Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm
I LOVE Deadliest Catch. And it seems I've made this reasonably public, as so far this morning three colleagues have linked me to stories about the ludicrous news that they're going to make a game based on the show.
In case you're unitiated, Deadliest Catch is a phenomenal Discovery Channel documentary, where we follow the lives of six crews on six boats who take part in Alaskan king crab fishing. Indeed, it doesn't sound so enticing, does it? Until you realise that this is the deadliest job in the world, where there's a realistic chance that those who head out for the haul will not be coming home. 20ft seas when the conditions are calm, 40ft waves crashing over the deck, sweeping any who don't hold onto something either into the barriers, or worse, into the deadly, freezing Bering Sea. It's intense. (See at the bottom of the post for a clip of the show).
They do it because in a week they can earn a year's salary. Each season of the show, we see familiar crews and new greenhorns go through exactly the same conditions, but each season it's just as watchable. This is in no small part due to the super narration by Mike Rowe, on whom I have quite a hefty gay crush.
Right, so the game. Well, let's let Captain Sig explain the game that he definitely chose to make himself:
The game will follow Sig and his crew on the Northwestern, as well as five other boats, in what they hope will capture something of the experience of being an extreme crab fisherman. It's described a lot like this:
"Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm lets gamers captain their own boat in the frenzied search for an undersea jackpot. Gamers select one of five real crab boats, including the Northwestern, Cornelia Marie and Sea Star -- all featured on the series, or create and customize their own boat. Gamers then recruit and lead their own crew from a roster of twenty real crab fishermen. Selecting the wrong boat or recruiting the wrong crew member can mean the difference between landing a Bering Sea jackpot or disaster. Lead your fatigued, hungry and hardworking crew in the strategic search for King Crab and Opilio Crab, while battling to secure your catch and livelihood before other captains and crews get to the crab first."
It's being developed by Liquid Dragon Studios, who haven't, well, captured our attention before (but Word Krispies might be brilliant!). Attempting to recreate "34,000 miles of real Bering Sea coastline" might be a bit tricky, what with that distance wrapping around the planet quite a few times, but perhaps they mean square miles.
Captain Sig, a man normally of few words for the camera, apparently said of the game,
"It may not be life or death, but chills went up my spine the first time I saw the Northwestern sink in the game."
Hmmmm.
For more of Deadliest Catch, have a look at this.