![]() There's an awful lot of backstory in the universe, but it didn't really come out in the game. We did Endless Space, and the narrative was pretty light in there. Spock: Yeah, well, that's a challenge we'd had since the first. How is Endless Dungeon's story told? How do players discover or unlock more of each individual character's story? So yeah, constraints, it's part of the fun, it's part of the challenge for me. That's our Dust, but we have to define pretty clearly what it can and can't do, and how you use it, things like that. I really want to have control over what is magic. There's things like, "Okay, I really don't want to have time travel in our universe." But because once you can do that, then everything sort of falls apart and you can make anything happen anytime-there's things like that. So yeah, that's just something we accept. I think it's important to keep the integrity of these building blocks we put down even 10, 12 years ago. And so I've been trying as the loremaster of the studio to really even have those limits on what I can do, and we can do, the stories we can tell. And then it sort of loses its consistency and its character and its coherence. I don't want to name names, but there are fictional universes where it started as a thing that was pretty clearly defined, and then it kept getting more ideas and it sort of went off in every direction. Spock: I mean, there are definitely constraints, and there kind of have to be constraints. On the flip side, did y'all face any unexpected narrative challenges with this game given that it's already tied to the world of another game? It's really fun to do this kind of exploration of our own sort of archive, and figure out what kind of stories we can tell where and how, and that kind of thing. So who can we have in the game?" So we've been working on the universe long enough. So we can go back and say, "Okay, well, let's say it was something Endless did around then this and that." It's like, "Oh, there's this whole story from Endless Space 2, and we can reference that here," and then show, "Oh yeah, we can do that." And then, "Okay, but which factions can we have, and should we look at the timeline? Which factions existed? They weren't dead, they were still there, they weren't going to be born in the future. So what I really love is taking this universe that we've been building for 10 or 12 years now through our games, and saying, "Okay, we're just going to take this one little piece of time, this one little piece of space, and we're going to do whole series of stories just in there and about that." And that's really, really fun because then what I've discovered is that all these documents and Wikipedia stuff about the universe that I've been writing for 10 years becomes useful. What you don't get in those games is individual characters, intimate human stories, moments of dialogue between people and that sort of thing. No, I think doing it as a 4X strategy game, exploring universes as a 4X strategy game is interesting, and just the scope in the exploration, and these giant intergalactic battles and that sort of thing. ![]() Spock: This is what gets me out of bed in the morning. ![]() What was most exciting about using the world of Dungeon of the Endless as a narrative backdrop for this new game? What has it been like exploring a different corner of a familiar universe? Endless Dungeon is scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC on May 18. Pushing the crystal forward summons a brand-new wave of enemies to defeat, and if they destroy the crystal (or you), it's back to the station's hub area (a saloon) for you.ĭuring a preview event for the game, I spoke to narrative director Jeff Spock and lead game designer Arthur Prudent about Endless Dungeon's story and how the game centers its narrative elements and hero characters within its roguelite structure. ![]() To get there, you'll need to fight through waves of enemies, erecting defenses in the hallways you clear so that you can more easily escort a fragile crystal from checkpoint to checkpoint. The only way out is in the furthest depths of the station. The game sees you play as one of many survivors trapped on a seemingly inescapable space station. It makes for what looks to be an amusing sci-fi romp through a long-abandoned space station, especially if you have a few friends on hand to play with in three-player co-op. This time, however, the studio is opting for a twin-stick tower defense game with both hero shooter and roguelite elements. In Endless Dungeon, developer Amplitude Studios returns to its primarily 4X strategy franchise. ![]()
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