Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are inspirations. “The sense of awe and wonder. Where am I? What is going on? I don’t understand,” Lefler says. “You get a narrative by playing the game. That’s the one thing we absolutely loved and we all talked about trying to do that. Making a world that seemed alien, and playing the game explained that story.”
It’s a departure for the studio, and that comes with risk. Hob is self-funded. There is no Kickstarter campaign and no publisher. “Honestly, not everything is on the table, but enough,” Lefler says. “We’re a small studio, not a big company that has a parent that’s going to come in and save it. There’s a lot riding on it.”
Whatever happened to the Torchlight games? T2 came and went, seemed great, but I never heard about anything more with that name? Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of MMO? And then I thought (?) I saw Travis at another game company? I always associated Torchlight with him.
Anyway, I’m glad Runic is still doing stuff, I like their style, and this looks like it could be really interesting indeed.
Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer left Runic to form Double Damage Games. Travis was here a few months back giving out test keys for their new game Rebel Galaxy.
Thanks for the heads up on that. Hadn’t heard they left Runic, and I gotta say that looks a hell of a lot more interesting than this “Narrative exploration” “Game”. Shame the Steam page is fairly barebones for Rebel Galaxy. Not sure if it’s randomly generated, static, sandboxy, linear, or what-have-you. Definitely gonna keep an eye on it though.
I’ve been wondering what Runic has been been up to lately. Recent visits to their site in the last year or so have turned up nothing. I still play Torchlight II occasionally (as often as Diablo 3 now days) and had always hoped there’d be an expansion for it, but their perpetual silence more or less squished those hopes long ago. I guess there’s always the Steam Workshop, but I don’t have the patience to put up with a lot of half-baked and/or overpowered user mods and creations.
With Torchlight (and most especially Torchlight 2) Runic have earned my trust, my only hope is that the minds behind it have a very clear vision about what this game is supposed to be, because based on what I’m reading, I sure don’t. At the moment it just sounds like a walking simulator with randomly-generated puzzles-like obstacles. I’m definitely interested, and always willing to try something new from a studio I’ve had good experiences with, but for now I guess I have to wait for PAX to learn anything substantial (10 days, 8 hours, 56 minutes and counting, according to the Hob website anyway).
If I had any qualms at all it was that Torchlight and Torchlight II, while slick and competent, were also quite derivative (to its credit, for me). My only hope is that Hob isn’t such a huge departure from Runic’s comfort zone that the game suffers for it. But time will tell.
I’m certainly interested, as long as this isn’t yet another thinly veiled Minecraft rip off (or some other spin on that formula) so common now days.
It could just be my imagination but that looks like controller only. I suck at controller and the movements I’m seeing remind me of Laura Craft Tomb Raider, which was controller only.
So, I’m going to wait until I see someone say m/k is fine.
Here is my advice - because I have a few real life friends I have given this advice to and they told me later it worked for them - practice with a controller. You only suck from probably not using it much, and that’s fair - controllers if you go a long while without using them (or never really used them much) can feel foreign and remembering which button is where and pushing them when you need to is frustrating.
But pick a game, I suggest Spelunky because it’s awesome and fun and uses most buttons, but also Dark Souls or Witcher 3 for their complexity, and just … do it. Just keep at it, you’ll develop those muscle memories really, really fast and then going forward you can actually enjoy games that use and are better with a controller (they are out there, even though I’m mostly a M/K man myself).
Well, when I played Laura Croft, which Steam says I played for 9 hours, I gave up when I finally crushed the controller on my desk for the umpteenth time.
I did get a new steam controller as I thought I’d play some games on my home theater in the comfort of a nice reclining chair, but I really need a game that doesn’t have any stress involved - I tried playing my favorite game, Rebel Galaxy, but it just doesn’t click. I’m > 50 years old, I’m just not sure my body can re-learn new muscle memory.
Honestly, 9 hours might not be enough time to get comfortable - at least not for me. It’s totally okay to get frustrated, just don’t give up. It’s worth the struggle - gaming with a controller opens up a lot of amazing gaming experiences for one thing, having another input method for if your wrists get tired using keyboard/mouse is appealing, and sometimes being able to play while leaning back in your chair is nice, too. Lots of reasons to practice, practice, practice. Get back into Tomb Raider even, get frustrated, fail again and again - you’ll get it eventually, age doesn’t have anything to do with it.
While I agree with you Scott, he did say he’s using a Steam controller. Our experience on the 360/PS4 controllers might not translate to the same learning curve on the Steam controller, which I hear requires more fiddling and more practice.
