Under Pressure

[神祕人1號]

オーストラリア発、たった8人で手掛ける次世代シューター『Under Pressure』ただいま開発中
by Miu @ 2008/12/27 03:00
http://www.gamespark.jp/modules/news/index.php?p=7609


今年一年だけでも、収穫の多かったXbox Liveアーケードや本格的に始動したWiiウェア、さらには話題のiPhoneやDSiのダウンロード配信も多くの注目を集め、ゲームの世界でもメジャーデビューへの距離がずいぶん縮まった2008年でしたが、その一方で大手メーカーにもなると数億円から数十億円単位の開発費が必要になるとされる、ただいまお店に並んだ豪華な大作ソフトたち。

しかし、世の中には現在たった8人のチームで、本格的な次世代ゲーム機ソフトの開発に挑戦しているゲームデベロッパーもあるみたい。世界でも稀なチャレンジを実現させているのは、開発者同士の熱意が生んだネットワークや、さらには最近存在感を増しているビデオゲーム新興国からの支援なども、その背景にあるようです。

日本でも発売されたDe Blob（ブロブ）のコンソール版を開発したBlue Tongue Entertainment等、近頃は徐々に見かけるようになったオーストラリア発の新しい開発スタジオ、Prophecy Gamesが最新のUnreal Engineを使い、Xbox 360やPS3向けに取り組んでいるのがこちらUnder Pressure。

会社としてはオーストラリアの首都キャンベラにあるそうなのですが、実際のスタッフは大都市のシドニーやアデレード、さらにはアメリカなど国外にまで散らばっており、普段に共有しているオフィスもないという総勢8人のミニミニデベロッパー。

今回スポットライトを当てたKotakuによると、現在新作ゲームの資金を獲得するためにパブリッシャー相手のデモを仕上げるだけでも、最初にまず50万から100万ドル（1億円弱）規模の資金が必要になるそうなのですが、これまでほとんどボランティアのようなメンバーの努力やさらには、ゲームの開発プロジェクトに対するオーストラリア政府やキャンベラ行政府の助けで、合計32万ドルといった資金援助を受けようやく資金繰りの目処がつき、こうして新しくゲームの公開にこぎつけられたそうです。

初期のプロジェクトはずいぶん前から行われていたようですが、現在のゲーム内容はハイジャックされて沈没した大型船で、迫り来る大量の水と共に（なぜか）ゾンビ化してしまう乗客たちから生き残るといった、サバイバルホラーな三人称シューター。ゲーム中では、RPGのように役割の異なる複数のクラスから選択して、4人の仲間と一緒に進められるCo-op可能なキャンペーンを搭載しているとのこと。

これだけだと、なにやらどこかで聞いた事があるようなないような、近頃流行のさまざまな要素を新しいテーマで活かした作品になるようですが、このゲームで最大の特徴は全長1マイル（1.6km）に及ぶ船の内部が、ほとんど全部破壊可能になっており、一旦破壊するとその影響が最後まで反映、これにより見た目だけでなく意図的に部屋を浸水させてゾンビの群れを切り抜けたりといったプレイも実現するそうな。

とはいえ、ようやくこうしたプロトタイプは出来つつあるものの、ゲームの販売を担当するパブリッシャーは現在も決まっておらず、無事に完成まで辿りつけるかはこれからが本番。今回の発表によって世界中にアピールすると共に、彼らの公式サイトでは、現在スキルのある開発者はもちろんのこと、さらにはゲームエンジンのModツールを熟知した一般の協力者まで募集しているそうです。


How To Pitch A Current-Gen Game With Eight Guys And Government Money
By Luke Plunkett, 11:00 AM on Mon Dec 22 2008
http://kotaku.com/5115361/how-to-pit...yline=true&s=x

公式サイト
http://www.prophecygames.com/









It’s been crammed down our throats for years now. Current-generation games development is expensive. So expensive that it stops the little guy from getting the resources together to compete against the big guy.

But is it really? One small start-up based in Canberra, Australia, would beg to differ.

Prophecy Games are currently at work developing Under Pressure, a third-person action game for the Xbox 360 and PS3. It’s being built on the Unreal Engine 3, it’s got a unique pitch in terms of gameplay mechanics, and it’s…currently being developed by eight people.

Those eight people don’t even share an office. Prophecy’s team is split between Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide and even the US, linked only by remote office software, a move that studio boss Andrew Smith says is “new, but we wanted specific people for the game who weren’t in Canberra. Remote let us all come together on the project”.

Unique, that, but perhaps most unique about Under Pressure’s development is its money. Namely, how Prophecy have come about it. Like I said, current-gen development on a game like this is prohibitively expensive. You’re looking at $500,000-$1,000,000 just to put up a demo of your game for a publisher, let alone the costs involved in actually making the game.

For a team whose boss is based in a small city like Canberra, without publisher backing and who don’t even share an office, that kind of money should have stopped a project like this dead in its tracks. And it would have, were it not for some industrious cap-in-hand action from Prophecy.

While not as internationally renowned as, say, the Canadian government, there is scope in Australia for government funding of a gaming project. It’s difficult to get (evidenced by the fact it took years of lobbying from Prophecy to convince them of the project’s merit), but has paid off: the Federal government have chipped in $70,000, while the Australian Capital Territory government (which runs Canberra) contributed a whopping $250,000, a scale of investment unheard of in this country.

That funding (as well as some unpaid work and personal contributions from the developers) helped keep the game alive until about two months ago, when private investment was finally secured. The size and source of that backing hasn’t been disclosed, but it’s enough to kick the game into bonafide pre-production, and allow the team to start showing the game off.

And it’s an ambitious title. The game’s premise involves a hijacked ship that, en route to an underwater military base, is sunk. Sunk, and then subject to a plague that turns most of the crew and passengers into zombies. As such, the bulk of the game takes place underwater. Underwater, against zombies.

Players will be able to choose from four different classes (like an RPG) to extend replay value by providing different gameplay experiences (unselected classes will fight alongside you), and for multiplayer, four players will be able to fight through the singleplayer campaign in co-op mode, one player as each of the classes.

Four-player co-op is always great, but perhaps most the most interesting thing about the game mechanics is in the game world itself. Prophecy are promising that the game world - consisting mostly of a sunken ship that’s a mile long - will be almost totally destructible. And that destruction will be persistent.

Example: early in the game, you set off a grenade on a staircase. It’ll warp and shred the handrails on the stairs, and three hours later, if you return to that staircase, those rails will still be warped. Another, more ambitious example is in the game’s use of water: being set underwater, if you blow out a window, a section of the ship will flood. You can check this out in a rough, early tech demo below:




Water will rise slowly as it rushes in from outside, and for the rest of the game, that section of the ship will remain flooded. Sometimes this can be used to flush away enemies, sometimes it’ll be a necessity so that you can swim to a previously inaccessible part of the ship.

All sounds great in theory, but it’s important to note that, as of writing, Under Pressure hasn’t been signed to a publisher. No publisher, no game release. Yet whether this game gets picked up or not, it’s example lies not in how many units it may or may not go on to sell.

It lies in how, with a little ingenuity, hard work and sacrifice, developing a game for a current-gen console needn’t be as expensive or as intimidating as some would have you believe.

[Prophecy Games]