We’ve just had word from our source that a limited version of Home will go live at Midnight on the 31st of March. The new branch of Home, separate from the closed beta, will be called ‘Flat’, be open for everyone as a free download from the PSN and last for exactly 30 days.
Game designer Richard Lemarchand recently gave would-be developers at GDC insights into creating a successful game Naughty Dog style. He started out with the nitty gritty facts: “Have healthy code,” Lemarchand said because it makes the game development process smoother and more polished in the long run. This helps meet deadlines — something Naughty Dog has done time and time again. Lemarchand claimed that “collaboration is key” and gave examples of how designers and engineers, typically specialized and segregated groups, would move to each others desks to help one another. One of the interesting things about Naughty Dog is that it has no official “producers;” anyone at Naughty Dog can pitch ideas. No matter how bad the ideas are, they will always be respected.
Right after our demo of the PC version of Mass Effect, we had the chance to sit with BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuck for a quick catch-up on recent events. The two men were overjoyed to talk about Mass Effect’s success and critical reception, as well as the uplifting effect the EA buyout has had on the company.
Is PC gaming as we know it dead? Or just shifting course to be the dominant medium of the future? At Dave Perry’s “Lunch With the Luminaries” Peter Molyneux, Phil Harrison, Chris Taylor, Raph Koster and Neil Young discussed what path PC gaming will take in the coming years.
In a surprising move, technology giant Intel has acquired engine team Project Offset, according to a brief statement on the official webpage of the often buzzed-about graphical game engine.
The announcement, from Project Offset’s Sam McGrath, simply explains: “Today we have some major news to announce. Intel has acquired Offset Software. Yes, you read it correctly! Project Offset is going strong and we are excited about things to come. Stay tuned.”
By now you may be familiar with Spore’s unique method of generating content: Procedural content creation allows for players to dream up nearly any type of creature, and the game will figure out how to animate it and wrap textures around it on the fly. We’ve all seen the graphics in action, but what about the music? It may surprise you to learn that the music in Spore is also dynamically generated in real time.
Like most Japanese developers, Square Enix has traditionally built the technology for each new game from scratch. While middleware solutions like the Unreal Engine have long been a favored solution for Western developers, the Square approach has been to tackle every new project from the ground up. But this is changing as development costs skyrocket; the upcoming The Last Remnant will be built on Unreal 3, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King for WiiWare was deliberately conceived to test the feasibility of building a game almost entirely with middleware tools and scripts. Even more ambitious is Final Fantasy XIII’s proprietary White Engine, now called Crystal Tools.
The creative director of Sony’s Home project has told GamesIndustry.biz in an exclusive interview to be published in full next week that he believes the PlayStation 3 virtual world platform is the “best-looking” and most “user-friendly” multiplayer experience he’s seen so far.
Talking on a recent trip to Monaco for the Imagina conference, Ron Festejo explained his feeling that other virtual worlds, such as Second Life, were garish, while other online experiences were simply too hardcore for most people.
At a GDC press conference, Insomniac Games (responsible for Ratchet & Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man on PS3) has announced a ground breaking initiative to open up their technologies for the development community at large. Through the “Nocturnal Initiative,” Insomniac Games is attempting to break the common development practice of keeping technological advances a close-guarded secret. As they noted, “developers spend resources solving problems that have already been solved.”
The 8th annual Game Developers Choice Awards were announced this evening at GDC in San Francisco, with Valve’s Portal taking the highest honour.
Portal also received awards for Best Game Design and Innovation.
2K’s Bioshock, nominated in five categories, won awards for Best Audio, Best Visual Arts and Best Writing.
