Extra - ‘Deadly Creatures’ for the Nintendo Wii looks creepy-awesome
I look at this picture and I think ambition. Brent Ashe, designer for Rainbow Studios in Phoenix, Arizona thinks hey, that would make a great game.
Brent gave a talk tonight at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts about Rainbowâs upcoming action-thriller title, âDeadly Creaturesâ for the Nintendo Wii. Players take control of some mighty arachnids, battling up and down the food chain, all while set in a very spooky looking desert environment. He shared with us some screenshots, concept art, and a teaser trailer for the game, and talked about Rainbowâs efforts to draw human players into a very non-human experience.
I recorded the entire talk, which you can download below. Brent gave us some very cool insight into producing what he described as an âIndie thrillerâ title, listing influences ranging from superheroes such as Spider-Man to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Brent spent a lot of the talk explaining how the team is approaching art design - he believes that game designers are always trying to make their game worlds bigger, but with âCreaturesâ they try to make the game world seem larger by making their protagonists smaller. Something mundane like an abandoned truck or a sewer tunnel takes on a much larger and menacing shape from the perspective of an insect. He described how the art team crawled around in the deserts outside Phoenix with cameras in order to get a âbugâs eye viewâ of the landscape. Very cool stuff.
What particularly piqued my interest was when Brent mentioned a few juicy story tidbits: â[Creatures has] an overarching human element. There’s a couple of guys out in the desert and they’re looking for something. You’re actually seeing and hearing their dialog from your [bugsâ] perspective. [The men are] actually telling the story - we were very cognizant of the fact that if [insects] canât talk whatâs the compulsion to get you through [the game]? By basically crafting a mystery around everything - even though these are creatures, they are still driven by [the player, who as a human] has an understanding of what you’re seeing. You can walk over a newspaper and see the headline - as a creature, you canât read it, but as a human playing the game you can.â Sounds like what at first seemed like a pretty ho-hum 3D fighter is shaping up to be an innovative little title. Iâm just going to make sure I play it in a fully lit room with a huge can of Raid within armsâ reach.
-Michael
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