'Jarvis Project' vil tage Resogun-grafikken til et helt nyt niveau

For nylig talte vi med Mikael Haveri fra Housemarque, udvikleren bag det nylige Alienation samt spil som Resogun, Dead Nation og Super Stardust HD. Han havde en masse at fortælle om studiets planet for Alienation, deres fremtidige Matterfall samt en eksklusiv afsløring om det mystiske "Jarvis Project".

Lokalt kooperativt spil var ikke inkluderet i udgivelsesversionen af Alienation, og det er en feature som spillet virkelig har manglet. Vi spurgte Haveri om hvornår holdet vil udgive denne feature, og her havde han gode nyheder:

"I think people really want it [local co-op], especially the vocal ones, so I have to say that it is in development, it is in the pipeline for the next patch. Nobody knows when it's coming out yet, but the next one is going to be bigger than 1.01, which we released earlier this week, so... hopefully next month?"

Derudover blev Haveri spurgt om der er nogle større udvidelser på vej til spillet:

"We have a lot of ideas, and the community has a lot of really cool ideas. For us, it comes down to how well the game is adopted by the community. Currently, there is at least a really well-defined short-term plan, with which a lot of the focus is going into local co-op, and some other really cool things that will come out at the same time that we can't talk about. From there on, it's up to how do people adopt it; how vocal are they and saying online to us and Sony 'I'm going to pay for this content.' Also, what kind of DLC can we make? It's not always easy just selling a DLC, because there's also some stuff we want to give away for free, so it's kind of a balancing act. But we'll see."

Vi ved også at Housemarque arbejder på et andet spil, Matterfall, der blev afsløret ved sidste års Paris Games Week. Det var ikke meget information vi kunne klemme ud af ham:

"What I can say is that there's so much information in the cinematic. Before we have anything new to announce, maybe you go through that cinematic with a fine-toothed comb and check it out. That's all we can say for now."

Vi spurgte derefter yderligere ind til hvad han specifikt mente med spillets afsløringstrailer, og her afslørede en smule mere om hvad man skal kigge efter:

"A lot of the camerawork works in 'unique ways,' and a lot of that is planned. On purpose, we've tried different camera things there. That's one thing, and then the sort of voxelised, particle system that's there; take that, then imagine the possibilities of using such semi-fluid, semi-stable thing in a game. Clearly from the trailer, of course you have the main character, the enemies, but then you have this 'entity,' this matter. These are the key components that people should hype up in their head a little bit. To us these are some of the core elements in the game."

Housemarque arbejder også på et nyt spil sammen med den berømte designveteran Eugene Jarvis. Spillet er kendt som "The Euguene Jarvis Project", og er et singleplayer-spil i en arkadestil, som henvender sig til Twitch-generationen. Haveri fortalte os eksklusivt, at Jarvis-projektet vil foregå i den samme grafikmotor som Resogun:

"The beautiful explosions and visuals of voxels, that kind of a unique look that we had with Resogun; we're taking that to the next level. Think beyond the voxel, think of part of voxels and combinations, and melding everything. We're putting that engine into the Eugene Jarvis project."