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Embracing monstrous multiplayer in First Wonder
The brains behind MDK and Citizen Kabuto couldn’t crack Kickstarter, but that won’t stop them.
First Wonder
© Rogue Rocket Games
"I’ve nothing against mainstream," protests video game development veteran Nick Bruty, whose credits include deliciously oddball titles such as Earthworm Jim, MDK and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Well, it’s certainly one way to open an interview.
"I’ve also enjoyed working on many mainstream titles in my past, but when I get the chance to create an original title I take the opportunity to make something distinctive that plays to my strengths,” he continues. “Gaming has grown so much in the past few decades with new audiences appreciating different games, so there should be room for us all."
Bruty might sound a bit defensive, but you could argue that he has good reason — his latest offering is just as unique as his past titles, but this time around he's appealing to the general public in order to raise funds rather than depending on a cautious and risk-adverse publisher. First Wonder is the release in question, and like Bruty's other offerings, it's shaping up to be totally unlike anything you've ever played before.
Billed as a spiritual successor to the cult hit Giants: Citizen Kabuto, First Wonder is a third person action adventure which pits the humanoid Cargonauts against a giant monster called Monstro. The action takes place in a disarmingly beautiful tropical paradise, and the game is divided between a single player and multiplayer campaign. Unlike many action titles, which would keep the powerful Monstro out of the player's control, First Wonder boasts asymmetrical gameplay and will allow players to command the giant, hulking beast, creating a unique set of challenges. It's not entirely unlike the recent online shooter Evolve, but with a much grander focus and more complex gameplay.
"I never had the chance to build sequels to Giants and MDK," explains Bruty. "There were many play mechanics — including asymmetrical multiplayer — that I was just beginning to explore with those games and have just been waiting for the right opportunity to bring them back. So the idea came from the mechanics first and then I built the characters to match."
Bruty's studio Rogue Rocket Games may be based in sunny California, but his roots belong in the UK, where he met legendary Irish developer David Perry at Probe Software. Perry is one of the most famous names in gaming, having founded Earthworm Jim studio Shiny Entertainment and — more recently — cloud-streaming service Gaikai, which is now owned by Sony.
"David and I had been making games together for years before Shiny," Bruty says. "We both came to the U.S. through Virgin Games, making Aladdin [the most respected Disney platform game ever made] amongst other things. When we left to form Shiny it was really just carrying on where we had left off back in the UK. Working for ourselves again meant we could go back to making free-form games, only this time we had better budgets and exposure. The one big difference was working with great character artists and animators like Doug TenNaple and Mike Dietz. I loved the way those guys think and how they bring characters to life. In the past I focused more on the gameplay and action, but after spending time with those guys it made me a much more rounded developer."
With such a vast array of experience behind him, Bruty is wise enough to heed the lessons of the past when creating the games of the future. "The biggest one is trying not to do too much at once in an original game," he says. Bruty's other titles certainly packed in plenty of concepts, often overwhelming the player with the possibilities. 1997's MDK combined third-person shooting with first-person sniping, as well as a myriad of mini-games and other innovative ideas. 2000's Giants: Citizen Kabuto was even grander, and is the most obvious precursor to First Wonder in terms of theme and gameplay.
"The jump in scope from MDK to Giants was huge but I kept the team the same size and that really hurt us. It's my nature to overreach. I get very excited about ideas and I want to see them all! When I start with something as diverse as First Wonder I have so many ideas that I need time to whittle them down and understand exactly what the core of the game is. That takes time but once you have that, build just that. Then grow from there. I’ve been noodling on the ideas for the past year but the prototype has been in development for the past three to four months."
First Wonder is certainly a game that is packed with fresh ideas. The single player campaign doesn't force the player to pick a side, but instead alternates between the Cargonauts and Monstro. "Our mysterious plot has you switching back and forth," Bruty explains, but he's unable to say categorically how long this mode will take to finish as it's still evolving. "It's too early to predict the campaign length at this time, especially with the exploration aspect and many sub goals," he continues.
Refreshingly, the Cargonauts and Monstro will present two entirely different ways of playing. "Monstro doesn’t care about the Cargonauts until he needs them," explains Bruty. "He is trying to fulfil his prophecy. To do that he has to find ways of travelling to multiple islands and performing rituals, destroying towns, and eating virgins. Each time he gets stronger and develops more powers. The Cargonauts are blamed for the release of Monstro onto the world. They have to stop him by any means, but they aren’t soldiers. They are riggers and have rocket packs and lifting gear. While they do have some weaponry, they need to use their equipment and the environment to battle Monstro. They must get him in a weak position before they attack."
First Wonder
© Rogue Rocket Games
Bruty offers an example of how this will work. "Monstro uses an island's volcano to blast himself across the sea to a neighboring island," he explains. "To stop this the Cargonauts need to find something big enough to block the volcano — a rock, ship, building, whatever works — and use their tow cables and rockets to lift and drop it down the volcano blocking it and restricting Monstro's movements. Each island has it own unique way of aiding the players for them to discover."
To make things even more interesting, Rogue Rocket has designed a third race, but Bruty states that this won't be added to the game until much later. The reason for holding back is simple — balancing the game with two races is going to take a lot of work, and the relationship between the Cargonauts and Monstro has to be perfectly weighted before a third variable is thrown into the mix.
This gameplay carries over to the online mode, making for a very different experience to your typical shooter. "The core aspect of multiplayer is goal-driven rather than just straight head-to-head combat," elaborates Bruty. "Monstro needs to find what his rituals are then work out how to get there. If he completes all his rituals then the prophecy comes true and he wins the session. Monstro has only one life where the Cargonauts will respawn many times during a session as they try a number of crazy attempts to stop Monstro."
Like the recent online shooter Evolve, First Wonder's appeal is all about the different experiences offered to the player within the same game world. The tactics required by the Cargonauts and Monstro are totally and utterly different, making each role unique. "At first the Cargonauts are outmatched," says Bruty.
"Monstro is stronger, and faster. At first they don’t even know where he is so you’ll want to send a couple of lightly-equipped Cargonauts out to scout for him and tag him with a video drone. Now all the Cargonauts can see him at all times. From there you may want to go exploring for the ancient cave paintings and the clues they reveal, or maybe just an all-out assault. The heart of our multiplayer game is built around offering the player many alternative tactics to try against Monstro. If you don’t have the twitch reflexes to win in a gunfight then hit him with a boulder. Go exploring to find a clue that helps you set a trap. Even up the odds before you get into a fight."
Bruty's previous titles are famous for their offbeat sense of humour, and long-standing fans will be pleased to learn that First Wonder will be no different. However, Bruty explains that adding humour to the mix not only makes for an entertaining game at the end, but also has a beneficial effect on the development process.
"Sometimes making games can be very hard and it really helps those moments pass when you arrive in the morning and just start laughing at the previous night’s work," he says. "I know something is going to be good when I can't stop laughing but at the same time thinking, 'Oh God, I can't believe we’re putting this in.' I wish I could be a fly on the wall when people play for the first time."
Will they be able to, though? Aye, there’s the rub. Initially planned for Windows and Linux, First Wonder's Kickstarter campaign sadly didn't get the reaction its creators had hoped for, and the funding drive was cancelled around a week before it was due to reach its conclusion.
"It became clear that we weren't going to make our target goal," says Rogue Rocket co-founder Richard Sun. "We knew it was going to be challenging, but we saw through all our big strategies for creating a momentum of awareness, but each attempt only created a relatively small increase. Instead of continuing to spend additional time and money on a campaign that wasn't going to succeed, we decided to cancel it, and regroup. As we all know, you don't get any of the funds if you don't meet your initial funding goal, so it no longer became sensible to continue to run it and update it."
Sun says that while the amount pledged fell well short of the target goal, the people behind those pledges have been incredibly supportive, even after learning that the campaign was being pulled. "Our backers range in sophistication and experience on Kickstarter, but particularly from the ones that have backed a lot of things in the past, and haven't seen them all turn out that great, they've been very understanding, and actually encouraging. Most people who have paid attention to past Kickstarters already knew that we weren't going to hit our target anyways, so it wasn't a big surprise."
Can they do that? Sun explains that while the Kickstarter campaign has failed this time, the team has gained a lot of experience as a result. "Kickstarter is harder even than we expected. It's a ton of work in prep and live, which we knew, but even more so than we thought. We relied too much on the good name of Nick's previous games, and underestimated how hard it was going to be to pull them all into one cohesive community, since they haven't been one in a long time."
Sun also admits that video channels such as Twitch and YouTube could have been used more effectively, and that the press and general public are actually become a little apathetic towards crowdfunding — something which has to be taken into account when preparing a campaign. Despite the cancellation and the issues, Sun confirms that the team isn't giving up.
"We're open to anything right now, but we're committed to continuing to make it happen by whatever means are possible," he says. "We did get a bit of publisher interest through the process of showing the game to the public, which we're investigating. We also have discussed taking a slow-burn approach, where we put together a small multiplayer version of the game out on Steam Early Access, and using the proceeds from that to slowly grow out the product to its full vision. There's also a possibility we bring it back to a crowdfunding source with a smaller minimum target, if we can determine a sensible plan around it. We aim to keep the community we have in the loop as this develops."
Some developers treat a failed Kickstarter as the end of the road for a project, but we've seen numerous examples of campaigns which, at their second attempt, meet their funding goals. Titles like Hive Jump, Pocket Rumble and InSomnia all fell at the first hurdle but picked themselves up for a second attempt, and there's no reason why First Wonder can't do the same.
"Some people have commented that their money is ready to 'throw at the screen' once we have any new way to get support under the game." says Sun. Here's hoping the team at Rogue Rocket find a way.
