I recently got in contact with the mastermind behind one of most hyped Game Maker games ever.
Chronos, or as some people know him by his real name Van Bush is one of the most interesting people to talk to because he speaks as RAiN through himself in a way. Within a few months of showing screen shots of the original game, the team was in over there heads with pressure mounting and numerous set backs. Less than a year after the project was announced Chronos asked the moderators on Game Maker Games forums to close the topic because it was simply a mess, with one of the problems being a mysterious "hacker" named Lep, who Chronos now praises because the pressure was horrible. The last word we got about it was from Millsa in a GMG topic saying "Anyway, its still going to be made. (Probably take longer now.)". That is until now. RAiN (now called VHEL) is still in development and I have a full interview with Chronos that you need to read.
-----------------
Interviewer: Brian LaClair
Interviewee: Van Bush
GMR: So, Chronos, RAiN was pretty hyped up for a few months after the first screenshots but we haven't heard about it for about a year now. What have you and Millsa been up to with the project, and what has changed?
Van Bush: A lot actually. In practicalur, the overall direction, game design fondation and theories, gameplay, etc.. All that was changed over a lenghty amount of time but it changed the game from the inside out. It's pretty common ground for people to make games with action and explosions and violence and whatnot, but RAiN for me wasn't really being the game it was to me personally. Everything is different and we're doing alot of "first" for a GM game. Specifically, VO (voice overs), full on anatomically correct characters and we're doing alot with the overall story in a way where it's less like a game from a traditional, generation X point of view, and more grounded into a more old school adventure feel. It IS an adventure game...to an extent, now, but it's definitely...different from what I normally see out there
GMR: One of the most noticable things about RAiN was the VHEL engine. What has changed about it and are you even still using it in the game?
Van Bush: Nope. Basically, GM is a very interesting program because you can almost use it anyway you want. If I decided to stick with my older engine, the game i'm making now wouldn't be possible. We basically approached like a complier and designed it to work with more of the things I personally wanted to do. Specifically, VO, HD images, alot of dialogue and scripts, textures, etc...
GMR: Will we see a lot of these new engine functions at play in the game?
Van Bush: Oh yeah, in fact the game wouldn't be possible without them. The tools we made definitely allowed me to be more creative because of how I was approaching it as opposed to before, so theres a lot more going on that would almost be impossible to attempt if you SOLELY rely on GM, but at the sametime, there has been a lot of advances in techniques and coding and such. I can say pretty comfortably that the game looks very convincing, so you'll notice the "GM can do that!" stuff once you turn the game on.
GMR: Are Millsa and yourself now using Game Maker 7, and if you are has it in any way improved the game?
Van Bush: Nope, we stuck with the tried and true, GM 6.1. Call me a bias fruitloop, but I never liked 7.0 even when it was released. I guess it was more because of the fact that YOYO got involved and kind of made the scene feel less indie, but yeah, it was just a personal prefrence
GMR: What really is the game about?
Van Bush: Gosh, that took me 5 years to come up with. Well, to be simple, VHEL is about a world called Nor Prime with alot of...interesting conflicts going on. It's a waterlogged planet, and theres 3 races -- Bhacrio, Hecoy, and Humari. These guys have to deal with a type of biohazardous organism called Ragnic, which are the main problem within the world. Ragnic love moisture and one of the most recognizable things that people normally notice is the rain that pours down when these guys come up to the surface -- hence the title RAiN way back.
The game literally has it's own science and I did research day and night for it for many many months. Biomurrology, towers, Reavers, Scouts, Haut Monde, EDOC. The game has more information about itself and every little detail than most books.
For example, the main story follows the ventures of a Bhacrio girl named Khana Faust. Her backstory, main story, and how people are involved with her tangle together into this very interesting web of delusion and truth. I like Hideo Kojima games so I'm all about the hidden meanings and plot twist with the players saying "WTF!?". In fact, the title of the game (VHEL) has more meaning to it than just being a word I made up or even irrelveant to the plot: it's a parasite and it's basically what drives 60% of the story. But beyond that though, I take more pride in showcasing my characters and making characters that people can relate to, so even with all the complex junk with story, i want to present interesting people and ideas and concepts. Khana for example is a freakin masochistic, tomboy, and she loves every moment of it. Other characters like Casie like to look pretty but don't like people talking smack about stuff that they don't know. But along with that, I blend in all the interesting points about the story along with the gameplay and the art in a fashion where it's one big entity. Like i said before, my game design approach is different from what most people use and everything in this game no matter how small was intentionally designed to create the experience the way it's meant to be.
GMR: I know after the pressure from before RAiN (or VHEL) went private you probably don't like to say dates. But what do you think will be a reasonable date that we will see the link to a download for RAiN?
Van Bush: That one of is a touchy subject because I actually had no future plans for a open download like my past projects. I plan to be done.....around late winter, saying I get my ducks in a row. HOWEVER, theres a issue with downloading this game because its 500mb+ file, easy. VO, HD, all that adds up and I'm trying to compress it all as best as I can but I'm not trying to work on the limits of any program or forum or whatever. I'm creating the experience I invisioned for so many years and I'm going full force with it.
GMR: So, you said that you wern't planning an open download. Will it cost us money? Or is this just saying your not sure if you want many people to play it?
Van Bush: It's a mixature of things, definitely. Piracy is big nowadays in the pc market, so thats one reason. I would need to set up a website for the game to sit on for people to get it, I would need a crazy amount of bandwidth to support it. The value of the game could be a good $30, considering most Wii games rip you off for very little content at that price anyways. But I honestly don't know where, when, or even how I want all this work out. It be nice to have this game as a XBLA game for $15 with a lot of downloaded episodes, but meh.
GMR: Thanks for your time, Chronos.
-----------------
Some day, maybe after the actual release of VHEL, I will post our whole conversation on here, which I have to say is pretty much the best conversation I have ever had on AIM.
He gave me "exclusive" screenshots, concept art and pre-visualizations and you can press the thumbnails below to view them.
I have a few more that I didn't post here, but they weren't as important.
---
Facts:
Chronos has been working on VHEL for 5 years.
The story line for VHEL is currently a 500 page word document.
0 comments:
Post a Comment