Hydrophobia

By Matt Martin Published 1 August, 2007

Swept away with Blade's kingdom by the sea.

The real star of Hydrophobia isn't female lead Kate, but the water that rapidly floods the environments and influences almost every aspect of gameplay. This isn't about pretty water reflections that merely slow a characters' movement, nor is it about taking games back to that period where every adventure game had to have an underwater level, just because it could. The water in Hydrophobia is more than that - it acts as a weapon, a key, transportation and an entire control system that the player uses to influence, change and conquer the environment.

The environment itself is a massive floating city named the Queen of the World, something that developer Blade Interactive has based on real-world designs such as The Freedom Ship. It's not just the environment that Blade wants to be fantastic yet plausible - elements of the storyline and the science behind it are intended to contain real-world elements that blur the line between science and science fiction. The Queen of the World is a haven for the world's super-rich elite, containing everything you'd expect to find in wealthy cultures - from apartments and casinos to retail outlets and corporate businesses. And as well as the socialites occupying the upper decks and towers, there are also the lowly workers confined to the bowels of the ship, serving the parasitic occupants and pandering to their spoilt needs.

Sea Change

The beautiful people have been attracted to the Queen of the World because it's a private society with no prying eyes. But this makes it the perfect target for terrorism, with a group named the Malthusian's infiltrating the Queen before it's even begun its maiden voyage. Again using real-world elements, the insurgents ideals are based on Thomas Malthus - a political economist whose work influenced Charles Darwin and Karl Marx - and centre around issues of climate change and population growth. It's certainly a refreshing change from the usual ethnic stereotypes that run around game worlds. At the beginning of the game The Malthusian's take over the Queen of the World leaving the player to adopt the role of Kate, a reluctant engineer charged with foiling the terrorist's schemes.

'Hydrophobia' Screenshot 1

Story is one of the key elements to Hydrophobia, with Blade taking it just as seriously as the water physics, gameplay and graphics. The intention is to reveal story though interaction rather than stopping the drama to play a five minute cutscene, and there are also playable flashbacks that reveal just why a hydrophobic lead character is working on a floating city.

Kate's phobia is an element of gameplay that influences character control. When water begins to overpower Kate, the screen blurs and turns monochrome, audio becomes muffled and the players' field of vision warps. It's not as overwhelming as the effect used in Headfirst's Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, but it's similar. Over time and through gameplay, Kate begins to master her fear, with the game changing and replacing the mechanic with something completely different, to be revealed at a later date.

Dark Water

Gameplay twists aren't just confined to the lead characters' abilities. As well as terrorists, a entirely different enemy enters the game later on, with an agenda far from political. Not a lot can be revealed just yet, but we do know they leave corpses suffering a more grisly fate than a few gunshot wounds.

This control that Blade is taking over the storyline has its trade-offs. The game is split into chapters so the player doesn't have the freedom of the whole ship. It's not as limiting as adventure games used to be, and there are alternative routes through the environment, with the majority of locations designed as big puzzles. This is where the water physics come in to play.

Blade has been working on its HydroEngine for years, and in doing so has created water that offers multiple possibilities for gameplay scenarios. Being an engineer gives Kate the plausible excuse of using the water to her advantage. It can be used to flood rooms and drown enemies, or redirected to block a path. It can be directed so the flow sweeps enemies off their feet, or Kate can use it to 'surf' to new locations previously unreachable. What Blade is promising is that in the majority of cases the player will get a choice of how to influence the environment and use the water how they see fit. Solid objects and the environment is tangible too, so Kate has the option of climbing over the flood or swimming though it.

The water moves quickly and with a sense of force. As rooms fill, Kate's movements are hampered and currents try to take her off her chosen path. There's also an exertion system in play that influences player movement. If you're not holding on tight you'll get knocked off your feet, but by successfully fighting the force of the water Kate can control exertion and master her hydrophobia and the effects it has on gameplay.

Wet Dreams

'Hydrophobia' Screenshot 2

Visually, the the water looks lovely. It leaves water level marks on the wall and trickles down the side of a surface when a room is flushed clean. When blood mingles it becomes cloudy, a sort of red smoke effect, while burning oil sits on the surface allowing the player to swim beneath it. The player can leave water footprints like breadcrumbs to lead enemies down the wrong path and as it flows through a room for the first time it looks and feels as unpredictable and overwhelming as you'd expect.

While there's not a lot of gunplay planned for the single player Hydrophobia game, Blade is determined that any shoot-outs it does have will be quick and deadly. With enemy AI being worked on by one of the leads behind Rainbow Six Vegas and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, expect tactical use of the environment and outwitting the enemy to be more important than wielding the bigger weapon. Enemies will have different attitudes that influence their behaviour so the player should feel the difference between fighting an idealist or a mercenary - someone defending themselves will act differently to someone fighting to the death. Although multiplayer gameplay is still under wraps, Blade has confirmed that it will be weapons based, with exchanges played out across the flooded Queen between the terrorists and the ship's security team.

Hydrophobia is still a long way from release, with Blade pencilling it in for late 2008. But from early impressions it's on it's way to becoming a unique and interesting take on adventure games. These sort of games aren't really very fashionable - which may be to its advantage - and while the water is certainly the star, backed with design decisions where smart thinking takes precedence over gunplay, it's definitely a game that should be registering on the sonar.

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About Matt Martin

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Comments (42) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • numptyboymatt #1 5 years ago

    Interesting - cant wait to see how this shapes up

  • 3william56 #2 5 years ago

    "Kate begins to master her fear, with the game changing and replacing the mechanic with something completely different"

    /Interest level suddenly increases.

    When this game was first talked about, the phobia thing sounded like a really frustrating difficulty increaser - b*gger up the screen and controls just when things are getting hectic = increase in sales of replacement controllers. If it's just at the start, not overplayed, and changes after a few hours, it reduces the lame factor enormously.

    The description is starting to sound more and more like a take on the Beyond Good and Evil mechanic of a weak character outwitting strong enemies. Could be something special... if it's not Dead Rising: the Game...

  • NegativeZero #3 5 years ago

    This really sounds intriguing. One to keep an eye on. It does sound a little bit like Beyond Good and Evil in some ways, but hopefully if it's as good it'll sell better.

  • Martin #4 5 years ago

    Looks quite interesting indeed.

  • Fernando #5 5 years ago

    coulda swore some 360 mag said it was exclusive, not that it matters :)

    anyways im glad more advventure games are being released.:)

  • morriss #6 5 years ago

    Yep. Adventure games ftmfw!

  • RedPanda #7 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Nesty #8 5 years ago

    I dont think id really want to be fighting against the terrorists, rather with them... ahh theres probably a plot twist in there somewhere..

  • bioreit #9 5 years ago

    Engineer = overalls, not shiny spandex/latex.

    Sort it out, Blade.

    You can still make a woman look attractive in overalls if you put your mind to it.

  • deepmenace #10 5 years ago

    i'll be suitably impressed if they can pull this off.

    propelling thousands of shards of wood, glass and metal around in a physics-correct way is one thing but dealing with billions of water molecules lapping, eddying and splashing around (in a way that looks holey realistic) is an huge task surely?

    my mind certainly boggles at the complexity.

    has it been done done before in any game?

  • Aretak #11 5 years ago

    You can still make a woman look attractive in overalls if you put your mind to it.

    Exhibit A

    Anyway, the premise sounds very interesting. I'm not sure about the whole 'fight terrorists/unrevealed creatures' bit though. I think SOS: The Final Escape (and possibly Raw Danger, if I ever get to play it) had the right idea. I'd love to see a next-gen upgrade of that sort of gameplay.

  • ZuluHero #12 5 years ago

    never heard of thid before - does sound good. Like others here, i do wonder if they can pull off some of this stuff, mind.

  • Vandrius #13 5 years ago

    Oh my, don't tell me someone is... you know... doing something different?

    Dirty, dirty thought - get out of my head.

  • SBfistfun #14 5 years ago

    Sounds interesting.

    Blade interactive though, hmmm.......

  • Thamuhacha #15 5 years ago

    "As well as terrorists, a entirely different enemy enters the game later on, with an agenda far from political. Not a lot can be revealed just yet, but we do know they leave corpses suffering a more grisly fate than a few gunshot wounds."

    And it was going so well.

    Why do Developers always have to put some bloody Zombie/Alien thing in these games? Please prove me wrong because the rest sounds cool.

  • allen #16 5 years ago

    you don't need to do physics on billions of particles surely?

    could ignore like 75% of submerged water, and as for surface effects treating it as spaced keypoints to perform a grid. then doing calculations when an object enters/leaves the surface.

    obviously i'm not a programmer but i'm sure its not as complex as doing physics on billions of particles.

  • Inspirius #17 5 years ago

    ""As well as terrorists, a entirely different enemy enters the game later on, with an agenda far from political. Not a lot can be revealed just yet, but we do know they leave corpses suffering a more grisly fate than a few gunshot wounds."

    And it was going so well.

    Why do Developers always have to put some bloody Zombie/Alien thing in these games? Please prove me wrong because the rest sounds cool."

    Agreed, at best you're looking at some sort of Abyss type creatures made out of water.

  • groovychainsaw #18 5 years ago

    Sharks? That was my first thought - that could be terrifying, in a game focussed on water...

  • RedPanda #19 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • NeedMoreSocks81 #20 5 years ago

    Finally something original to look forward to! My imagination gets carried away with the possibilities of true flowing water - this sounds awesome!

  • Turambar #21 5 years ago

    "Kate begins to master her fear, with the game changing and replacing the mechanic with something completely different"

    My moneys on an ability to control/repel water mentally. Similar to the Hydrophobes in Discworld.

  • TonyCocaCola #22 5 years ago

    I reckon she turns into a mermaid

  • IAmBatman #23 5 years ago

    > Beware people.

    Did they reject your job ap?

  • El_MUERkO #24 5 years ago

    read the games tm preview did we?

  • SomaticSense #25 5 years ago

    I can't believe this article has reached 20 odd comments, and not one person has mentioned how it looks like they have just pulled the 360's Lara Croft model, given it new hair and clothes, and just placed it in another game.

    They couldn't design their own female character?

  • huxathon #26 5 years ago

    It's like they've taken my girlfriend, given her a new haircut and new clothes, made her a bit taller and put her in a game. Can't they get their own designs.

  • SomaticSense #27 5 years ago

    Nice sarcasm. But completely misunderstood the point.

  • TonyCocaCola #28 5 years ago

    Ok then- Looks: I like the lighting, the pipes look a bit 2004 ish, i dont think they join the wall in a realistic way, and the textures on the wall look a bit crap.

    I dont think the screenshots are in game, im basing this on the camera angles.

    I also dont think she looks like Lara croft.

  • Caimbeul #29 5 years ago

    Read about this in EDGE a while back - Interested then and interested now.

  • SomaticSense #30 5 years ago

    Look at the face, and the graphical effect's used on it. It like the exact same model, and the exact same graphics engine from the 360 version of Legend. Looking at the first pic in the above article, it's blatantly obvious.

    Does anyone know if they are indeed using the same graphics engine from Legend?
    Edited by 1 at 01/08/07 @ 13:30

  • StarchildHypocrethes #31 5 years ago

    This sounds right up my street.

    End of 2008? Bugger.

    /drums fingers

  • kangarootoo #32 5 years ago

    @Aretak

    Hehe, you beat me to it with exhibit A :)

  • TonyCocaCola #33 5 years ago

    shes got similar legs, face looks a bit different though. And her fingers are slimer

  • Ryuken #34 5 years ago

    Nice, water that will actually do something besides being only shiny as in Bioshock and so many other titles.

  • TessaTickle #35 5 years ago

    If they're gonna make a huge hoo-ha about the water then they'd better do something about its transparency and how it defracts light.

    If that sounds a little pedantic, well they should at least allow for the fact that water absorbs light and deep parts should be darker than parts closer to the surface. We shouldn't be able to see the bottom of that room where it's 3/4 full.

    Even with crystal clear water, with the lighting in those environments, you shouldn't be able to see the woman's feet.

    I'm usually an easy sell but this is very little substance wrapped up in lots of blah.

  • NeedMoreSocks81 #36 5 years ago

    It looks like there are newer screenshots on their website http://www .bladeinteractive.com/hydro.html

  • TessaTickle #37 5 years ago

    OK, checked the screenies. I rest my case : [link url=http://www.bladeinteractive.com/images/hydroscreen39.jpg
    ]http://ww w.bladeinteractive.com/images/h...[/link]

    Sure, the surface is fluctuating in a relatively realistic way and it plays more or less OK with the light but there is close to *zero* alteration to the light relative to the depth of the water.

    The only way you could get that would be with crystal clear water with extremely bright lighting conditions, the former (crystal clear water) being unlikely in an industrial setting and the latter (very bright light) just not being the case in that environment.

    It just looks wrong. Think of it as "uncanny valley" (http://en .wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_val... but applied to gfx.

  • TonyCocaCola #38 5 years ago

    Thats a cool point. Its still like a year before it comes out right? Maybe it will look a bit different then.

  • Calgon #39 5 years ago

    Theres some sharks and a robot thing seen in the concept art from the site...

  • Varsity #40 5 years ago

    <em>"And it was going so well.

    Why do Developers always have to put some bloody Zombie/Alien thing in these games? Please prove me wrong because the rest sounds cool."</em>

    My sentiments exactly.

    <em>"Sure, the surface is fluctuating in a relatively realistic way and it plays more or less OK with the light but there is close to *zero* alteration to the light relative to the depth of the water."</em>

    Relax, fogging is easy.

  • TessaTickle #41 5 years ago

    Relax, fogging is easy.

    then it begs the question why it's not in the tech demo. If it's all about how cool their water tech looks then they've not exactly made their point very well.

    Having said that, the overall quality of the gfx on the rest of the screenies looks fine.

  • Stjarnor #42 1 year ago

    I can find it in the Marketplace, but it isn't downloable.
    Why is that? Did I miss something?