Dead Men Use Virtools, Bang Bang
June 14, 2006 9:01 PM | Simon Carless
We spotted this a little while ago, but ex-GSW editor TonyW has done a great job at writing it up: "The PR folks from Canada's Fuel Games let me know that Dead Man's Hand, their latest advergame, has been launched in support of the TV series Deadwood. The series [is] a mud-spattered, gin-soaked view of life and death in an American frontier camp."
Tony concludes of the game: "Dead Man's Hand draws players into the world of the TV show with complimentary activities such as gamblin' and drinkin' and shootin'--it's an example of game-based advertising that's low on the crass and high on the class."
But, as he also mentions, probably the most interesting thing about it is that it uses the Virtools web plug-in, a relatively little used web browser extension which nonetheless can create impressive 3D in a browser, and is also used for a few 2D casual games like several of Flashbang Studios' titles. It's not a top tier Unreal Engine contender, but if you can wrestle it into submission, it seems to make good stuff.
[OFFTOPIC: On the Virtools engine front, here's actually a student competition to make (non-web browser) Virtools engine games right now, rather bizarrely themed around Shiny's Dave Perry, and called "David Perry's Best Video Game Weapon Ever!" But how do we get a 'David Perry - Recommended' "personal stamp of approval", darn it?]
Categories: PC
1 Comment
The real benefit of Virtools - and why it's worth pushing as a platform - is rapid prototyping. It's speedy, speedy, speedy. And our pipeline is the same for 3d, physics-based stuff with DX9 shaders as it is for 2d puzzlers. For example, we have a 3d physics-based shooter in development that's being developed in exactly the same out our 2d games are. In fact, working in 3d with physics is almost easier in some ways.
Most of the stuff
here and here was done in less than a day. For us (Flashbang Studios) it's faster and easier to make a prototype than it is to do a design document, or write a proposal, or whatever. When we get an RFP (request for proposal) we don't bother mocking up a design, we just make the prototype and make it fun. No fuss, no muss.
That said, you do lose optimization for speed of development - you couldn't make Gears of War - but it's pretty much the optimum rapid prototyping tool. Most major publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft) use it internally for rapid prototyping and proof-of-concept. Problems with the company and their philosophy notwithstanding, Virtools is an amazing product and is in some ways a view into the crystal ball of game development: it's completel real time (no compiling, see your changes immediately), crazy high-level from a programmatical standpoint (meaning both that it's easier to understand for non programmer types and, insanely fast to develop with), makes importing content a non-issue, and has a great engine and physics suite (Havok) behind it.
I think you'd see a lot more game auteur kinds of people and a lot more small, interesting, innovative projects if Virtools or something like it became prevalent.
Steve Swink | June 15, 2006 9:19 AM