Takedown: a hardcore tactical shooter

Christian Allen -- the lead designer, creative director, and design director of several AAA game projects for Ubisoft, Red Storm Entertainment, Microsoft, Bungie, and Warner Bros. Games like the award-winning Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Halo: Reach -- has decided to make a hardcore tactital shooter game. His Kickstarter campaign to raise money for his project is here. Also, this is an interview with him discussing what he has in mind for the game.

Please consider supporting his project if you would like to see a true tactical shooter game.



UPDATE 3: major reload of the Kickstarter campaign
new promotional project video
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new concept art
(removed)

new music from Rich Douglas
http://richdouglas.net/random/ca/WAV/CQB_GoingIn_B_RichDouglas.wav
http://richdouglas.net/random/ca/WAV/CQB_ThePlan_RichDouglas.wav



UPDATE 2: FAQ video
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UPDATE 1: FAQ about this project

PS: I have absolutely no affiliation with him or his studio.

 

campaign to raise money to make a game?
a guy who has worked for major game companies?

its like asking for donations to start a business, and then sell the product to the people who donated... makes no sense...

maybe I got it wrong, I didn't even check the links

 

Thats how Kickstarter Works. You donate, but you also get something in return when the finished product comes out, commensurate with the level of your donation.

 

oh I see... there's a whole system behind it (checked the link now...)

at first I thought "give me money so I can start my business"...

 

Yeah, its pretty slick.

 

i'd rather pay $15 for a game whose creator directly communicates with the fans and takes their views into account than $60 to one whose developer just follows CoD blindly (Battlefield 3, anyone?).

PS: not that i paid $60 for my copy of BF3. just saying that DICE's support of hardcore Battlefield fans has been very subpar till now.

 

More news on this crowd-sourced project:

----------

The response has been great at GDC. While we can't name names due to contract negotiations, we have veterans from
Bungie
Microsoft
Monolith
Surreal
Red Storm
Wargamer
Ubisoft
Snowblind.

Games they've worked on include
Rainbow Six, Rainbow Six Rogue Spear,
Ghost Recon PC, Desert Siege, Island Thunder, GR2: Summit Strike
World of Tanks
F.E.A.R.
Condemned
Condemned 2
Drakan
Age of Empires Online
Marathon
Halo 1, 2, 3, Reach, 4
The Suffering
The Suffering 2
Gotham City Imposters
Lord of the Rings: War in the North

We will also be working with a recently retired US Army Ranger with twenty years of experience and multiple combat deployments.

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please consider supporting the project.

 

It will be very interesting to see what becomes of this. Especially with the whole Tim Schafer Kickstarter thing. My assumptions are that while adventure fans consist of mostly adults with income, FPS fans mostly consist of kids without income and so this project will not do very well. Time will tell, though. I'll support it.

 

Same reason I don't donate to "research for the cure" causes. As soon as the cure is found you can guarantee it will cost hundreds of thousands for a single prescription. There is already enough incentive for for-profit companies to find cures.

OT: I noticed this recent trend for gaming and I don't like it. How do we know the "bum" developer isn't just looking for a free paycheck and has absolutely zero incentive to put out a product, much less a good one. Capitalism works and it does so because the paycheck comes second.

 

comparing video games to cure for diseases? okay!

the "bum" developer has been the creative director of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Halo: Reach. besides, it's not about one "free" paycheck; one needs month after month of paychecks to survive, so the "bum" developer had better put out a good product.

 

also a dangerous trend is, even though he maybe joke (which he looks not) he has a good idea at hand and he cannot find any funding.. gives a clear cut picture of what publishers want out of shooters nowadays...

 

normally I might be intrigued to donate, but by the sounds of it, if ARMA II already doesn't cover this exactly, ARMA III with its Java-based scripting most certainly will undo and outshine any of his efforts/fundraising (ARMA is as hardcore as it gets, and although more battlefield large-scale oriented, this is just a superset of CQB which I'm sure can/will be scripted in easily).

I don't think the genre is large enough to need more than a few titles, and I don't see anyone doing it better than Bohemia and ARMA especially if they're just starting out. Doubly so if their only experience is working on bland clone-copy lolrealism blockbuster titles. No offense to Mr. Allen, and I'm sure he aspires to something better than CoD, but his experience is tainted and I honestly don't think he's aiming for true hardcore, I think he's targeting the crowd who think they're above CoD, but still aren't hardcore enough to shrug off running for half an hour only to get shot once half a kilometer away and drop (because let's face it, that's real hardcore).

 

LOL how is that the definition of hardcore?

A hardcore game is game that's primary aim is separation of players/teams, based on skill, decision making etc. It is a game that is a direct opposite of the more casual consumer oriented games, with lower skill ceilings, random chance, ranking up (basically Cod and to an extent, the somewhat disappointing BF3). Doesn't make a game better/worse, just directed at different audiences.

Quake doesn't involve running 10 km and getting shot, and nothing is more 'hardcore' than quake. What you are referring to is a military sim - which Arma, and Op Flashpoint series has done very well - but again a different type of game, not necessarily "hardcore".

There hasn't been a hardcore fps for quite some time - maybe counter strike source and ut 2k4 were good examples of "hardcore" fps', but IMO you have to dig back a bit further.

UT3 was OK, a bit gimmicky, but it seems the world has moved on from deathmatch shooters. Maybe the new Tribes game will bring back hardcore fps, maybe counter strike global offensive has a chance, but I rue the death of REAL fps

 

new interview with Christian Allen is up on Tactical Gamer.

 

You should check out Team Fortress 2. It's a little more gimmicky now than it used to be, with alternate weapons and such, but at its core it is a very skill-driven game, with different classes that have distinct advantages and disadvantages. Many invite-level TF2 players come from the Quake III Arena/Quake Live scene, and there are some similarities to be found.

 

Delta Force is as bout as hard-core as i would want to get. 1-shot is usually fatal in game. And you can spend a half hour walking the terrain to get a good shot on an enemy camp.. was a blast, way back when.

 

well, this one is a close-quarter combat shooter, so you won't be walking for half an hour to encounter an enemy. also, there is no health regen, and there are talks in the official forums that getting hit in the arm or the leg will impair your ability to shoot or move around.

i don't want to spread rumors, so the above information is as far as i could understand from the discussion between the fans and the CEO Christian Allen. here is the Serellan forums.

 

I miss gimping people.

I miss that it takes some random amount of hits to kill someone

 

new article on GameInformer.com about this tactical shooter project.

Also, a comment on the Kickstarter page of this project from a coworker of Christial Allen at Bungie:

the support is picking up slowly but surely due to people's attempts to raise awareness about this project on twitter, youtube, forums, and gaming news websites. but there is not much time left. so if you really want a tactital shooter with emphasis on gameplay rather than cinematics (the sun in Battlefield 3, anyone?), with squad-based teamwork, etc. please consider donating to this project.

EDIT: updated the first post with the FAQs. i hope it answers some of your questions.

 

If they can make a PS3 game that is atleast 75% as good as SOCOM 2: US Navy Seals was, then they will make a lot of money.

 

they will make a PS3 version of the game. and based on the CEO's past experiences with modding and game designing, i'm sure it will be a kick-a$$ game. however, in order for all this to happen, they need to gather enough money through their Kickstarter campaign.

 

updated the first post with the FAQ video. updated the FAQs posted before with the new questions and answers.

also, there is a steamgifts giveaway (Dungeon Defenders) for the backers of this project, posted by another supporter of this Kickstarter project.

 

MAJOR UPDATE TO THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

new splash image


new promotional video
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new concept art
(removed)

 

Don't know that much about hardcore games, but I thought Rainbow Six series (Up to raven shield) was very challenging but very fun.

 

It would be cool to actually see progress of the actual game. Like gameplay. Then I'd actually donate.

 

this is supposed to be the spiritual successor to games like the original Rainbow Six and SWAT series. to further separate it from the rest of the shooter franchise, it will not have regenerating health or death-defying "medics". you have to take your time, plan ahead, support your squad and be supported by them, and then proceed.

that's not how Kickstarter works. if they already have enough money to start making the game, why would they want our $50's or $100's?

 

the campaign just passed $100,000 limit, half the required amount. after posting the new promotional video and concept arts, almost $35,000 was raised in a day. please consider helping if you're interested in this kind of game...

note that your money will not be given to the project unless all the required amount of $200,000 is reached by the deadline.

 

meh. i'm pretty overwhelmed with shooters right now. Not only are there a ton of them, but many of them are going with free payment models, and there are tons of these upcoming in 2012. If I pay this guy to start working on this today, we might see a rough alpha in maybe mid 2013 if we're lucky? I'm just not really sure what the deal is.

You take someone who is a known creative genius and put them on kickstater to apply their creative genius, and the money will come (Tim Schafer).

Allen and Schafer are both designers, but there's a huge difference between designing Ghost Recon: 5-8 versus designing Monkey Island 1, Grim Fandango, and other cult classics that have stood the test of time. I'm not automatically convinced that this guy will definitely create something new and awe-inspiring by planting firmly in what is already a very dense market. I could easily image that by the time this comes out, there will be more than one game available built on the same concept that's free to play and had a bigger budget and a larger team.

By contrast, anything made by Tim Schafer is automatically going to be unique and something you couldn't get anywhere else, even if it comes out 2 years from now or later.

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I also didn't like the promotional video, which was primarily an ad that was simply them begging for donations and for more promotion through social networks, and low in any actual content, but it was passed off as some type of early concept trailer, which would have been cool. It made no sense.

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There is also the fiasco regarding the fact that they commissioned concept art for their project, and they ended up with copyrighted material passed off as original work. Oops. They removed the concept art, which is good, but they were forced to do so to avoid legal trouble. This doesn't exactly strike confidence in them for me. If they are going to make a great video game, they are going to need to ALREADY have access to artists. If they can't even get concept art without running into major issues, I don't see how the community should have faith that they can get an entire game off the ground.

 

first of all, thanks a lot for letting me know about the concept art. i did not know that and just checked the Kickstarter page and Serellan forums to find out the details. i will remove them from my posts as well.

i agree with you that his marketing is not good. he should have started his Kickstarter compaign better prepared. however, i tend to disagee with you about Tim Schafer producing quality stuff every time and Allen not; not even Stephen Hawking is right every time he makes a statement about blackholes and space-time, and he is a confirmed genius! i did not know Christian Allen before his Kickstarter campaign nor did i know Tim Schafer, even though i have played Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle and Halo: Reach and enjoyed all of them. i'm more inclined towards shooters these days (although i remember loving DotT when i was a kid), so i have supported Allen's project and not Schafer's.

also, what exactly did Schafer say in his promo video? he just said we will make a point-and-click adventure game (not much of a difference from what Allen is saying, except for the fact that Schafer's video was professionally done); from what i understand, what Allen is saying is that the publisher will not commit money to design and code a "realistic tactical shooter" (however he defines it) because they think there is not going to be a financial gain in it. the F2P games, as far as i know, are also like the rest of the FPS games these days.

anyhow, i have donated $15. i hope they can make the game and release it.

 

Just a few points

1. Tim Schafer just gave a better picture of what was going on. In his videos, he took you on a tour through the studio they had set up. It was obvious that talent was there. There was art that was obviously done by them in house all over. He wants to make a game in the style of his previous games, which were very specific in genre and well received. It's going to be a point-and-click adventure game. Perfect.

2. Games like Tactical Intervention and Tribes are taking the shooter genre in different directions. Tactical Intervention is, in fact, quite tactical. It's CT vs T, there is leaning, it's slow, T's can hold hostages in front of them. It's very different than other shooters on the market. I imagine it would be very similar to what Takedown is trying to achieve. Tribes is... well... it's Tribes. Blacklight Retribution, on the other hand, is basically just a spin off of Call of Duty, set in scifi. Mr. Allen just didn't do a great job of explaining what he wanted to do that was novel. Since they don't have any creative-genius types in house, it's hard for me to understand why they will do a better job with a low budget than someone like the guy who made counterstrike. I didn't mean to imply that Schafer couldn't possibly ever have a miss, but Grim Fandango is his brain child. Meanwhile, Allen primarily worked on the design elements of sequels to franchise games. It's not that he couldn't possibly have a creative hit, but he certainly hasn't proven his capacity for it. The fact is, Grim Fandango carries more weight than late-stage Halo sequels or Ghost Recon iterations. All of those games had huge budgets and massive teams, where Allen was a contributor. And those games were pretty good, but certainly not timeless. Mash that together with a pretty lame and empty attempt towards the only content in the entire fundraiser campaign, and that's my issue. It just isn't honest. Outsourcing concept art isn't something a game studio would generally do in the first place.

3. If the game gets funded I hope the best for the project, but it's hard for me to see it getting off of the ground. I think you'll end up with your $15 back.

 

^In short, I don't trust Allen and I will not contribute, and compare him to one of my better fond of developer schaffer.

I pledge 25, after seeeing the spams of run and gun games these days and seeing the games allen's team is behind, yeah why not. Not gonna spend my time comparing them to my other more beloved developers...because if Team Silent were too suddenly start kickstarter, hooo.

 

wow! they actually did it! it's $206,000 with 2 hours to go. last night around 4AM it was just past $153,000, so the campaign raised more than $50,000 in less than 24 hours. impressive

i hope the game turns out to be really great...

 

I wouldn't be surprised if some portion of the last-minute funds were "contributed" internally.

Although I still fear that this game might not make it past the alpha stage, or if it does, it won't fulfill my imagination of what this game should be... I am still hopeful!

 

Sorry, there are more than enough shooters ! Supporting this project instead !

Wasteland 2 by inXile entertainment &mdash; Kickstarter

$50.00 =

One digital copy and one full LARGE BOXED COPY OF WASTELAND 2, complete with worn cloth game map and old school instruction book. Also features the digital soundtrack and digital concept art book from previous award. Also receive an early release episodic Novella (Part 1) on the Wasteland 2 world created by Mike Stackpole, a member of the original Wasteland story team. The Novella will give hints and clues being built into the actual Wasteland 2 game. (Please add $15 for international shipping)

$1,900,429 to date, with 14 days to go !

 

yes, there are many shooters, but all of them suck in more than one way! besides, the Kickstarter campaign for TAKEDOWN is already over. i'm sure Wasteland 2 will be great though.