Posts Tagged ‘Northway Games’

RPS Feature Virtually building

Fantastic Contraption: Why A Cat Is 100 Times Better

While at GDC I had the opportunity to sit down with Colin Northway, one of the creators behind the excellent VR remake (and the 2D original) Fantastic Contraption [official site]. We talked about how VR worked differently compared with traditional game design or, to put it less mundanely, why a walking cat dispensing sticks is better than a menu system. While at GDC Adam really loved Fantastic Contraption and, I think Graham was having a similarly good time with it back in the UK. We also made it one of our Games Of The Half Year so it’s high time we put this interview up!

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Watch Vive Game Fantastic Contraption At Seated Scale

I spent the weekend doing two things, building furniture and mucking about with Vive games such as Fantastic Contraption. It’s a remake of an old browser game in which you must transport a ball towards a goal by building a vehicle to carry or push it there. I was pretty sore after bending and twisting at odd angles to put screws in my furniture and, sometime on Sunday, as I bent and twisted to attach a balloon part to an elongated contraption chassis, I realised that really I’d only spent my weekend doing one thing.

“I wish I could play this while sitting down, I thought.” Lo and behold, a video showing a very early version of the game at “seated scale” is below.

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Fantastic Contraption Video Mixes Reality And Virtual

It’s hard to demonstrate virtual reality games in video, because most of the good ones depend upon them being viewed through a headset and not via a flat YouTube embed. This latest footage of Fantastic Contraption [official site] finds a good route though by alternating between video captured in-game, in-headset and via a secondary camera looking at the room which blends real and game footage together.

Which sounds confusing, but in practice it’s remarkable for both how seamless it looks and for what a good job it does conveying how fun and natural it looks to construct the game’s weird machinery.

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Fantastic Contraption Coming To The Vive VR Headset

Fantastic Contraption [official site] is returning as a room-scale VR game built for Valve and HTC’s Vive headset. The original game was a 2D browser-based puzzle game about creating a device to carry a ball towards a goal, but creator Colin Northway is now re-building it as a virtual reality experience in which you build similar devices in 3D. There’s a trailer below.

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Construction Complete: Rebuild 3 Out Of Early Access

If you want to spoil other games that straddle the imagined psychogeography of the casual/hardcore divide forever, the Rebuild series [official site] is a good place to look. On the surface, these strategic games of zombie uprising aftermath survival and urban reclamation are simple, colourful resource-gathering exercises, but they’re cleverly balanced and squeeze plenty of flavour out of the setting. Since the earliest Flash incarnation of the concept, Sarah Northway’s games have appealed to me – ideal to dip into during the eternal coffee break of the soul.

The third title adds factions, a splendid revamped UI and much more. I’ve played the early versions of the Early Access release but now, with the campaign complete, the game is ready to launch.

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Grappling Jellyfish: Deep Under The Sky Trailer

Colin Northway made Incredipede, a game about building a walking-and-climbing creature from muscle and bone. Rich Edwards made Pineapple Smash Crew, a bright, explosive squad shooter. When their forces combine, it turns out they form Deep Under The Sky: a single-button game in which you play a jellyfish who swings around in the clouds of Venus. It’s out now for $10 direct from the developers.

Can’t afford it? Developers Colin Northway and Rich Edwards have a solution for you, if you like the style of the trailer below.

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Suburban Survival: Rebuild – Gangs Of Deadsville

The Rebuild series has filled many a train journey and lazy evening, simple enough to provide a mobile diversion but smart enough that the time doesn’t feel entirely wasted (see Tiny Tower, a charming bottomless pit of taps). Rebuild has difficulty settings, randomised cities and involving turn-based survivor management. It’s about zombies of course, but it’s also about pre-zombies, also known as human survivors. Beginning in a safehouse, the player’s gang must gather resources, scavenge for food and recruit other survivors. The ultimate aim, as the title suggests, is to rebuild the city, gradually making entire districts safe. Gangs of Deadsville, now available on Early Access, adds new events, a tech tree, survivor abilities and an entire faction system.

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RPS Feature A Game About Life And Feet

Wot I Think: Incredipede

Incredipede‘s not like other physics-based puzzle games. Well, OK, it’s kind of like one – namely, developer Colin Northway’s own Fantastic Contraption. This time around, though, he’s used sinewy strands of muscle to bind QWOP-ish controls and heaps of charm to Contraption’s impressively freeform puzzle-solving. But do the added ingredients take the formula to new heights, or does the whole thing come tumbling down in a gruesome whir of blood, bone, and eyeball? Here’s wot I think.

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Unimpeded: Incredipede Available Now

I think we've all had days like this before.

Incredipede is kind of disgusting. Not Human Centipede disgusting – or even normal centipede disgusting, for that matter – but still a little yucky. As you add writhing masses of legs and muscle clusters to your ‘pede’s eyeball body, it becomes all the more likely to flop and flail and squish and splorch in adorably grotesque fashions. Don’t get me wrong, though: it’s magical. I just messed around with the demo for about an hour, and I was transfixed. It’s an already interesting physics-based conceit wrapped in disarming amounts of charm. And spindly bone legs. And a hint of QWOP. I really, really hope the remainder of Incredipede keeps this up. In the meantime, view evidence of its delights after the break.

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