Orcs Must Die video interviews from PAX
Now that PAX East 2011 draws to a close those who havnt been able to visit the Robot Entertainment booth to check out Orcs Must Die might be feeling slightly out of the loop. Well no worries! A bunch of gaming websites have started their preview coverage of Orcs Must Die and some of these included interviews with some of the bots of Robot Entertainment including Orcs Must Die lead producer, Chris Rippy and community manager, Justin Korthof.
First up, check out the interview Gamespot had with the every cheery Chris Rippy:
Next stop we have some off screen gameplay video from IGN:
Hopefully these video clips will keep you in the know of Orcs Muse Die developments at PAX!
Catching up with Dusty Monk at Windstorm Studios
On Wednesday Feburary 17th I got to meet up with Dusty Monk along with PC Gamer journalist Dan Griliopoulos to talk about whats happening with Dusty and his company Windstorm Studios. You may remember that back in April last year Dusty announced through Inc Gamers that the MMO prototype he was working on was being changed into a single player game after some problems getting a publisher on board for the MMO title. Here was what Dusty has to say to Inc Gamers in April last year:
For the first eight months of the company’s lifetime, we were working on our prototype. We finished that around September and the prototype has been largely received with great enthusiasm. From about September through January I shopped the prototype to a number of different publishers, both international and within the States, and all of them have without exception, said “We love the idea, love the project, but we’re just not ready to go forward yet – and part of the problem is that we’re just not sure there’s enough of a real company here.” And I get that; I can sort of relate to that.
So the plan of attack right now is to go forward with a smaller single-player game, and get that out there for people to start playing. This will serve as a sort of introduction to the world that we want to build.
Since then Dusty has been pressing ahead with his single player game. The game is still based on an exciting world with flying cars. We saw some concept art relating to the game back in September 2009. However, Dusty commented saying the game is less about big robots shooting lasers and more about playing the “good guy” in a corrupt world. The flying cars element of the game is expected to have excellent mechanics and it will be a core focus of the gameplay. Some 80% of time spent in the game will involve flying around with about 20% on traditional ground based missions and objectives. The game will be a mix of old classic cars being turned into futuristic flying machines. Dusty commented that the game is really for “The Son and the Dads” where the Dads have their classic cars transformed into futuristic flying cars introducing these types of cars to their Sons.
The concept sounds excellent and I am sure it will be a very unique game. Currently the game is targeting to come out sometime in the Summer however there is no date penned in beyond that. The game will be released on PC through digital distribution, Dusty anticipates bringing parts of the game to other platforms in the future such as mobile and Xbox Live. Ensemble fans will be pleased to here that Windstorm is taking on board some of the design insights from the legendary Bruce Shelley. The game will have a very vibrant colour palette encouraging people to play in a very appealing environment. Windstorm will also be making sure the first 15 minutes are as fun as possible to engage people into the gameplay world and entice them to keep playing.
First look at screenshots and concept art!
It is certainly very exciting times ahead for Windstorm. As the project gets closer to launch be on the look out for some screenshots and brand new concept art. Dan Griliopoulos at PC Gamer has a detailed interview of the meeting with Dusty including some detailed questions and some brand new concept art and for the first time – screenshots! Be sure to check out Dan’s interview on the link below!
Bots are heading east!
Just a heads up to remind everyone that some of the bots at Robot Entertainment are down at PAX in Boston this week! It all kicks off this Friday so be sure to keep your eyes peeled at RobotEntertainment.com and the @RobotEnt twitter feed for news and some pictures of the event. Robot are going to be demoing the awesome Orcs Must Die and there will be a chance to play the game first hand for all the attendees that stop by. If you have managed to get yourself some tickets to go to PAX.. you’re in for a treat! Booth 761 is the number you need, theres even a handy map to help you find the Orc slaying bots.
The Robot booth is in construction as we speak and Dunkman has posted the first blog about PAX on the website. Be on the look out for Orcs Must Die coverage on other websites as people get to play the game, meanwhile don’t forget to check out some of the previews from last months Community Summit over here!
Halo Wars beat MGS sales targets and could work on Kinect says Frank O’Connor
Halo Wars has recently cropped up in conversation between Computer and Video Games and 343 Industries creative director Frank O’ Connor. Frank talks about Halo Wars as being “a huge success” and rightly so as he also revealed that the Ensemble Studios developed game “beat our sales forecasts, so it was a bigger success than we expected” and that:
“It was a big critical success and it’s still the number one selling RTS on consoles this generation. In that regard it was a huge success but is the will to do a sequel there? Who knows. We could do something that works on Kinect, for example. There’s no will against it but we’re not working on it right now.”
While Halo Wars fans may be sad to hear that no sequel is on the cards at the moment it is pleasing for Ensemble fans to hear that the game smashed the projected sales targets set by Microsoft and despite the terrible community support the game suffered when 343 Industries took over support of the game from Robot Entertainment the fans of the game were clearly happy with the game overall and that there is room for a possible sequel in the future. Perhaps if Microsoft hadn’t under-estimated Ensemble’s ability to create best-seller games the studio would still be intact today and poised to work on new Halo Wars content, even on platforms like Kinect. However, all hopes of that were dashed when ill-advised Microsoft executives determined that Ensemble “wasnt the right studio” to connect with Kinect.
Perhaps Microsoft executives are looking back on their past actions to close Ensemble with regret, the studio may have been working on different ideas which may not have been in line with the overall MGS direction, but those games could easily have been turned into winners with the talent at Ensemble Studios.
I think Halo Wars could have been an even bigger success if Microsoft realized its potential sooner after release and invested more in Robot Entertainment to create further DLC and remove the ludicrous restrictions on multiplayer buckets. Hopefully if there is to be a Halo Wars 2 its next developer will have greater freedom with community support and content post launch. Above all that, perhaps the game would have been bigger and greater if Microsoft had kept Ensemble Studios on board!
Read more: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/292131/news/halo-wars-2-could-work-on-kinect-says-343/
Orcs Must Die preview part 2 – Gameplay
Following up on the Orce Must Die preview last week, this week we’ll be focussing on the gameplay element of Orcs Must Die (OMD). Having attended the Robot Entertainment community summit last week we got to play through three levels of the game which were The Hallway the first level in the game, The Corner an early level and a mid-game level called Sorcerers Tower.
The Hallway
Starting with the first level , The Hallway places you on a simple map as to be expected for the first level of any game. The level has one door with Orcs trying to break through and one gateway which the Orcs are trying to get to and you are tasked to defend. On the first level of the game you only have a basic set of weapons and traps which are the sword and crossbow as handheld weapons plus only one trap the floor spikes. The level is shaped as a straight hallway with no corners or elevations to worry about. Once you enter the level you are free to place the spike traps in any location you want. I decided to put my spike traps a few spaces away from the entrance door as that made the most sense to me, keeping the Orcs at bay right at the entrance. You only have a small amount of money for the first level which means you can only put down a few traps so it is likely you’ll have to dig out either your sword or crossbow once the game starts.
Navigating around the level is easy using the traditional WASD keyboard keys. Your character the War Mage moves around the map at a higher than average speed than most games. This is appropriate for the fast paced nature of the game and if there’s an Orc managing to get away, having the speed to catch up and slice him down to size can be quite useful!
Placing down traps is a doddle; each trap is assigned to a number keys on the keyboard along with the option to select weapons and magic.
Number keys can be used to select weapons, magic and traps
Simply press the number on the keyboard which correlates with the trap you want to set and you are good to go using the mouse to pick a location on the map, all from the third person perspective. If the placement of the trap is valid the trap will glow green, if it’s not valid it will glow red.
| Incorrect placement
|
Correct placement |
 |
 |
Once you have placed down all the traps you can with the available money you are free to start the game by hitting the relevant keyboard key. Shortly after pressing the doors will burst open and hordes of Orcs will come streaming in. As my spike traps were set very close to the door at first I was able to sit back and watch the first few Orcs get slaughtered there. However as the spike trap is a timed trap which means once it is deployed it has a cool down period before it activates again the Orcs began to make their way past the spike traps meaning it was time to unleash hand weapons the sword and crossbow. As your character can take damage from the Orcs at close range I decided to at first make use of the cross bow so that I could still pick the Orcs off from a distance and keep them as close to the entrance as possible.
Take that!
The crossbow isn’t just any ordinary crossbow, it also uses magic so on each shot you lose a little bit of magic from your magic meter. If you rapid fire your crossbow too much you might suffer a short delay as your magic meter re-fills. Keeping at a distance means you wont be caught by surprise by an attacking Orc if you find yourself with a crossbow delay. If you need to get down and dirty you can quickly equip your sword using the number keys, or by scrolling through the weapons with the mouse wheel. Your sword doesn’t use any magic so you can swing it as you please bear in mind though that being up close and personal with the Orcs puts you at risk of taking damage. A few hits from the Orcs can take a significant toll on your health. If you do die (which luckily I didnt on level 1!) you dont have to start the level again instead you lose the expierence points gained so far on that level. We’ll be discussing expierence points a bit more in Part 3.
After picking off the last of the Orcs with sword it was level complete and you are then presented with a basic stats screen demonstrating how many Orcs you killed and the time it took to do so. This stats screen will likely be improved with more detail as the game develops.
The Corner
Next stop – “The Corner”. This is one of the earlier levels in the game and has a few more traps on offer than level 1. This time we have access to the wall arrows, swinging mace, and tar pit traps.
This was an “L” shaped multi-story level. The level begins with the War Mage standing on a bridge looking down at the level below where the Orcs begin bashing against the door. As you get time to place your traps before the Orcs come bashing through I decided to jump down to the floor below and place traps once again near the front of the door. This time with access to more traps I decided to first place down spike traps at the front of the door followed by some tar pit traps. By doing this any Orcs which were not killed by the spike trap were easier for me to kill at a distance with the cross bow as they were moving slower through the tar pit. Quite a good strategy I thought! If I wanted I could of climbed the stairs and taken out the Orcs from an even safer distance, but I didn’t have any trouble picking them off from the ground floor on this occasion.
This level had a few extra rounds of Orcs at each checkpoint you have time to place more traps based on the money earnt from earlier kills. If you like you can remove existing traps for money to buy new ones if you found they were in-effective the first time round or wanted to spice things up and try something different.
Sorcerer’s Tower
This is one of the mid-game levels and I could tell immediately when starting, with multiple levels, lava pits – this was definetly a step forward in the game. As we had advanced further into the games difficulty more traps were available to us and for the first time we had magic in the form of a fire spell.
Weapons and traps galore!
New traps included an awesome wall based trap which launches blades from the assigned wall and a potentially hilarious spring trap which allows you to launch Orcs flying in the air. Combing these traps can be very deadly – theres nothing more fun then propelling Orcs straight into blades or even a pool of lava!
You might also notice on the weapons and traps UI that there is an interesting character on key number 0. This is a non-playable computer AI which you can deploy on the map. The character in question is infact an Archer and when deployed he can help take out Orcs from a distance.
Have at you Orcs!
The Sorcerer’s Tower level had a handy platform isolated from reach of the Orcs which was a perfect place for me to place some archers. The platform also gave them almost complete coverage of the entire map so that they were always in range of hitting an Orc. On subsequent goes at the level I experimented placing archers on the ground in the Orcs path but I found them to be very weak when struck by an Orc so strategic placement of the archers can be important.
This level also introduced some different types of Orcs including pesky smaller Orcs which run very fast and can be harder to hit with the crossbow if they manage to get past the traps. Be on your guard to make sure none of these Orcs sneak pass you to reach the gateway! Also be on the lookout for cross bow Orcs which can shoot from a fair distance.
These Orcs can get pretty annoying – they must die!
We were also introduced to some bigger, meaner looking Orcs which take quite a bit more effort to kill. Unfortunetly on my first play through of this level I underestimated their power and was killed while close range with the sword weapon. The best strategy for killing these Orcs I think came from Dan Griliopoulos from Rock Paper Shotgun. His genius idea was to tease the larger Orcs which turned out to be some quite dim witted Orcs and lead them into the swinging mace trap. The particular trap combined with a few shots from the crossbow can do some pretty good damage to these larger Orcs and saves you having to get hands on with your sword.
Another great thing about this level was that it was possible to interact with the level landscape to cause further pain to the Orcs. Chandeliers hanging from the ceilings can be shot down to crush Orcs below and huge wooden planks can be rolled down stairs to decimate Orcs below. The physics effects are great to watch and are very satisfying to deploy in game, plus they are great for getting yourself out of sticky situations should you find yourself being overrun with Orcs. Check out this short snippet from the trailer demonstrating these awesome landscape based attacks:
My overall impression of the gameplay in Orcs Must Die was excellent. Its a very fun game to play which is what Robot Entertainment is all about. There is definitely quite alot of replay value to be had as there are many different approaches to complete each level. When the game launches I can imagine there are going to be some great achievement opportunities to be had! I throughly enjoyed playing Orcs Must Die, its definitely something I could see myself spending many hours playing at a time and can tell its going to be addictive! The game is easy to get to grips with and the controls make it a breeze to play. Everything you would expect from a third person action game is present – health bars, magic bars, combo kills, head shots combined with an array of weapons and traps. The game looks and plays in a very World of Warcraft fashion, WoW players may recognize some similarities with the UI design in its current form, but this may change slightly come launch. However, this current UI design is very approachable and very clear combined with well designed levels making the whole experience stress-free and generally just a whole lot of fun.
In part 3 we’ll be looking closer at some of the design elements of the game and what each of the different UI aspects are. We’ll also be discussing things like the art style and sound so stay tuned! If you have any burning questions what you would like answered just ask away on twitter @Remember_ES and they’ll be covered! Dont forget to check out a whole bunch of screenshots, video and more information about OMD on its brand new official website at www.orcsmustdie.com
Until then.. beware of Orcs!
Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games talks to Venture Beat about Age Online
Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games who have recently took over the Age of Empires Online development from Robot Entertainment has given an interesting 6 minute interview to Venture Beat on his thoughts regarding Age Online. Chris Taylor re-affirms the community that his studio are excited about the game and post release content. There will be a number of booster packs post launch including vanity packs to jazz up capital cities and packs to unlock premium civilizations. Check out the video interview below:
In case you wondering who Gas Powered Games are, the studio is headed up by Chris Taylor and they have worked on a number of successful games and franchises such as Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander many of the studios games are Real Time Strategy. The studio was previously worked with Microsoft on titles such as Dungeon Siege and has a studio head count of around 100 people making it similar in size to Ensemble Studios. Presumably not all of the studio will be working exclusively on Age Online as Microsoft had previously indicated they wanted studios smaller than Ensemble’s size to work on the franchise.
As we move into the future with Gas Powered Games there is as far as I know no one at the studio who has previously worked on the Age franchise before which is a great shame. However, Ensemble, Robot and Age fans should feel safe in the knowledge that a vast majority of Age Online design will have been put together at Robot Entertainment which has many of the same people from Ensemble Studios behind the project. Despite Robot’s unfortunate departure, Age Online is still going to be a great game to play and is definitely something to be excited about when it launches later this year. With Orcs Must Die also coming out this year Ensemble fans will get to play some excellent games devised by many people of the late studio which isn’t exclusive to the iPhone and Mac platforms that we have seen so far!
Robot Entertainment announces Orcs Must Die!
Robot Entertainment has officially announced its first game based on brand new original IP – Orcs Must Die! The game which is developed for the PC platform will be released later this year and is all about killing Orcs!
Check out the awesome trailer:
Remember ES along with some other community and press folks got the opportunity to play the game as part of a sneak peak community summit last week at the Robot Entertainment studio based in Plano, Texas. Not only were we able to play the game first hand we got to speak with some of the bots to get the scoop on the art style and design of Orcs Must Die!
I have so much to say about Orcs Must Die so I will be splitting my preview up into 5 categories as follows:
- Gameplay
- Art & Design
- Why not an RTS?
- Robot Entertainment, Orcs Must Die and the future
- Community questions
To kick off the preview I’ll start with an overview of Orcs Must Die and you’ll also be able to find some links at the bottom of this post to previews by other attendees at the summit.
So what is Orcs Must Die?
Orcs Must Die is simply all about killing Orcs as quickly as possible! You may remember the door which was being broken down as part of a teaser on the Robot Entertainment site earlier this week. In the game you play a character called the War Mage who has been tasked with defending a number of towers against invasions of Orcs after they break through the door of the towers defences. The players job is to find out the best way of defending the tower against the Orcs before they reach the gateway. As you may expect, this involves a little bit of strategy but the game is not an RTS. Robot Entertainment is branching out into new territory here.
In Orcs Must Die players try to stop the Orcs from reaching gateway. To do this players have a number of weapons, traps and magic at their disposal. Before the game starts players can navigate around the map working out the best areas to place strategic traps to help stop the army of Orcs from reaching the gateway. These traps may be things like spikes in the floor, arrows shooting from the walls and massive maces which swing from the ceiling. There is even a very cool flip switch trap which throws Orcs across the map. It is important to choose the best places for the traps as you only have a limited amount of money to spend on traps. If you put the wrong type of traps in the wrong places your game will be harder, get the traps right and it’ll be much easier. So there is a good strategy element there as you would expect from a studio formed out of Ensemble!
Once you have placed all your traps you can start the game and the Orcs will bash through the door. From there you can watch the Orcs plough through and get totally destroyed by your (hopefully!) well placed traps. If things start to get hairy it’s time to move into a more traditional RPG combat mode using weapons such as swords and crossbows to keep the Orcs at bay. Be careful though, getting up close and personal with the Orcs put you at risk from death as you lose health from being hit by Orcs. Aside from hand weapons you can also make use of magic such as fire spells to help push back the Orcs. You only have a limited amount of magic in your magic meter and if you run out, you’ll still need your trusty hand weapons. Each Orc you kill gets you points which can be used to spend on more traps for the next round. The best players will be able to defeat all the Orcs as close to the start point as possible.
Whats it like?
Having played the game first hand I can tell you that Orcs is a whole lot of fun! It may not be an RTS but it’s still got the “Ensemble” feel, there is still a level of strategy needed if you want to get the highest scores. It’s very fun to meticulously plan your strategy for keeping the Orcs at bay and its particularly satisfying to see your devious traps come into effect totalling annihilating the Orcs. You can also make use of the landscape to your advantage including dropping chandeliers from the ceiling and huge wooden logs rolling down staircases. The game has some excellent physics effects as Orcs literally explode into pieces on impact – it’s not necessarily the game for children!
One of the great things about Orcs is that it has a whole lot of replay value, once you complete a level you want to go back again and try an even better way. The levels lend themselves to multiple strategies and you can even spice things up with a number of different ideas, perhaps you’ll try the level using only flip switches, or only magic, you might even come up with your own deadly combination which you can adapt depending on the landscape.
I have played all the Age games plus Halo Wars, if anyone is worried that this departure from the traditional Ensemble style formula of RTS games, you don’t need to worry. The game is created by the same designers, producers and team which are working on Age Online right now. These guys know how to create games which are fun to play. Orcs is definitely something you are going to want to check out when it launches.
In a future blog I’ll be going into the gameplay in more detail discussing the weapons, traps magic and things like the user interface, control scheme and general fun factor. So stay tuned to Remember ES!
When and where is Orcs coming?
Orcs is going to be released on the PC using Steamworks for certain. Other types of digital distribution may be considered. At this time it doesn’t look like there will be any physical retail boxes. Once the game has been launched for PC Robot Entertainment are looking at other platforms such as Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. Robot has not announced any firm plans to launch on these console platforms, but I hope they do to get Orcs on as many markets as possible.
As for launch date, Orcs will be hitting Steam this year. No firm release dates have been announced beyond that.
What next?
Leading up the launch of or Orcs Must Die later this year you are going to want to stay tuned to RobotEntertainment.com and Remember-EnsembleStudios.com more than ever. I imagine Robot will be launching some exciting video footage demonstrating some of the awesome traps and magic available in the game. Plus I imagine some very interesting Robot blogs are on the horizon!
Over at Remember ES I’ll be having rolling content for Orcs Must Die over the coming weeks. I’ll be covering the game in detail based on my first hand experiences of playing the game from an Age / Halo Wars fan perspective. I’ll also be looking into what Orcs Must Die means for Robot and the future direction of the game and studio. So stay tuned and keep checking back.
You can also find me on the Robot Entertainment forums. If you would like to ask me a question about my experience with the game drop me a PM and I’ll cover it!
More information
If you are so excited to get more information and can’t wait for Remember ES’s upcoming parts then check out some of these links below. All of these links are blogs /articles of people who have been at Robot Entertainment and played the game.
- Destructoid: http://www.destructoid.com/hands-on-orcs-must-die–194575.phtml
- Gamertag Radio: http://www.gamertagradio.com/new/?p=2624
- Platform Nation: http://www.platformnation.com/2011/02/25/orcs-must-die-robot-entertainment-roundtable/
- Rock Paper Shotgun: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/25/greenocide-hands-on-with-orcs-must-die/
- The Married Gamers: http://www.themarriedgamers.net/?p=12343
- Radio Kenny at Heaven Games: http://aoeo.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=52,2,,30
Keep an eye on Remember ES for part 2 focussing on the Gameplay of Orcs Must Die next week!
Robot Entertainment no longer lead developer on Age of Empires Online
In a very unexpected turn of events Microsoft have announced the end of Robot Entertainment’s involvement with Age of Empires Online. Todays blog post on the official Age of Empires Online Community website indicates that:
This has been the plan for some time, and we’re excited to share the great work GPG has been doing. In working with GPG, it’s become clear they share our long-term commitment to make this a success. Our previous development partner, Robot Entertainment, did amazing work on the game, and we wish them the best in their future projects.
This transition has been in the works for some time with folks from Gas Powered Games, the successor to Robot Entertainment having been working with Robot on the handover since last fall. Despite Microsoft and Robot indicating that Age of Empires Online will be an evergreen game with lots of post release content, there was never any plan that Robot Entertainment would of been working on such content.
Although Robot Entertainment have been working on Age of Empires Online as lead developer for the bulk of the project, Remember ES notes that Robot Entertainment branding has been swiftly removed from the Age of Empires Online website.
Patrick Hudson, CEO at Robot Entertainment has spoken to PC Gamer to help enlighten us on Robot’s position:
We were always scheduled to roll off Age Online in February 2011. We’ve been working with GPG since last fall on the transition. We really enjoyed working with Microsoft, and know that they’re in good hands with Chris and the Gas Powered Games team.
Robot was founded to work on original IP, but working with AoE was a great way to get the company off the ground. The plan was always to move to original IP as soon as we had the ability focus on our core business goal.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/24/age-of-empires-online-swaps-devs/
It is a great shame to see Robot departing from Age of Empires Online, the studio was always in the best position to work on the franchise with many members of Ensemble Studios being part of the development team. Gas Powered Games are a much larger studio closer to Ensemble Studios size and they are a third party developer in the same respect as Robot Entertainment. Perhaps the Robot and Microsoft felt the studio would be too small to be able to work on Age post launch content whilst trying to develop their own new IP’s such as the recently announced Orcs Must Die.
Digesting this news may be confusing for Age of Empires fans who once again see the development team of their favorite franchise changed once again.
On the bright side… Robot Entertainment has worked on the bulk of Age of Empires Online. It is unlikely many of the core design decisions and art direction will be changed as the game nears completion. Age Online will still be in the majority a Robot Entertainment title. Its still something to be excited about and its still going to be a great game come launch. As Robot moves away from Age of Empires into the realms of its new IP, Orcs Must Die, be on the look out for more details on what Robot’s future direction is very soon.
Somethings trying to break through at RobotEntertainment.com!
It looks like there is some serious activity going on at RobotEntertainment.com today! What could be behind the door?
This is a teaser for Robot Entertainment’s first original IP game. This means its a game not based on properties owned by Microsoft like Halo Wars of Age of Empires. This new game will be a brand new idea fresh out of the genius minds at Robot Entertainment. What could the game be? An RTS? RPG? FPS? Discussion is rife on the Robot forums – join in and let the community know what you think.
With PAX East coming up I would keep a very close eye on the Robot Entertainment website for any more developments! Exciting times lie ahead!
Rogan Knight reaches Hurst Castle!
Rogan Knight, the figurine which is on its way to fans around the world to be finally sent to Robot Entertainment when the game launches has reached his second destination – The United Kingdom, home to all sorts of things including Remember ES and Hurst Castle. Indeed, the famous knight has been helping out the defenses at Hurst Castle on the South Coast of England. Without his valiant assistance things may have gone differently! Here he is preparing to enter the castle’s defenses…
Next stop for Rogan will be Gunzblazing in Portugal. Look out for him there!
