The main goal at Rubicite is for us to keep moving in a financially sound direction as a software development company. For the foreseeable future, that means focusing a large majority of our efforts on development for paying clients. However, at our core, we want to be a game development company. To that end, one of our partners spends the majority of their time pushing forward on our first game - a third-person shooter in which an advanced race of snails battles against several enemies. You'll definitely hear more on that as it moves forward - eventually we will be posting it on Kickstarter to get sufficient funding to commit more resources. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today...
The snail game is our first game. With any luck, it will see a 2013 release. As exciting as it is, I'm much more excited for our second game. By all counts, it will probably be a 2015 release, but plenty of things could happen to move that forward or backward between now and then. Currently, it's in the early concept stages, and it's becoming my baby. Here's a bit about what we know:
The gameplay style will be modeled after Myth and Myth2 (no, not Myst): a couple of games developed by Bungie in the late 90's (prior to that whole Halo thing). That means it will be a real-time strategy game with viritually no resource-management, where the driver for the gameplay is using combat tactics with a relatively small number of units and a realistic physics engine. This means that the terrain you choose for your battles will matter. Having a height advantage will impact the performance of your ranged units. Formations and micro-management will turn the tide of battle between two otherwise equal forces.
Currently, we are quite a ways from implementing any of that. Like I said, early concept stages. What I'm slowly developing now is the backstory for the game. Which is both driven by the unit classes I envision, and drives me to create new classes to fit the story. Both, in turn, will drive the level design that will be central to many elements of the gameplay.
The story is centered around a post-apocalyptic Earth. I haven't decided for sure what caused the apocalypse, but I'm leaning heavily toward a series of comet/asteroid collisions. In the time between the apocalypse event and when the game starts, months (or years) have passed. A shortage of resources has led to civilization breaking down, with many small groups forming and warring with each other. Many have died since, but some groups are pushing for a brighter future. Much of the world's ammo and weaponry were rendered useless during the destruction from the apoc event. The majority of what is left has been exhausted from the wars. Meaning that where war is concerned, humanity has largely returned to a time of modern versions of medieval weapons. Guns and other more modern weaponry still exist, but ammo is in such short supply that they are rare.
Oh, and there are some non-human creatures (not in the way you're thinking) with unique anatomy that will have meaningful impact to both story and gameplay.
The major story element I'm currently struggling with is how to explain a way that these creatures can communicate with humans.
Once it's all said and done, I expect to end up with a novel that mirrors the story of the game. I look forward to releasing it, almost as much as I look forward to the game itself.
