Hydrophobia dev releases Darknet video

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 17 May, 2011

Promises to improve game further.

Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital has released a video showcasing its new Darknet technology, which allows it to receive player feedback in real time.

DED said thousands of players have left feedback using the tech, which launched inside the Steam version - called Hydrophobia Prophecy - last week.

"We were expecting a slow burn with Darknet, so when we switched on InfiniteWorlds the day after launch and the whole game map lit up like a Christmas tree we were really surprised," boss Pete Jones said.

"People really seem to be embracing the connected development philosophy behind Darknet."

DED promised to update and improve the game further based on the feedback gathered by Darknet.

"Thanks to Steam Cloud we've already delivered several micro updates to address frustrations flagged up by Darknet, such as adding extra checkpoints to alleviate concentrations of frustration data points," Jones continued.

"This is just the beginning. With Darknet we've given our players a seat at the board room table, and we have big plans to build an even stronger community and better connections between that community and us as developer."

Hydrophobia Prophecy, also coming to the PlayStation 3, is described as version 1.5 of the game that began life on the Xbox 360 last year.

It also follows the December 2010 release of Hydrophobia Pure on Xbox Live Arcade.

The original Hydrophobia met with stinging review scores, and currently sits on a 59 metacritic score.

Hydrophobia Prophecy fared better, and enjoys a 79 metascore.

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About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • uknortherner2000 #1 1 year ago

    You never did review the PC version of Hydrophobia, did you EG?

  • JamieR #2 1 year ago

    These guys have ambition i really like it

  • DarkEnergy #3 1 year ago

    @JamieR Thanks :) We're genuinely excited by Darknet, its quite an experience to play back the game with all that live data switched on. Obviously we've played it a billion times but now we get to view it through the communities eyes as we're playing. It's pretty damn cool :)

  • ant72 #4 1 year ago

    Hydrophobia was pretty good, and anyone should get it if they're sitting on the fence. I really like the Batman/Bulletstorm mechanics, which were quite subtly done. A fine game.

  • metalangel #5 1 year ago

    Not as good as Brink!

  • pauleyc #6 1 year ago

    An interesting approach to design, developers actively listening to customers are still rare.

    Although personally I'd prefer a thought-out and polished game in the first place, instead of relying on constant player feedback/an eternally rolling beta.

  • DarkEnergy #7 1 year ago

    @ant72 Thanks much appreciated, glad you enjoyed it :)

  • DarkEnergy #8 1 year ago

    @pauleyc You're absolutely right of course, and we absolutely do extensive playtesting and usability studies pre-release, but our position is why stop there and just cut and run after release?

  • pauleyc #9 1 year ago

    @DarkEnergy:

    How far would you actually go in order to alleviate player frustration? Say a number of players flag a particular segment as too difficult for non-technical reasons, ie. not due camera issues or controls - would would you cater to their demands or defend it as a conscious design decision?

  • henrix #10 1 year ago

    Really great idea. I can see this approach being very successful in the future. Enjoyed Hydrophobia alot when I played it on the 360. Only problem was it was way too short. Took me a while to really start to get into and by the time I did it was all over. I would still recommend it to people however.

  • nazzyq #11 1 year ago

    It must've been quite hard for Dark Energy to take on board all the criticism from the original release. But I applaud them for responding to the negative feedback so well. Hydrophobia is now a much better game because of it.

  • Toothball #12 1 year ago

    @DarkEnergy

    Don't suppose there's been any further movement on the Xbox version? It'd be nice if some of the new bits made it over there, although presumably there's still business to be worked out there as well as updates to the game. If not I may keep an eye on the Steam sales in case this crops up there.

  • DarkEnergy #13 1 year ago

    @pauleyc Everything is taken on a case by case basis and is democratic. If the vast majority of players have an issue, then it will be a priority for us to review. What we're able to do to address it depends on the particular case, most things are easy to change in our system but some things take more time so we have to weight it up and prioritise it. What we're finding is that 99% of the time the overall consensus is correct, so we've yet to some across a situation where we disagree with the community. We're also finding, to our surprise actually, is that far more people are telling us what they like than what they don't like which we see as the community saying "give us more of this please!"

  • DarkEnergy #14 1 year ago

    @henrix Thanks you. Length is one of the issues we address, Prophecy is about 40% longer with a new ending and new areas throughout

  • DarkEnergy #15 1 year ago

    @nazzyq Yeah we feel really good about the whole process, with Prophecy we feel we've finally arrived at where we wanted to be. Creating you own engine from scratch and making a game with unproven technology, a new unknown gameplay element with HydroEngine and no experience or grounding in the genre is an insane challenge. Perhaps unsurprisingly we didn't quite pull it off first time but we're delighted with where we've got to with Prophecy. Onwards and upwards now!

  • DarkEnergy #16 1 year ago

    @Toothball No update I'm afraid. We're fully focused on Steam and next PSN at the moment, but we're obviously working away behind the scenes to bring it to as many people as we can :)

  • Tyrhinis #17 1 year ago

    @DarkEnergy I'm very impressed by your actions here - openness to criticism, speed of patch, candid interviews, XBLA price drop, and now a PSN/Steam release with Darknet, which (if it works) will totally revolutionise patches and post-game support. Sincere congratulations!

    I'm going to go back to the XBLA demo and try it post-patch, definitely. And.... I know you're a small studio and all, but... any chance of a Mac port for Prophecy? ;)

  • DarkEnergy #18 1 year ago

    @Tyrhinis Thank you, that means a lot to the whole team here. I'm not gunna bullshit you, there's not much chance of a Mac port I'm afraid, we've already got our work cut out with our next projects. If that changes obviously we'll let people know. :)

  • Tyrhinis #19 1 year ago

    @DarkEnergy No worries, I understand. Thanks for the reply!

  • Cronan #20 1 year ago

    Really nice to see devs in here, welcome to our hive of scum and villiany, @DarkEnergy.
    And if @CoolBritannia drops by, make sure you neg him as well... ;-)

  • Sonic_D #21 1 year ago

    I'm gonna buy the Steam version based Dark Energy's responses on this thread alone.

  • bodypopper #22 1 year ago

    Interesting idea but surely longer development time and more testing beforehand by people paid to do this sort of thing is what was needed before release? It works that way for other devs doesn't it?
    Edited by bodypopper at 17/05/11 @ 13:04

  • Super_Zee #23 1 year ago

    It's quite sad how odd (in a good way) it feels for a dev to be so open in responses, without a PR filter judging their every word. Nice one DarkEnergy, very impressive. Other devs, take note.

  • bushwod #24 1 year ago

    We get you yo do the QA for us. nahhhhhh!

  • kangarootoo #25 1 year ago

    A brilliant idea. And kudos for addressing the thread directly.


    @bodypopper

    "It works that way for other devs doesn't it?"

    Not nearly as often as you might think :) Besides which, its not a black or white situation. Every project will have things you wanted to get done but couldn't, and/or things you expected to be received in a certain way that were in fact received differently. Even my favourite games of all time are not without their issues.

    The key issue is how a dev responds (and how able they are to respond) to the issues as they surface. This tool seems to let DED respond in a very small time frame indeed, which is surely a good thing. We could be stubbornly principled about it and say "well you should just get it right first time", but besides not being realistic, it also smacks of cutting off our noses to spite out faces. Not only will this make Hydrophobia a better game, its is creating a massive tome of "stuff people like and stuff they don't", which means subsequent titles will be even better.

    I'm going on a bit, and for the record I hafve no affiliation with DED whatsoever. I just like simple ideas, well executed (and a small dev investing in quality tools is also rare and commendable) :)

  • DarkEnergy #26 1 year ago

    @Sonic_D Thank you, hope you enjoy the game. Let us know what you think on the official forum and via Darknet of course :)

  • DarkEnergy #27 1 year ago

    @bodypopper Yes it does and we do indeed do all that stuff pre-release of course, but what we're saying is why stop there? Why not let actual players have a say too?

  • DarkEnergy #28 1 year ago

    @Super_Zee Cheers, it's an absolute pleasure to do it. We're only a small, independent company so it makes it very easy for us to do it in fairness to others, nobody looking over our shoulders etc

  • DarkEnergy #29 1 year ago

    @bushwod Darknet isn't about bug finding at all, full QA and playtesting is still done prior to release, it just gives players a voice after release. It's the 21st century and we're all connected, so if players want to show us what they think why not let them?

  • DarkEnergy #30 1 year ago

    @kangarootoo Well said Sir, I agree wholeheartedly. You're right to point out that we can use this data not just to tweak the existing game, but to build up a huge bank of data on what people love and what people didn't like so much to help inform design decisions for subsequent projects. Darknet is going to grow and evolve too... we've got big plans for it :)
    Edited by DarkEnergy at 17/05/11 @ 14:00

  • Spong #31 1 year ago

    "No update I'm afraid. We're fully focused on Steam and next PSN at the moment, but we're obviously working away behind the scenes to bring it to as many people as we can"

    This is really upsetting. I'm losing hope on seeing Prophecy coming to 360 at all and, as I said to you guys before at DED, it feels like I've been stabbed in the back. In my opinion, your priorities are the wrong way round. Steam & PSN users have Prophecy, you should be concentrating on bringing the game to the audience that supported you in the beginning and didn't laugh you off.

    It's ironic that you're becoming known as as the quiet little dev that cares about its customers, to some degree that's true, but it falls down when it comes to the 360 owners who were with you at the beginning. I've seen a few gameplay videos of Prophecy and it breaks my heart to think the 360 version is essentially being sidelined in favour of pandering to people who already own the game.

    To put it into some kind of context, I wanted this game more than some people want LA Noire. But that desire is slipping away quickly DED. Sure, I'm only one person, why give a toss about an individual? No other dev does.
    Edited by Spong at 17/05/11 @ 18:39

  • DarkEnergy #32 1 year ago

    @Spong: I understand what you're saying, but it's not our intention to ignore 360 at all. There are processes and procedures that have to be adhered to along with technical challenges to overcome especially as we don't want to short change owners of the original. It would be wrong for us to make any public announcement before all these things are properly resolved.

  • Spong #33 1 year ago

    Thanks again for your response, but I hope you'll forgive me for not feeling encouraged at all by what you say. You've snubbed the people who supported you in the offset, that's a fact, and you're ostensibly continuing to do it. You can have all the best intetions in the world, but your actions have absolutely undermined them.
    I don't frequent your board (if you can give me the address I'd be eternally grateful), but there's a fairly active Hydrophobia thread on a board I do haunt, and the feelings of 360-only owners (like myself) is unanimous - disillusionment and disappointment. All that apparent feedback, and for what? I fail to see what logic you worked to that saw you ditch the platform you initially released the game on. Perhaps you could go some way to explaining the thought process on that matter? Because all I (and other 360 owners) see is the fact you took our support, you took OUR ideas from the Listening Post and then dumped us to go and publish what is clearly a better version of the game on other platforms.

    I guess what I'm ultimately asking for, beyond Prophecy's release on XBLA (obviously), is for a little transparency with the process and what's going on with the 360 version. That's the only comfort blanket us 360 owners have to cling to and I feel you're not giving it to us.
    Edited by Spong at 18/05/11 @ 15:35