Adorable Robotic Pets in ReCore

With another E3 come & gone, it’s time to sort through all the corporate schpeals, hype & glits to get down to what discerning gamers actually want: The Games.  I always find it fascinating to watch the industry trends & try to make predictions for the coming year.  To that end, I’ve decided to look at the long list of game titles, tech & rumors that caught my attention & congeal everything I could research on them into one convenient location for your reading pleasure.

This year’s E3 wasn’t the first time we caught a glimpse of ReCore.  At last year’s convention, Microsoft showed a cinematic trailer for the game to get its name out there.  But this year, not only was there a very cool new trailer, but a playable demo, as well as some interviews with the development team.

What caught my eye?  Admittedly, the first thing that caught my eye (or ear, in this case) was the catchy music in the trailer.  But honestly, we don’t get many puzzle-platformers anymore.  The current trend is FPS or open-world sandbox action games, so I always enjoy seeing more variety.  Especially from a brand new IP.  I also liked the artistic design of the game, from the way the lead looks to the robot companions.  Who doesn’t love robot puppies?  While not the most graphically impressive, if the style fits the setting, I’m good.

Here’s what we know.  ReCore looks to be a puzzle-platformer, sprinkled heavily with combat.  It’s being described as a mix of Mega Man & Metroid Prime — an apt description, as the development team includes Keiji Inafune (who was part of the Mega Man series from the very beginning) and members of the team that work on Metroid Prime 3.  After watching the demo footage, I can definitely see the influence from both.  Imagine Mega Man or Metroid from a 3rd person perspective.  That’s the vibe I got.

The plot centers around a young woman named Joule (pronounced “Jewel” not “Jo-el” like I initially thought) Adams, who wakes up from cryosleep on a planet called Far Eden.  After some unknown incident made Earth inhabitable, Joule is a colonist & technician sent to make Far Eden, a desert wasteland of a planet, inhabitable for humans.  But when she awakens from her cryosleep, she discovers that the robots set up to help humanity have gone crazy.  Based on the demo, which seemed to show Joule communicating with a male via radio, it doesn’t look like everyone’s dead.  If I had to guess, the team set up the robots to terraform the planet & somewhere along the way the AI bugged out.

In addition to the expected combat (different gun settings & upgrades), Joule’s greatest weapons are repurposed Corebots.  The cores are essentially the Corebots’ brains, & represented by colored glass spheres.  There will be three core personalities, which are shown in greater detail in the new trailer.  Mack, represented in blue, is described as loyal, energetic, & “the explorer.”  Seth, represented by in yellow, is a cowardly “escape artist.”  And Duncan represented in red, is described as stubborn & aggressive.  Although these cores are shown using specific frames, players will be able to switch the cores & an out of different frames.  According to developer interviews, each personality will have different abilities based on the frame their in.  The trailer only demonstrated three versions of the frames: the fast & agile dog-frame, a spider-frame equipped with a gun & able to climb walls, & a humanoid gorilla-frame that appears to be the heaviest hitter.  But at the end of the trailer we see two other frames; a small floating droid & a small rover.  They have blue cores like Mack, so it’s unclear if they have their own personalities, were simply showing other Corebot designs, or might not even be controllable (like they’re for recon but Joule can’t command them).  Based on footage from the demo, Joule will be able to have one active companion at a time & can switch on the fly.  The Corebots appeared to act independently during combat, but Joule can also command them to use special attacks that have a recharge time.

Also, according to interviews, players will be able to upgrade their companions.  Weaken an enemy enough, & Joule can use her hook to grab their core, triggering a “tug-of-war” (ie. QTE) to remove the core, which can then be used to upgrade your companion cores.  They also mentioned upgrading the frames & even Joule’s gun, but it’s unclear how that will work, as I didn’t notice enemies dropping loot.

What we don’t know.  The biggest question for me is whether or not ReCore will be available on PC.  The developers have said it’ll be exclusive to XBox One & “Windows 10.”  However, no source I could find seemed clear if this meant it would work on older systems, or it’ll only be available for purchase on the Windows Store.  Nor have I seen it listed on other sites.

Gameplay-wise, it’s still unclear how the swapping frames or upgrades will work.  Will there be a hub/home base where Joule can apply upgrades?  Or will there be rooms you come across?  Will players only be allowed to switch to frames available in the immediate area, or will they remain unlocked to switch as we please?  It’s hard to say, because it’s unclear how linear the game space will be.  There’s no indication that this in an open-world game, but if it’s anything like the games that inspired it, it’s likely players will be able to visit “levels” as they choose.

Overall, assuming it comes out on a platform I actually own, this is a game to keep an eye on.  And with the release date set for September 13 of this year, we won’t have long to wait.

– GamerDame

Allison Road Hits Dead End

On June 4th, after over three months of silence from the developers, Lilith Ltd. announced they were cancelling the much-hyped Allison Road game.  In a short & sweet message on their official Twitter page, the developers announced:

https://twitter.com/AllisonRoad_HQ/status/739251685265117184

Their further statement, released earlier today, was equally vague about this sudden & unexpected news.  The Twitter page displayed a link to the game’s community page on Facebook, which reads:

Hi all,
After a long consideration between Team17 and ourselves, we have reached a mutual agreement to end our collaboration on publishing Allison Road under Team17’s Games label.
Sometime things pan out differently than expected as game development and publishing have so many layers of complexity… We’d like to especially thank everyone for their support through-out, it has and will always be appreciated!

For those unfamiliar with this title, Allison Road was an indie project that sprung up after Konami cancelled the upcoming Silent Hills game, which was to be a continuation of the Silent Hill franchise.  The studio released a demo called P.T., that quickly blew up on the internet.  Not only was it graphically impressive & terrifying, but the project had Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame, director Guillermo del Toro, & staring Norman Reedus as the unnamed protagonist.  Having played through P.T. (Playable Teaser) myself, I can attest that it looked to be the shot of terror the Silent Hill franchise was in desperate need of.  Sadly, this was right around the time Konami lost their collective minds, cancelled the project, thereby ticking off both their employees & fans.

Naturally, with gamers livid over this decision, numerous P.T. clones emerged shortly after.  Most were just variations of the demo, which is ostensibly a creepy looping hallway simulator.  But the only grabber-on that went a step further & aimed at creating a full gaming experience was Allison Road, in development by newly formed Lilith Ltd. in the UK.

Support abounded for the studio, with them quickly raising money on Kickstarter.  But before they could reach their deadline, Lilith announced they decided to sign on with Team17.  Team17 are the developers behind the Worms series, but also a company that has shown they recognize good indie projects when they seen them, as they’re also set to publish the Kickstarter indie Yooka-Laylee.  At the time, this seemed like a good thing, as by all accounts this could only help Lilith.  Now they could focus on making the game they (& their supporters) wanted while having a backer who would allow them creative freedom.

That is why this cancellation business had come out of left-field.  Sadly, in this day & age, it’s not uncommon for Kickstarter games to be cancelled.  If anything, it’s more surprising when they actually come out.  But usually the signs start to become obvious.  In the case of Allison Road, as far as I heard (or rather, didn’t hear) there were no problems.  The last update on Twitter was back in February asking for character artists, which says to me they were hard at work.  But maybe we should’ve taken the silence as a red flag.

This announcement has left many people asking if Allison Road is completely dead.  Lilith’s wording is a bit ambiguous, & neither has Team17 made any statements.  According to the Facebook statement, the decision to cut ties was mutual, so it can be theorized there were difficulties on both sides.  But it’s unclear whether Lilith will attempt to restart the project on their own, as it sounds like they were unhappy with the publisher side of their arrangement.  But that might be a problem.  Depending on what type of agreement they had, Team17 might now own the rights to Allison Road.  I won’t claim to be an expert on the matter of game publishing & copyrights, but typically when a publisher brings a smaller studio onboard, they essentially buy the rights to their IP.  I’ve seen countless times when a publisher buys up a smaller studio (& their IP by extension) then shuts down the studio but continues to publish games under their copyright.  In short, it’s entirely possible Lilith Ltd. doesn’t even own the rights to “Allison Road” anymore.

And frankly, even if Lilith does still own the rights, I’d be leery about trying again on Kickstarter.  This news has struck a massive blow toward their credibility as a developer, so it’s very unlikely they’d receive the same level of support as before.  I’ve heard of plenty of games that tried a second campaign, but none that have succeeded.  Gamers are already jaded against crowdfunding as it is, & incidents like this don’t help.  I think it’ll be hard for Lilith moving forward, as this black mark will always be upon their name.

I also find it strange, as many others pointed out in their comments, that it took them eleven days from the time of the cancellation announcement to make an official statement.  Especially one as vague as what was offered.  I get the sense that both sides were arguing over how to make the announcement, how to divvy up blame.  That it fell to Lilith to break the news — notice how despite the Twitter post claiming the statement is from both parties the actual statement was made by Lilith (“Team17 and ourselves”) — makes me think their might be bad blood between the studios.

Actually, looking back, I noticed that Team17’s Twitter feed very rarely showed anything about the game.  They advertise the crap out of all their other upcoming titles, especially Yooka-Laylee.  So the fact that there’s nothing about Allison Road (no videos, images, etc.), which was just as hyped, suggests to me that perhaps Lilith wasn’t making as much progress as Team17 wanted.  Perhaps Lilith wanted to maintain control over their product & felt Team17 was being pushy.  Maybe their ambition was simply too great.

This is all just speculation, of course.

Personally, I think we’ve seen the end of Allison Road as we knew it.  If Lilith still owns the rights, I don’t think it’ll be successfully funded a second time.  If Team17 owns the rights, they might bring another team in to do it, but it won’t be the same game Lilith originally intended.  Perhaps it will be another P.T., & maybe inspire other developers to give us what we lost.

– GamerDame