyway, also speaking about David, he needs some sleep & is waiting for me to drive him to his hotel, so I’ll close with that. At least I managed two status updates within a month.
Oh before I forget – from this very minute (or any time now)
for a very limited time –
DKS is 50% off on Steam – if you haven’t bought it yet, get it now
Those in the know (
http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=431100#Post431100 ) thought it was pretty ok for an RPG.
Cheers