By Jim Rossignol on February 1st, 2008 at 8:13 pm.
Click for full image.
Key indie developer Introversion‘s lead programmer, the superbly named Chris Delay, has posted some more screenshots and development wordthinks from his work-in-progress, Subversion, on the company forums. He says that while the rest of the company is nervous about its Darwinia-like slow gestation, his vision of the game is only becoming clearer.
I can feel Subversion solidifying, but it’s a slow process, as anyone who’s been watching the evolving city shots will know. Subversion is undoubtedly the most ambitious game we’ve ever attempted to create – massive in scope and totally uncompromising in it’s requirements. But every day I work on it I’m even more convinced – this is the big one, Introversion Software’s Magnum Opus, and it’s going to be the best game we will ever make.
And we still don’t know quite what Delay is up to. Consider me tantalised.
You know, what with the Making Of that people are talking a lot about… well, Syndicate-influenced anyone?
(It’s not as if Syndicate didn’t influence one of their other games – Darwinia…)
KG
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I’m more and more intrigued every time they mention the game. Just tell us what it is, already man! Don’t tease me, bro.
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Oh please let it be Syndicate-influenced.
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He demo’ed the software live and unprepared at an event at Imperial College last year. It’s amazing to see it generate cities in such a short space of time – although the version we saw didn’t go into much detail with the city itself.
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Best game they will ever make? What are they going to do after Subversion, intentionally make worse games? Break up?
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Well….that looks damn interesting! Eyes will be kept in place!
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So, what exactly is this game about?
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While I follow the blog for the pretty videos, I can’t bring myself to be excited by the new game – I didn’t overly enjoy Defcon or Darwinia (blasphemy, I know), so hopefully this one grabs me like Uplink did.
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The tantalizing question still hangs above it all:
What do you do in these marvelous cities?
My money is on a “Hackers” infiltration / sneaking / social engineering game with Uplink-lite hacking elements.
No, really, my money is literally on it. Your check is in the mail Introversion.
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What are they going to do after Subversion, intentionally make worse games? Break up?
It wouldn’t entirely surprise me.
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Looks like Delay subscribes to the Molyneux school of hype…
Still, I’m interested.
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actually this reminded me of elixirs infinite poly cities.
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Best game they will ever make? What are they going to do after Subversion, intentionally make worse games? Break up?
An endless string of Subversion sequels?
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Man, cyncism is rife here isn’t it? Whatever happened to looking on with a joyous wonder, I ask?
I’m still excited anyway.
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Whatever happened to looking on with a joyous wonder, I ask?
Repeated crushing disappointment? Not from Introversion perhaps…
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Yaaaaaaaaaay Introversion
From the tone of Mr. Delay’s comments so far, it appears to me that they do not, in fact, know what the game will do. I am still super excited.
And come on, some LoD systems aren’t that bad. I’m sure I’ve not had such a bad impression of them… though perhaps that’s because of fog, the solution he didn’t mention.
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I save my cynacism only for those that truly deserve it.
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So, basically all we know right now is it can make cities?
Why are we happy about that?
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“These particular city shots have between 30,000 and 50,000 buildings in them and currently bring my decent PC to it’s knees. It’s dealing with around a third of a million textured and lit quads – which is to say almost 700,000 polygons per frame. Running hypothetically at our target of 60fps, this would equate to 42 million triangles per second – extremely hard work for even the best graphics hardware. ”
…why would we be happy about that as well?
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Introversion’s best city planning simulator ever.
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Sim Darwinia? ;)
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One of those screenies shows a “Load Doom WAD” button. Colour me intrigued.
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Maybe he’s using the DOOM.wad to texturize his city :o
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In an older blog post Chris for some reason wants to test out his building editor.
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/defcon/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=683
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i hope its a city v city beat em up
round one
seattle versus sendai
fight!
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On the other hand, note the fact that IV was nearly silent about Darwinian and DEFCON before they came out. The dev blog exists because fans of IV well nigh demanded it. I don’t see it as a marketing ploy (though it certainly works for marketing), but as a concession to fans’ desires to know what IV is working on.
xander
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I’d rather like an Infinity: Quest for Earth-style solar system, with SpeedTree vegetation on our dear planet, and photorealistic towns and cities based on Subversion’s city generator.
Market it as a generic world simulator, and everyone else can create games based upon/inside it. Ridiculous, but who knows what’s next?
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Ooh! I’ve got it! It’s a remake of Epyx’s old Movie Monster Game!
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Something tells me “this is the best game we’re ever gonna make” is something they’re going to regret saying. Even if the game really is fantastic, hyperbole of that level of tends to have a much longer shelf life than is good for them.
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Peter Molyneux must be working on that project :D
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“Looks like Delay subscribes to the Molyneux school of hype…”
No, Molyneux would tell us all about features which never make it in, and explain how they will revolutionise gaming. Chris has just shown us pretty pictures :P
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Been following this for a while, looking good, but what it’s about who knows save, Chris.
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I love “City Come a Walkin’” too.
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