Rock, Paper, Shotgun

By Alec Meer on March 29th, 2011 at 5:50 pm.

Fellow PC gaming journalist and friend of RPS Tom Francis is working on an indie video game. It’s about breaking into people’s houses, something Tom is extremely qualified to write about. Er, because he got robbed a couple of years back, not because he’s a housebreaker. To the best of my knowledge, at least.

To be specific, Gunpoint is about infiltration, and the achievement thereof primarily via rewiring of electronics such as cameras, doors and lights. If Agent 47 was a rogue electrician rather than a genetically-engineered assassin, it might go a little something like this…

Let’s have Tom talk you through it himself. It’s super important to note that he’s currently looking for an artist – which is a) the point of this video and b) why the art in it a little basic at present – “a vague guide at best”, he says. The video’s on the weeny side in our site design, so if you can’t make out what’s going on click through to Youtube and watch it in 720p.

A novel and smart concept, that. Rewiring/hacking tends to be relegated to minigames within games (e.g. the pipemania thing in Bioshock, or the node-capturing in Deus Ex: Human Revolution), rather than made the primary focus of the game itself – and especially within a real-time action context like this.

I must admit, however, that I’m most taken with the crazed diving through windows. I asked Tom what would happen if I spent most of my time in the game simply doing that, and he EXCLUSIVELY told me this: “After the first time, the window will be broken and will no longer make noise. I apologise for chaos theory.”

Damn you, Francis.

He also said “I’m sorry my video keeps making the Windows noise.” I was trying to work out what was doing that, actually. He said that was probably an exclusive comment too, but he might end up telling someone else it too. Oh, betrayal.

Gunpoint will be free, but doesn’t have a fixed release date as yet, although he’s hoping to make July. Its arrival could well be hastened if he can secure himself an artist. Not a paid gig alas, as this is a spare-time project for him, but if you’re interested in contributing, have a read of his post here.

If you do end up working with him, don’t let him in your house. He’ll probably rewire your lights to the oven or something.