Devs from Failbetter, Red Hook and ArenaNet to face the impossible at PAX West
What if games, but too much
It’s often said that the more restrictions you’re working against, the more creative you’ll become. We’re planning to test that theory to its limits next Friday at PAX West, where our Nate will be inviting a team of developers to puzzle their way around some real thinkabouters in Rock Paper Shotgun’s Game Design Hotseat.
How could you make a grand strategy game with only six old Casio calculators for display? How would you design a massively multiplayer online beat ‘em up? What about an FPS controlled with a trombone? We won’t be posing these questions (because we’ve just put them here and that ruins the surprise), but we’ll be posing questions just like them, and giving the team a tablet to sketch out their workings as they scramble for answers.
Taking on the challenges will be Hannah Flynn of Failbetter Games, Jennifer Scheurle from ArenaNet, and Chris Bourassa from Red Hook Studios. Given that between them, their studios are responsible for Sunless Skies, Darkest Dungeon and the Guild Wars series, we reckon they’ll have a good few tricks up their sleeves.
If you’re headed to Seattle for PAX next week, we think this would be a pretty good way to kick off your event, as it’s going to be happening at noon on day one (that’s Friday 30th, if we’re doing formal details), at the Sphinx theatre in the Sheraton. Bring your best game design headscratchers for the quickfire round - or leave them in the comments so we can shamelessly steal the best of them!
(In case you didn't already see, Nate's got quite a schedule at PAX West. On Friday night he'll be summoning a real ghost to interview a panel of strategy experts, while on Saturday he's going to be talking about sexy, sexy vampires with Bloodlines 2's Cara Ellison. He'll be playing Dwarf Fortress with Tarn Adams on Sunday, before giving an incredibly serious lecture about Jason Statham, and challenging artists and fellow journalists to a bit o' the old MS Paint. Please go along and ensure he doesn't lose his mind.)