Hey guys, Obviously im aware that the game will probably undergo a couple of changes from now until release, I thought though, that id try and squeeze a bit more information out of you that the FAQ doesn’t provide. If anyone else has questions feel free to post here
Theres bound to be stuff that you either cannot or will not answer, so if thats the case just say so and keep it a surprise
Hope you can answer some questions Lets get started.
1/ I didnt notice any sort of health bar in the UI that ive seen from screenshots. Will there be a Life/Health/Energy bar in the game? (Single shot kills strikes me as what will be most fun…but can get frustrating for a lot of players)
2/ The games multiplayer, ‘I Dig that!’ but just how many players can fit in a game? whats the max per game/minimum per game?
3/ Will there be any voice communication in the game?
That’ll do for now Everyone drop some more questions in here and i look forward to your answers
Hi Jack,
Good idea to open another thread- we’ll happy answer any questions people may have.
For the first question I’m pretty much paraphrasing an interview I did with Gamerbytes which is (hopefully) being published tomorrow
1) The combat within Plain Sight is very simple – attack, block and death. It was originally going to be more complex, however we decided against an advanced/complicated system for a couple of reasons. Firstly, melee combat is hard to do anyway, especially when you’re a small studio like us! Secondly, and more importantly, we wanted to have a continual gameplay momentum within Plain Sight. Epic (read:long) sword battles tend to slow everything down.
At first we were worried that stripping the combat like this would take away from the depth of the game – we’re glad to say that this isn’t the case. Although the number of player actions has been reduced, players are forced to be more creative in order to get an advantage.
Another thing that’s great about the current system is that the risk / reward game mechanics are far improved. The lowliest player is willing to take on the biggest fiery robot because they know that, if they’re good, they can win!
To conclude : no health bars. just victory or death.
2) Currently, we’ve had up to 10 Players – at that point we ran out of computers. Obviously, we’re hoping to have lots more!
3) At the moment we’re not working on any voice communication in the game. If we are going to have voice chat, we’ll probably add it later on in the development cycle (or as a patch)
Keep the questions coming!
Robin
Woot! answers!!!!
One Thing i noticed in the trailer was the Buildings lighting up in various different colours. The assumption i made was that it was just to easily locate the opposing players. But i saw that it got brighter and brighter.
So what im getting at…is…Whats the Glowing buildings about, is there some sort of gameplay mechanic related to it?
Is Beatnik going to make this game open-source for custom maps and models like Valve has done with Counter-Strike?
P.S.: Will there be wall-running?? I just looked back at the screenshots and that just hit me like a brick to the head!
As you kill other players with your sword you get bigger and your colour changes and becomes brighter. When you land on a building it lights up in your current colour to alert everyone to your presence. This and the light trails behind the robot are essentially what give the game its name, you are always in plain sight, there’s no hiding.
I’d love to open map making up for the community, but as we are such a small team we don’t have a tools department and the current process for creating a level is too clunky for end users. Perhaps once the game is released I will come back to this and work on a tool to use.
There will be wall running, but probably not how you imagine. In some interior levels the gravity allows you to run on the walls and ceiling, but your perspective shifts to make it seem like the floor. Ordinarily if you jump at a wall you will cling to it, allowing you to climb tall surfaces or generally just leap about like a crazy gibbon.
1. Will you be releasing this over Steam? Because Steam rules and has been picking up… uh… momentum with indy games (Darwinia, Audiosurf and DEFCON to name a few), and this sounds exactly like the kind of game people would go nuts over. Just look how well Audiosurf did. I don’t know what kind of arrangements Valve makes, but it’d just be the coolest.
2. Are there in-game taunts? Or do the robots talk or anything? Like say stuff when they kill someone? That’s another awesome part of TF2. Yes, I really like that game.
3. The movement looks pretty frenetic - is it such that a skilful player could stay alive just by running around and dodging wildly like (again) the Scout in TF2? I noticed the double jump too - can you only do that once per jump, and can you do it again if you jump of the side of a building or something?
Hi Pie21,
I also absolutely love TF2 - I had to give it up for a while because I wasn’t getting enough work done Anyway, to your questions…
1) Yup, we’d love to release this on steam, it rocks ... We haven’t got anything arranged yet – so, fingers crossed!
2) In game taunts won’t be too difficult to put into the game. That’s certainly something we’d want to put in
3) The movement is indeed very fast paced. A skilled player can stay alive against (and kill) bigger/better opponents however we’re also trying to balance it out so that players don’t just run away! As for double jump; you can do that once per jump. If you touch the ground or cling to the side of the building, you’ll be able to double jump again.
Keep the questions coming!
Sweet, thx for answering everything thus far….heres some more.
We’ll Games Last a certain amount of Time…and the winner being the one who has the most points at the end? Or will it be the first to X amount of points?
Also is there anymore concept art floating around? would love to see some of the artwork from the games earlier stages.
Hi Jack
Sorry in the delay in replying!
We certainly will have both time based and score based games - we’ll also have a number of other unique game types to keep you entertained
As for concept art; we’d love to show you some more. I’ll drop Hin and Sam a line and they’ll scan and upload a few more of their sketches later on today (or tomorrow, i’ve lost track of time being in the US! )
Cheers
Robin
1. Have you ever thought about implementing this with Games for Windows…..I don’t know if that is the correct idea, but what I mean is if it would be possible to implement the multiplatform Live connection idea. With Players on PC playing against players on Xbox.
2. Can I email you guys for an interview? I help run an Xbox Live Arcade website and would like to introduce your game to the community. You can check it out at [url=http://www.xboxlivearcade.com]http://www.xboxlivearcade.com[/URL]
P.S. I really support your game. It looks amazing.
Hi Alex
Thanks for supporting us !
Firstly, we’d love to do an interview, Ive just sent you a PM with my email address - feel free to get in touch…
As for the Game for Windows - we havent yet looked into it. We’re currently adapting an opensource networking library for the multiplayer stuff. Im not certain how easy it’d be to put Windows Live stuff in - I’ll ask Alex today however I’d imagine that it’d pretty hard.
Talk soon
Robin
We don’t really want to use Windows Live as the primary networking in the PC port as it would require you to pay a subscription fee to Microsoft to play the game at all.
However as we intend to release an Xbox port I see little reason we can’t add optional Live networking support to the PC version later to allow cross platform matches for those who want to use it.
We shall see!
Anyway, to your questions…