cormack12
Gold Member
Source: Edge #364
You're instantly made to feel vulnerable. We're a short way inot the game, and our four legged hero has fallen into this place, seperated from family and friends as he seeks an escape route. [..] Looking ahead he doesn't notice the ominous red light of a CCTV camera.
"Obviously this place is supposed to be at least unwelcoming," producer Swann Martin-Raget tells us. "This is why we also developed an alphabet for the whole language for the game - to have players really feel they don't understand this place and they don't get all the codes fo the environment." Soon after, we see another notice, though this one's a little more clear: several letters on an extinguished neon sign suddenly spark back to life spelling out "HELP", with two arrows pointing to the right. A flickering TV screen beckons 'FOLLOW ME'.
The, suddenly, a jolt, a shriek, and an arched spring backward as a pile of electronic parts moves abruptly, revealing itself to be a dying robot with one arm and no legs.
BlueTwelve's approach to navigating this world reminds us, in fact, of another Naughty Dog game - or more specifically, a term used by Neil Druckmanm to describe it. "The term we use is wide-linear'," he said of Uncharted 4. "It's not open world, because we wanted to tell a very specific story, with very specific tension." Stray's opening is similarly heavily authored; indeed , there is a hint of Nathan Drake in the platforming, alebit without the crumbling handholds and flimsy masonry.
It's not really a platformer, in other words. "That's correct, yes," Martin-Raget says. We really didn't want to have that kind of challenge because we found out that being a cat really implies that every jump is super smooth and calculated, that you're jumping your way round really easily. And so these controls can do that and make you feel very fluid around the environments. If you can image a traditional platforming challenge where you have to control your jump and miss very often that wouldn't be true to life.
Martin-Raget leads us towards an area simply titled Slums, where the 'wide' part has been expanded to the point that 'linear' no longer applies. "We also have these bubbles that are way more of an open world thing," the producer says. Stray may not be an open world in the classic sense - given that its setting has been heavily inspired by Kowloon Walled City, you'd expect a few boundaries - but there are areas where the pace slows, and you can roam around more freely.
You're instantly made to feel vulnerable. We're a short way inot the game, and our four legged hero has fallen into this place, seperated from family and friends as he seeks an escape route. [..] Looking ahead he doesn't notice the ominous red light of a CCTV camera.
"Obviously this place is supposed to be at least unwelcoming," producer Swann Martin-Raget tells us. "This is why we also developed an alphabet for the whole language for the game - to have players really feel they don't understand this place and they don't get all the codes fo the environment." Soon after, we see another notice, though this one's a little more clear: several letters on an extinguished neon sign suddenly spark back to life spelling out "HELP", with two arrows pointing to the right. A flickering TV screen beckons 'FOLLOW ME'.
The, suddenly, a jolt, a shriek, and an arched spring backward as a pile of electronic parts moves abruptly, revealing itself to be a dying robot with one arm and no legs.
BlueTwelve's approach to navigating this world reminds us, in fact, of another Naughty Dog game - or more specifically, a term used by Neil Druckmanm to describe it. "The term we use is wide-linear'," he said of Uncharted 4. "It's not open world, because we wanted to tell a very specific story, with very specific tension." Stray's opening is similarly heavily authored; indeed , there is a hint of Nathan Drake in the platforming, alebit without the crumbling handholds and flimsy masonry.
It's not really a platformer, in other words. "That's correct, yes," Martin-Raget says. We really didn't want to have that kind of challenge because we found out that being a cat really implies that every jump is super smooth and calculated, that you're jumping your way round really easily. And so these controls can do that and make you feel very fluid around the environments. If you can image a traditional platforming challenge where you have to control your jump and miss very often that wouldn't be true to life.
Martin-Raget leads us towards an area simply titled Slums, where the 'wide' part has been expanded to the point that 'linear' no longer applies. "We also have these bubbles that are way more of an open world thing," the producer says. Stray may not be an open world in the classic sense - given that its setting has been heavily inspired by Kowloon Walled City, you'd expect a few boundaries - but there are areas where the pace slows, and you can roam around more freely.