First iPad Game Screenshot & Announcement Has Us Scratching Our Heads
We get a lot of press releases sent to us. Myself, it’s not unusual to see near a hundred of them hit my inbox in a day. With that much competition, its hard to capture our attention. But when I glimpsed an email saying that development studio “Bloober Team” is announcing the first title being developed exclusively for the iPad, and their calling it “Gender Wars: The Battle”, I couldn’t help but sit up and take notice. When I then read that the lead designer described the game like this,
“In a way, and I understand that it’s bit bold to say, we would like to create something similar to Metal Gear Solid for iPad.”
I start to scratch my head and a confused look passes over my face. Gender Wars? Solid Snake?
But it doesn’t end there so I am posting the original press release in full (minus legally sensitive info, of course) after the break so you can read it for yourself. It’s one of the stranger ones we have ever come across and was either written by some kind of genius, or someone on acid. We’ve also posted the game’s sole screenshot to be released so far. (For those not sure about clicking through, the screenshot does not contain any images of Gender-specific anatomical parts battling it out.)
Here are both the screenshot and the press release:
Epic saga of the future
Krakow, Poland – 5 February 2010 – Games developer and publisher Bloober Team, most famous for its WiiWare super production Last Flight, presents his newest IP – Gender Wars.
About the game
The game is turn based tactic game that will redefine whole tactic games genre with its casual, story-driven approach and easy click&shoot interface. “We wanted to make tactic game that will be easy to pick and play by anyone, in a short burst of 2-3 minutes per game, while offering enough in-depth complexity to play for hours” says Peter Bielatowicz, lead designer of the game.“In a way, and I understand that it’s bit bold to say, we would like to create something similar to Metal Gear Solid for iPad” Bielatowicz continues. “MGS was a stealth game, and stealth games before, like Tenchu, were considered to be more for hardcore players. But MGS was extremely easy to pick and play and so strongly story driven that many casual people were playing it just to follow the storyline and learning more advanced gameplay strategies as they played” he explains. “We want to implement the same flow in our game so a player can choose to focus on the story or the gameplay – according to what he prefers” Bielatowicz adds.
“Most of current tactic or strategy games on the market have very long learning curves and overwhelm player with too many information at once.
It throws off most of casual players. We will show completely different, minimalistic approach in our game” Bielatowicz continues. “We are testing our interface on gamers, and look how they approach the game and what are the first things that come to their mind when trying to perform some command” says Piotr Babieno, one of the game producers. “Then we simply implement our user interface to work this way” Bielatowicz adds.
The game takes place in the post-apocalyptic SF universe, and its storyline involves themes such as time travels, tragic love and epic military operations. “Everyone will find something for himself in the game, from space operas fans to hard military SF geeks” says Paweł Kobyłecki, one of game main screenwriters. “But this is too soon to speak about details at the moment” says Bielatowicz. “We will reveal everything in proper time, starting with series of feature films” he adds.
Comments on iPad
The game is being prepared iPad. “We believe that tactic games will be one of best and most successful games on iPad platform” predicts Babieno. “This kind of touch device with big screen helps you to command your units in most natural and intuitive way” he adds. “You have to also remember that the people will play iPad in longer sessions and with more concentration than they did on iPhone” comments Bielatowicz. “iPad is perfect device for people playing in train or airplane or at home rather than on the move like it was with iPhone. All designers shall keep this in mind when thinking about designing an iPad game” he ends.Teaser for the whole series
One of the most surprising things about the “Gender Wars: The Battle” is that the game alone is a teaser for other upcoming games from the series. It contains only the battle game mode and will focus on gameplay challenges. “It may sound weird, but after first tests of the battle module it turned out to play so well and entertaining on its own that we decided to release it as separate title” Piotr Babieno. “We want to tease players a bit and prepare them for the final game” Babieno explains. “The Battle will be released at very low price, so players can taste our quality without spending much” he adds. “Of course we will listen very closely to all the reactions and use players feedback to improve final game” Bielatowicz ends.“Gender Wars: The Battle” will hit the Apple Store with iPad release in late march. The details of the main game and its schedule are still kept secret.
###
About Bloober Team
Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Krakow, Poland, Bloober Team is an independent videogame developer focused on creating the highest quality digitally-distributed content.All trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
That was it. Are you interested? Confused? Both? Will you give the game a wide berth, or do they already have you excited to pick a gender and start going at it? Leave a comment and let us know.
Last Flight resurfaces as an episodic game
Remember Last Flight, the WiiWare vampires-on-a-plane game from Nibris expats Bloober Team? Sebastian from Any Given Gamer did, noticing a Tweet from executive producer Marcin Kawa that sort of indirectly referred to the game. He guessed that it meant news about Last Flight would be on the way, and he was right!
Bloober Team sent out some screenshots today! The last time we saw the game was over a year ago and just as concept art, so we’re thrilled to see actual screens of food critic Larry Adelman taking out some vampires. In a fact sheet, Bloober Team outlined the game’s motion-based slashing: each hand is mapped to either the Wiimote or Nunchuk, and moving the controller swings the weapon.
The game is being divided into four episodes, to make it “as accessible and affordable as possible.” According to Bloober Team, the game is comparable to a boxed Wii release, but the bite-sized purchases remove a barrier to entry for people not sure about buying a game from a new team.
Perhaps the most surprising news: Eurogamer says that the game will be out this year!
Last Flight resurfaces as an episodic game originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Hopefully not the last update on Last Flight
Click for more eye candy
Bloober Team may have split from the Notorious N.I.B.R.I.S., but their methods seem disturbingly similar to their progenitor. They have yet to actually release any games, and after months, and some cases years, of teasing, we have nothing to go on but concept art and occasional doctored screenshots. Their most complete games have made it to the “DS homebrew program” stage. We really want Bloober Team to not be Nibris.
So it is with mixed feelings that we present this concept art of Last Flight. We can laugh at the continued non-development of Nibris’s Sadness, because it sounds like a pretentious, overambitious game and we’d probably laugh at it if it came out anyway. But Last Flight, the WiiWare game about fighting vampires on an airplane, is something that we would actually like to play within our lifetime. We’re glad to see Bloober Team releasing something about this game, but we’re a bit worried that it’s concept art.
Gallery: Last Flight
[Via press release]
| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments |
| |
 |
Top 10 Best Selling Games
-
