In our opinion, the recent announcement that Chair Entertainment was acquired by Epic Games bodes very well for the upcoming Ender’s Game video games. Chair owns the rights for producing the upcoming titles, and Epic produced fanboy favorites Unreal and Gears of War. (Did somebody say “Bugger Wars”?)
Seems like nobody likes Microsoft’s Silverlight; we took the liberty of reposting the Channel 10 video on YouTube (file too big) Google Video for everyone that doesn’t have Silverlight installed (does anybody?):
After reading that the Battle Room game was going to be developed by the same folks that produced another XBOX LIVE downloadable game called Undertow, I gave it a shot. But it didn’t really do anything for me. It just seemed a bit, well… two-dimensional. It was more of an arcade style shooter than an immersible virtual world that you might envision for an Ender’s Game video game. While the graphics in Undertow portray a 3D world; the gameplay is restricted to moving on an X/Y axis: up, down, forward & back. Except for the cut-scenes, there weren’t even any camera angles that give you the feeling of really being immersed in the game. And that’s really what I’d like to see in a Battle Room video game… I want to feel like I’m in there with Dragon Army.
But maybe I’m missing something. Undertow has been getting awards that are encouraging me to take another look, maybe this weekend. Has anyone here played Undertow before, and do you think this would be a good format for the Battle Room game in the works?
Here’s the Undertow trailer; what do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments box down below:
Great new games coming your way from XBOX Live arcade
While we’re optimistically skeptical about the development of the Ender’s Game video game “Battle Room”, it’s heartening to hear Chair Entertainment’s Donald Mustard talk about wanting to “not ruin” the franchise, and that he suspects this will be one of the more “fully featured” games we’ve seen in the modern downloadable games space.
It’s actually a great interview, covering a bit of Chair’s history and relationship with OSC. They apparently approached Orson Scott Card to write the book “Empire” for the video game of the same title, rather than the typically “other way around” hollywood approach; and that project eventually led to discussions around the Ender’s Game franchise. Apparently, they were involved in both Advent Rising and the downloadable game Undertow; I’m not sure that’s a good sign (I tried Undertow last week, and got bored pretty quickly.)
It’s nice to know that there’s nobody more interested in creating a series of Ender’s Game video games than author Orscon Scott Card himself. During an interview with FileFront’s Gaming Today this past July, OSC talks about his own gaming addiction, and outlines his ideas for creating a series of video games in the Enderverse.
That’s right. Multiple games.
We’re especially heartened by the level of detail OSC includes as he unspools a long list of game types he would like to see made, and the concerns he has about making sure they stay true to the potential these games will play in the evolving world of “video game as storytelling vehicle”. OSC definitely seems to “get it”.
From the exceptionally long and detailed interview :
“OSC: Part of the deal with Warner Brothers was for them to develop the many videogames that are possible from the book, without waiting for the movie. They never fulfilled that - which was the only part of the deal with Warner Brothers that actually made me angry. Movies are hard to make - but to make many good, profitable Ender’s Game games is a no-brainer.
Don’t look for one “Ender’s Game” game. Look, instead, for games bearing the Ender’s Game brand.”
Now we’re talking. While reading along while OSC outlines a number of game types, I felt a chill run down my spine (honest.) This is the most elaborate description of OSC’s vision for any Ender’s Game video game that I’ve read yet, and it’s encouraging. The right studio and development process (I’m imagining that Bungie’s experience developing and testing for Halo 3 with Microsoft Labs would be a good model to base it on, but we might like to see that crossed with a “Matrix: Path of NEO” interface) could make Ender’s Game a breakthrough game- one that evolves the way we “see ourselves” in the story during online game play.
OSC continues to describe his daydream vision, describing games based on the Battle Room and/or Battle School, the three Formic Wars, parallel storyline games based on the Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow series, the Mind Game/ Fantasy Game concept, a Hive Queen “sims” game, and finally a “post-war war game” that takes place immediately following Ender’s “victory”. He specifically remarks that “the Battle Room game would be the most popular and yet the cheapest to develop each module for, so we’ll certainly start there, though I think the First Formic War will also be a terrific and popular game. We’ll see what happens.”
It’s a long (but welcome) interview for those of us who have daydreamed of what an Ender’s Game video game might look like:
Source: http://news.filefront.com/gaming-todays-exclusive-interview-with-author-orson-scott-card/