Fallen Earth Descended on AGC 2006

Lee Hammock, the lead designer of Fallen Earth from Icarus Studios, demonstrated the game earlier this week at the Austin Game Conference. For those not familiar with the game, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world where gamers play the roles of various mutated humans (yup, I’ll be calling myself “Mad Max” from now on). But there’s more: as mutated humans, you have special abilities (yup, I’ll be calling myself “Mad X-Max” from now on). Here are the details:

• Vivox technology that delivers high quality and real-time in-game voice communication”>Vivox technology that delivers high quality and real-time in-game voice communication”>Vivox Voice Over IP: You’ll be so busy using your hands to control your character that you’ll need voice. The demo run went great: voice communication was fast and clear, and the graphics of the game went smoothly, too.
• Crafting: Almost every item in the game will be crafted by players. You don’t go after a giant monster to get a rare weapon. You get a rare component that you use to make a weapon. And there’s time involved; it takes a few hours (either online or offline time; the time still keeps counting even while you’re offline) to make a gun but it’ll take days or weeks to make something more complex (like a car). You can only craft one item at a time.
• PVP: There are 6 factions in the game organized as a six-sided wheel. The faction across the wheel is the great enemy, the 2 factions next to you on the wheel are allies, and the remaining 2 factions (sandwiched between your allies and your great enemy) are on the cusp between being friendly and being hostile. You don’t have to choose a faction right away, and you can do missions for any faction to earn “reputation points.” The reputation points fuel the drama: for every positive point in your favor, you lose two points from the opposing faction.

Considering that Icarus Studios is behind the Icarus Studios Technology Suite (a collection of high quality fully-integrated tools), and considering the fact that this was developed in order to make Fallen Earth, we’re going to keep an eye on this game. The world is interesting, and the game design along with the crafting and the factions add more depth to it. Meanwhile, I’ll go practice my Mad X-Max pose.

Lee Hammock, the lead designer of Fallen Earth from Icarus Studios, demonstrated the game earlier this week at the Austin Game Conference. For those not familiar with the game, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world where gamers play the roles of various mutated humans (yup, I’ll be calling myself “Mad Max” from now on). But there’s more: as mutated humans, you have special abilities (yup, I’ll be calling myself “Mad X-Max” from now on). Here are the details:

• Vivox technology that delivers high quality and real-time in-game voice communication”>Vivox technology that delivers high quality and real-time in-game voice communication”>Vivox Voice Over IP: You’ll be so busy using your hands to control your character that you’ll need voice. The demo run went great: voice communication was fast and clear, and the graphics of the game went smoothly, too.
• Crafting: Almost every item in the game will be crafted by players. You don’t go after a giant monster to get a rare weapon. You get a rare component that you use to make a weapon. And there’s time involved; it takes a few hours (either online or offline time; the time still keeps counting even while you’re offline) to make a gun but it’ll take days or weeks to make something more complex (like a car). You can only craft one item at a time.
• PVP: There are 6 factions in the game organized as a six-sided wheel. The faction across the wheel is the great enemy, the 2 factions next to you on the wheel are allies, and the remaining 2 factions (sandwiched between your allies and your great enemy) are on the cusp between being friendly and being hostile. You don’t have to choose a faction right away, and you can do missions for any faction to earn “reputation points.” The reputation points fuel the drama: for every positive point in your favor, you lose two points from the opposing faction.

Considering that Icarus Studios is behind the Icarus Studios Technology Suite (a collection of high quality fully-integrated tools), and considering the fact that this was developed in order to make Fallen Earth, we’re going to keep an eye on this game. The world is interesting, and the game design along with the crafting and the factions add more depth to it. Meanwhile, I’ll go practice my Mad X-Max pose.