The Astronauts developer Adrian Chmielarz, former dev of People Can Fly, explains why developers should “kill gameplay” in order to create a more memorable experience in videogames.
Wccftech interviewed The Astronauts CEO Adrian Chmielarz to talk about Witchfire, the dark fantasy roguelite FPS debuting soon in early access.
"PCF Group S.A. (People Can Fly) has informed via the current report released on September 23, 2022, that it has received from Take-Two Interactive a letter of intent to terminate the development and publishing agreement by means of mutual understanding between the parties. This agreement pertains to Project Dagger, new action-adventure IP, that has been in development for the last 2 years – under the direction of People Can Fly’s team based in New York.
In addition to the standard provisions parties are to set out detailed terms of settlements differentiating the terms of settlements and the amount of advances received from the publisher for the game’s development to be repaid depending on the model in which the game will be commercialized, i.e., depending whether the game will be self-published or released with another publisher.
The Publisher has also not declared the intention to exercise its option to buy-out the intellectual property rights to the products produced under the agreement."
'and the amount of advances received from the publisher for the game’s development to be repaid depending on the model in which the game will be commercialized, i.e., depending whether the game will be self-published or released with another publisher.'
Yikes, so how do they work around that?
“We strongly believe in the Project Dagger’s potential and are now committed to continue its development within our self-publishing pipeline. The game is still in pre-production – our team is now focusing on closing combat and game loops and migration from UE4 to UE5. ... Of course, we are not ruling out working with a new publisher if this creates a compelling business opportunity.”
They've been hopping around so much the past decade. Epic, Gearbox and then Take Two. I'm looking forward to an eventual Bulletstorm 2.
Outriders developer People Can Fly announced the acquisition of Phosphor Games, which will be renamed to People Can Fly Chicago.
what they should buy are more servers and fix the terrible online connection of the game. Terrible.....
What the hell? Kill gameplay? I don't get it?
What?! Even after reading his reasoning, I still have no idea what he's talking about.
He singles out swimming and riding a horse as not being gameplay. If it's on rails or a cutscene fair enough. In an open world game however, riding a horse or swimming are merely facets of the overall gameplay. They aren't the entire game and they don't have to be. If anything they're designed to add more elements to gameplay overall. By his reasoning driving cars in GTA isn't gameplay.
It seems Adrian Chmielarz still thinks we're in the early nineties and gameplay hasn't evolved since then. He is out of touch and is fitting the trend of indie developers saying idiotic things.
Somebody never heard of story-telling through mechanics. I can KINDA see what he's saying, but it sounds almost like he's saying that point-and-click adventures are the best way to tell a story. No. That just means you haven't figured out how to properly intertwine story and gameplay.
WTF? No. Go watch a movie.
You need to get your job back and make Bulletstorm 2, is what you need to do.