Team17 reveals Alien Breed structure News

I think I'll just get one of them tbh.

Certainly won't be 1600pts per episode, but we can't confirm what it will be yet.

And it's not "the same thing 3 times over".

Rather looking forward to revisiting Alien Breed after 16 years absence!

Sold either way!

Ellie's articles has taught me more English than nine years worth of school has ever managed. "gubbins".

/takes notes

Same as that, Drpwnage.

Hope everything's progressing well, spadge - the anticipation levels are reaching dribbling point. :)

The reception for the game in Leeds was terrific. So we're very happy.

Damn, seems like this is taking forever:P

I could use something like this right now.

Things just tend to sit in the XBLA cert loop for a while, unfortunately, just how it is. We're pleased to say that it's almost out of there now. We have no fixed release date as yet until it comes out and we discuss with the people at Microsoft.

Very much looking forward to this. I await with eager anticipation.

So are we talling about a top down Left 4 Dead-style multiplayer game where no two games are the same?
I do hope so.

excited to re-live childhood memories! of alien breed of course...

The game really did look fantastic, and played fantastic too - even my mate from work, who's not, ahem, as much of a gamer as I, was really impressed. He said it was the third best thing in the show, after nVidia's 3D glasses and the nVidia PR girl showing off the 3D glasses ;-)

As far as pricing goes, I'd imagine 1200 points an episode, which, given the quality of the graphics and the size of the game, seems OK. I've already told the missus she'll need to get me some more MS points for Xmas, what with this and the Perfect Dark remake.

Also like to say John's talk was really good, very informative. And it was great to chat to John and Martyn afterwards too.

Cheers Spadge. I'm really looking forward to these, so much so I'm going to blindly purchase all three regardless of the media coverage. And if I do that then maybe Superfrog and ATR will reappear!

I've really been looking forward to this, especially considering the shit they've been releasing on XBLA recently.

Did they mention if there would be co-op on the campaign mode over live?

@ SlackMaster

The co-op will be local and over Live, they said.

They also said there'll be three co-op only levels in each episode. My inner 10-year-old Amiga owner squealed with delight the whole way through.

We played this at Eurogamer on Tuesday and was very impressed!!! My mate was the guy who's first question was "how many achievements will it have - the bloody achievement whore"!!

It definitely had the right balance of retro and modern, and the dual stick controls were very smooth... even if our co-operation skills were somewhat lacking!!

Hopefully if this is successful the next game for a re-make will be Project-X (can't believe I forgot to ask if this was a possibility!!!)

@ Wizlon - Good shout on Superfrog!

Will the first episode be released this side of christmas though? I can't help but think that with the next six months full of great full price games it might be best released in the summer. That's when most arcade games seem to do the best.

Sounds good to me. Since HL2 I've liked the idea of episodes of games. Hopefully, unlike HL2, they won't be 8 bazillion years apart. ;)

5-8 hours per episode sounds like a lot for a game like this. This is a kind of game thats best played in shorter bursts. I like the episode structure though.

Went to the presentation at Leeds expo. Had a go on the game. I am one very happy bunny. Didn't ask about when you're bringing Project X, but I was tempted.

I do have a question for Spadge. Are all 3 episodes complete already? I've got nothing against the staggered release . It's kind of a stealth 'are you working on anything else?' question ;-)

Edit: Not Project X

@ Spadge

Is PS3 version being held back while MS sort ther certification?

Many happy hours playing this on Amiga and defo will be buying at least one installment on PS3 when available.

I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, but three episodes (let's presume 800pts a pop) is probably going to work out quite pricey vs. a retail release. But there is absolutely no doubt that at least the first episode will be mine, sight unseen. And if it comes this side of Christmas it'll wrap up an excellent year as far as I'm concerned. :)

Why do people have to have 40+ hours of gameplay? I could complete Sonic in a few hours, yet it didn't stop me going back for more.

Can't wait for this to hit STEAM.

Not another worms ga-Wait, WHAT!?!

Good on ya Team17!

Can't remember... did this have RPG elements? and split-screen co-op? If so, I'm buying :) In fact, any game that checks those two boxes is almost guaranteed a purchase from me.

400 points each would be instabuy, 800 points each ... hmm.

But if it was 800 for the first and then 400 each for the next two, I reckon that'd do well.

sold!!

still spadge, any idea on the pricing?

Beastmaster, first episode was content complete mid summer and has been in the certification loop a while now. Episode 2 is nearly at it's beta stage (internal) and episode 3 a little behind that. It's been staggered purposefully but it's not a case of make episode 1, see how it does, we're committed to all 3. We are working on other stuff too. And yes, that includes Worms and new IP.

The game (single player) can be played in 5-6hrs, has save points and is multilevel, meaning you can play a little or enjoy the whole lot in a lengthy sitting. Single player is slower, creepier and narrative driven, multiplayer is co-op arcade frenzy :)

It really has been great to read of players reactions and was nice to get direct feedback from players at the event, its been a while since we've been able to interact with players so closely.

Forgot to say that it's a shame we didn't get it down to London, we just used the opportunity of it being local to demo it at Leeds, which was it's first public airing.

5 - 8 hours according to dev = 3 - 4 hours in real-time :-)

Seriously though - looking forward to this - if the price is right.

It's not at the London Expo? Oh. Pish. Still, one less game to check out on Saturday = more drinking time.

Great to see a developer coming out to answer questions. Generally imagine that your comments go unheard in these threads.

Game looks great. At the right price will be buying. Anything over 1000 and probably won't.

"Single player is slower, creepier and narrative driven"

Definitely what I'm looking forward to the most, I was worried it would turn out to be another Acadey twin stick shooter.

Each edition ships with a 'prologue' level that isn't part of the main game (we haven't just used 10mins or the first section of the story) so you can certainly try before you leap to the purchase. That goes for co-op levels too. When you have the full game, the shorter prologue level is still playable in open play as it has a score leaderboard attached.

Stop it Spadge, you're making me want this more and more... and it hasn't got a release date yet either!

Is this from the company that made Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust? *ducks*

It is. It makes a hell of a difference when you are wholly responsible for all content, the vision and the delivery of all aspects of the production, without unnecessary intervention.

It's also from the same developer that has made a fair amount of good titles, one or two cult classics and a fair few chart-toppers - we've admitted that Larry wasn't amongst our best and there were reasons for that. /takes it on the chin.

Highly respectable answer, there, Spadge. Can you comment on a release date? I can't seem to find one.

Fair enough, spadge. It's just that the two are irrevokably linked in my mind, since you mentioned Alien Breed pretty much every time somebody spoke ill of Box Office Bust.

Still, AB deserves to be judged on its own merit.

Loved Alien Breed on the Amiga, so this a definite-buy when it comes out - Episode 1, anyway; whether or not I get the subsequent episodes will depend on how much I like the first, of course. Oh, and put me down as a +1 for the Project-X remake. I still have that and Alien Breed: Tower Assault on floppy disk that I play using DosBox on my PC!

Yes it does, it's an entirely different title, developed in a completely different environment i.e. breed is a self-published, self-funded, self-developed game - larry was a licensed, publisher content & design led, that went through 3 different publishers before it was released and a very long a protracted publisher aquisition process (Vivendi-Activision) where publisher input on the title totally stalled and we were surprised it ever was finished given many titles were ceased by Activision/Vivendi in that period.

I'm not sure how the titles are linked. They're about as linked as Worms 2 Armageddon is to Larry, as Worms PSN is or Worms iPhone, i.e. not very. I defended criticism of the studio at that point because the studio was building some very good things (Alien Breed, the Worms titles I mentioned - which all went to no.1, btw) and it's very easy to have a pop when you just don't know the facts behind why things sometimes don't work out.

It's nice now to be working in an environment where we are ultimately responsible. If there are issues, then it's us that are responsible. It's impossible to make a game that everyone will like/play/enjoy so we don't try and do that, we try and make a title that has a very broad appeal and with Breed we've taken a few steps backwards in order to go forward, in terms of a much more casual, looser game experience given there's a ton of very deep games out there. The game is immediately enjoyable and audio-visually stimulating, will be at a fair price and you can play before you buy - hopefully it'll appeal to those players we think it will, since we've gone out on a bit of a limb production-wise. However, it was important to remind people we were capable of something like this after a long series of (very successful) Worms titles. There's more to come, different stuff, too.

I'd love to see some brand new IP from Team 17, but part of me craves new versions of Superfrog (XBLA needs a decent platformer), Assassin (still my second-favourite T17 Amiga title just behind Alien Breed), and Body Blows (only beat-em-up I've EVER completed).

Why don't more developers respond to EG comments?! It's great!

Cheers for that, we may bring some of the older stuff back at some point, but actually new IP is in the works right now :)

Are you looking at a simultaneous release on the PSN?

No, Alien Breed leads on the 360, there's a few reasons for that - and none of them sinister, I might add.

We have good working relationships with both camps (Microsoft & Sony) but Alien Breed will appear on 360 first. Apologies in advance to PS3/PSN people.

Thanks spadge, it's good to hear these things from the horse's mouth. :)

This looks/sounds good but... where's fuckin PC version???