Project Q: First Look
Posted by Derek Yu Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:05:00 GMT
IGN’s embedded video player sucks. View it here.
Cave Story, Night Game, La Mulana… and now Q! Here’s a teaser video of a prototype platformer by Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren and the Nicalis crew. IGN has an interview with Nicklas and Tyrone about the project (which is not yet confirmed for any one platform).
Fans who might be worried that all these new games are causing delays should take comfort in the fact that Nicklas has “wrapped up most of his work for Night Game.”
Awesome! Looks like Knytt 10.0
This looks pretty good. I love me a good atmospheric game. This makes me wanna go back and play Knytt and Knytt Stories again.
I mean no disrespect, but basically that really is just Knytt, isn’t it? So far, anyway. I find that the sometimes very detailed background images don’t fit the monochrome terrain well. But, maybe the terrain is also going to be more detailed, in which case I’d say it’s different enough from Knytt.
Anyway, yes, Knytt on consoles with some improvements also wouldn’t be wrong, but I as someone who already knows Knytt and Knytt Stories would be disappointed if there wasn’t more to it than that.
I sort of got tired of the formular from the first Knytt, I didn’t expect it to have staying power for three games…
It looks prettier, but it’s still Knytt. :(
Scratch that, I didn’t realize that the interview was all about Q as well. So, the graphical style is not subject to change, and the game will be focused on puzzles, which from my experience at least Knytt Stories isn’t. Of course, I’m aware that this is just a short video, but as there is no other footage, that’s all there is to be judged for now :)
This man cannot stop making the same game…
saw it at nomoresweden :P
There will apparently also be a camera the player can use to “document information and capture the environments.”
Anyway, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Nifflas expanding on a concept and bringing it to a whole new audience.
A camera that can capture the environments? Hey, I have one of those!
so its knytt being milked for money on the DLC market, tsk tsk tsk?
Stop whining, yoiu babies.
Knytt with better graphics and animation? I’d drop fifteen bucks in a HEARTBEAT.
it’s bringing that sort of game to a new audience, which is great since most of the wiiware audience that’s going to be getting this game will have never played a knytt game before. it’s a type of game that a lot of people haven’t experienced and it’s good to bring it out to them.
looks pretty good. i’d buy it.
I’d get excited about this if I didn’t have reason to worry I’ll find out I’ll never get to play the game a year from now.
amazing atmosphere.
I remember when indie games sucked and you’d be lucky if you got something of the same quality as a movie tie-in NES platformer. Ingrates!
Would it kill IGN to debug their video player? It got halfway done on their site before a bunch of Flash error screens popped up and went straight to the replay screen. This happens almost every time I view anything on their site.
I don’t mind if somebody wants to keep working within a fairly narrow range. They’re likely to get very, very good at it.
I like the way it’s done as a flick-screen game with just an eensy bit of camera movement to give it depth. The super-slow scrolling is very soothing.
This almost seems like Knytt until you read the interview.
I hope it gets released on Steam/Greenhouse/D2D etc. According to his forums Nicklas said he would release one more PC game (excluding mini games) so hopefully this is what he was talking about.
If it’s another Wiiware exclusive this time nifflas will disappoint me TOO MUCH this time. As he said after that Night Game PC was canceled that his next game would be for pc, or at least not an exclusive.
Okay, Nicalis. You guys have finally made me decide to get a Wii. Are you happy now?
After seeying the screenshot i’d say the game looks quite fugly
It seems like Knytt, with the same “kind of” gameplay and music, but an ugly Knytt version. Knytt was beautiful because of its simplicity. Here, it’s just not my cup of tea.
The subtle animations in the video was nice, but I have to agree with the people above me that the graphics style isn’t working at all. I hope this is just because the game’s still in the early stages.
mixing photos with crappy programmer art and a sort of badly drawn anime girl is not gonna work :\
I have to say the craphics looked little unbalanced.. BUT as a direction mixing these different elements could work - if only done properly. I liked the smiling head of a statue! <3 ^_^
Eclipse - so you like it then?
Personally, I think it looks great. Everyone knew a commercial knytt game was bound to happen so why is everyone getting their panties in a bunch?
Don’t forget about Within a Deep Forest. Knytt and WaDF have similarities, but each has different gameplay elements.
I have faith this game will feature some new mechanics that will differentiate it enough from Knytt to make it worthwhile.
And if not… then maybe I’ll just keep playing Knytt. It’s not complex.
-SirNiko
I seem to be only one of a few that actually encourages ports like this, supposing this is Knytt.
I’m excited about Cave Story, La-Mulana and this.
I loved Knytt stories and enjoyed WaDF. While it wasn’t quite as transcendent as La-Mulana and Cave Story, I’m thinking Nifflas can expand sufficiently on his concepts to warrant a commercial release.
If they port Knytt, they should make the game HUGE, I mean, expand the world a couple of hundreds of rooms, or else I see no need of doing it
I agree that it’s ugly. Knytt, KS, and WaDF used minimalism effectively. This on the other hand looks like the bastard child of a Flash platformer and an excessively dark mainstream game. That might’ve been forgivable, but visuals are paramount in games of exploration, so for me it fails already. And the minor scrolling + discrete screens thing is really obnoxious. What’s wrong with one or the other?
Finally I don’t see anything in the interview or trailer that announces any significant departure from (or expansion of) the Knytt series. Which is fine, since they’re probably not marketing this towards people who’ve played Nifflas’ previous games- but I wouldn’t pay for it.
This game looks fun, but the graphics are… eh. It doesn’t have the graphical charm of Knytt, but it’s probably just as fun, and the music is nice too.
I’m with Anthony. Lots of artists spend their whole working lives refining the same concepts and exploring the same sensations over and over again, ad infinitum, and good for them that they do. I think Q looks pretty fucking spectacular.
wow, that looks great, not too fond of the foreground though.. especially when it gets in the way of the platforming layer.
I like how it looks… it the first few screens look nice but then the style seems to get a little more complex
I’m kind of unable to fathom how people think this looks ugly.
Anyways, I’m certain this game is going to be, for lack of a better term, pretty fucking sweet. Actually I have plenty of better terms but I’m monumentally lazy.
I’m with googoogjoob. I think we can expect a nicely polished, atmospheric platformer… Remember guys: this is a prototype.
I don’t know how you could be tired of Knytt. I mean, you have to be in the right mood, but when you are it’s golden.
And also, the music from all the Knytt games. Man, if there was a soundtrack, I’d buy it instantly!
Looking great. However, I personally can’t wait for the next trailer.
It will clearly be just like the Love trailer. lovely solitary atmospheres and peaceful ambience. Then suddenly, BAM, nothing but shootan and action based gameplay.
Imagining the simultaneous crushing of thousand of pretentious artfag hearts brought endless joy to my soul then and I’m certain it will again.
Like someone mentioned…. looks too much like a Flash based platformer. The super slow scrolling, although adding to the atmosphere, only makes the Flash-y feel more strong with me. I wonder how distracting it might be with puzzles based on reflexes and right timing etc. I’m all for artsy stuff and experiments but here the graphics really bugged me, especially the foreground. The ballance of realism and conceptualism hasn’t been done too well, imo. I’m really anxious to see how this develops, seeing it’s in early stages now. Loved the original. Will miss the simplicity but looking forward to this one as well. Nifflas really has the talent for the simple stuff, I hope he does for the ‘buffed up version’ too.
Darn…. it ate my paragraphs -_-
These maps are all remakes of Super Metroid. The level designs of Super Metroid ain’t bad, I love Super Metroid but to remake the level design for ones own game, is in my opinion somewhat lacking in originality.
This is clearly knytt stories HD. Also, I’m still waiting out on KS for the NDS…
Within/forest I loved, Knytt wasn’t too bad, it just had bland gameplay.
I’m not sold on games that use exploration as the sole method of gameplay tho. If there are puzzles, lots of puzzles, then it won’t be much different then playing Out of this World, which would be neato.
Hope the game turns out well!
So is this the game he is making for his loyal pc game fans? He mentioned that because he was only releasing Night Game on the wii that he wanted to ‘make up’ for ‘screwing over’ his pc fanbase…
Either way I can’t wait. I can not get enough of the knytt universe.. the music is going to be top notch.
@SteGriff - I’m still working on it! Don’t despair! ^_-
Nicklas showed some of us this in action at No More Sweden - it’s pretty great, really.
Looks like a postapocalyptic version of Knytt. Boring! He should invest in some more interesting enhancements of the original gameplay instead of just copying it!
Damn this game looks cool. I love the new character, the deep parallax with subtle scrolling, the overall atmosphere! I hope this comes out on PSN or PC, otherwise I’m going to have to buy a new console…
If the graphics aren’t subject to change, then I’m glad we’ve still got Knytt Stories (and I donated $20 to Niflas for that, as I felt it was worth it).
Another previously said that Knytt Stories was beautiful because of its simplicity, and this is not so beautiful, but that’s not all there is to it. It was also the cohesion of art-style that made it beautiful.
Some developers of Knytt Stories levels understood that, while others did not. Has Nif forgotten?
Here’s an example; Death Mountain was a brilliant level, because it had a completely cohesive art-style and fit with the feeling and the atmosphere of Knytt. But then, there were these levels which were too complicated, ones that had painted backgrounds and curvy platforms.
Whiile the latter levels were pretty to look at, they only really worked as what the Knytt community referred to as environment levels. You walk through them and go “Oooh pretty…” until you reach the end, and that’s that.
The moment gameplay was introduced into such a level, it pretty much sucked… badly.
This video gives me the vibe that it’s one of those bad Knytt Stories levels, the art isn’t cohesive at all, in fact the art direction looks awful, and while the painted backgrounds are pretty, things just don’t mesh together well. It looks like it would be okay if it was free and the point was to just stroll through it, looking at the environments… but it wouldn’t suit gameplay at all.
Does that make any sense?
If not, play Knytt Stories and a bunch of Knytt Stories levels, you’ll come across what I’m talking about.
For Knytt gameplay to work, the… the nature of the environment has to be clear, you have to be able to understand it at a glance, it has to be intuitive, you have to be able to make out the dangers from things that are there just to be pretty or background life. You need a clear understanding of what is a platform you can climb on and what isn’t, and this allows the player to explore intuitively.
This doesn’t look like it has any of that, so I’m really not excited.
And that’s not the end of my criticisms either…
If Knytt Stories had stood on its own, it would’ve been kinda fun, but it would’ve been forgotten rather quickly. It was the level editor, along with Nif’s own level additions after the release and those of the community that made it awesome. This is kind of why I weas excited about LittleBigPlanet, but… the editor didn’t work on a console, so the majority of LBP community levels were bloody awful. It was near impossible to find even one good user-created LBP level.
If this has a level editor that’s designed to be used on a PC and not… ah, streamlined for console users, then that could save it, that could allow people to create their own graphics and use the engine to recreate a true Knytt feel with a nice, updated engine.
But the thing is, it’s probably going to be LBP if it does have an editor due to the console influence.
Let’s just say that I don’t have a lot of faith in this, and I’d really prefer to donate money for more Knytt Stories than get this.
Maybe I’m completely wrong about it, but… eh, I don’t know. It lacks the beauty of Knytt Stories, it lacks the cohesion, and it seems to lack the feeling of wonder too. :<
I’m just going to hope that this is a PC exclusive with a damn good editor, because if that is the case then the fan community could salvage this and potentially make something truly great of it.
But if it’s akin to a bad Knytt Stories level with no level editor, or a particularly crappy one, eh…
Aside from the obvious graphical update, it seems like a massive step back.
TIGsource community! Go out and get laid, come back, and tell Nifflas his new game looks pretty cool.
I think this game looks pretty sweet.
Indie Game fans have become whiners recently.
Well, Game fans in general have become ingrates and whiners recently, but Indie Game fans are only now making the shift from “Pretentious Snobs” to “Pretentious Ungrateful Whiners”
Atmosphere seems amazing, but I don’t know about the game. I’d play it, but I’ve always liked Within a Deep Forest better than the Knytt games. More tricky things and original gameplay.