Rick Future
The future of point and click gameplay starts with Rick Future. Recently I got the chance to talk with Sascha from Metal Pop Games on their upcoming sci-fi adventure game, Rick Future. You can find more about their game on their website or support them on Steam Greenlight.
Small Dev Talk: What is Rick Future?
Sascha: Rick Future is sci-fi adventure game. Classic point and click gameplay, but built with a modern 3D engine. You can expect many puzzles and an original and deep story. The game is based on a popular German sci-fi audio play series also called Rick Future. As the player you will take control of all three main characters, Rick, Hubert and Evi, the crew of the space ship ERIC and set out on a big adventure.
Small Dev Talk: What is the story in Rick Future?
Sascha: We have a completely unique and standalone story in the game which does not require the player to know anything about the series. The story in an adventure game is quite important, even more important than in many other types of games I think. Many players play adventure games just to experience a great story, so we are taking great care to craft an interesting and engaging story for the game. Of course I do not want to spoil too much here, but there is quite an adventure waiting for the player. A simple routine cargo run leads Rick and the crew of his spaceship into the dangerous Gon’Dual sector, near the outer territories. Just delivering a cargo of some freight containers turns into a dangerous threat when they are attacked by pirates who show quite an interest in their seemingly harmless cargo. Well... and maybe also an interest in collecting the bounty which has been put on Ricks head... With no choice left Rick maneuvers the Eric, his seasoned and sturdy cargo ship, into the mysterious Corvula nebula to hide from his pursuers. But instead of escaping, the Eric collides with an old alien emergency probe which holds an ancient distress call from a long forgotten alien ship. And suddenly the crew of the Eric in the middle of a new adventure which leads them through the dangerous Gon’Dual sector, where they do not know who is friend or foe...
Small Dev Talk: Can you tell us about the three playable characters, Rick, Hubert and Evi?
Sascha: Those three are also the main characters from the original audio play series form the crew of the ERIC. Rick is the captain of the ERIC and one of the few surviving Humans in the galaxy. Hubert, the grumpy Golwonian is the mechanic and co-pilot of the ERIC. And finally there is Evi the female Android. In the game all three characters will be playable, which adds a lot of variation to the gameplay. Certain puzzles for example can only be solved if the heroes work together. There will be situations where only Rick might be able to talk his way out of it, while for other puzzles Hubert’s strength will be needed.
Small Dev Talk: Your game gives the player the choice of dialogue giving Rick Future a more interactive feel to it. Depending on how the player decides to interact with the characters, will that change the environment or future interactions in Rick Future?
Sascha: Yes, a lot of things you do will have an impact and might even change the environment. But never in a way that would stop the player from being able to finish the game.
We wanted to make the conversations in the game as meaningful as possible. All the NPCs and characters you talk to are not only there to provide you with information but also make the game world come alive. Of course being friendly or mean to the characters in the game will have an effect on how you can progress.
Small Dev Talk: What type of puzzles and minigames will we see in Rick Future?
Sascha: We really like the idea of breaking up traditional gameplay with small minigames. I don’t want to give away too much but we will have a lot of small games and puzzles in the game which add more variation. Rick might have to crack a door code, or Evie will have to access computer terminal, etc. All those thing can be done in an interesting way by presenting the player with a small puzzle or minigame.
Small Dev Talk: Will Rick Future be an open world game where players can explore the universe or will it be a linear game?
Sascha: Although we have certain elements in the game which give the player a lot of freedom of choice I think the game could be considered rather linear. Linear games make it a lot easier to tell a strong story, which is very important to us. Of course we added a lot of elements that help to make the game more replayable. There will be achievements, collectibles, etc. that will hopefully have the players come back and play the game through another time.
Small Dev Talk: What type of characters and creatures will the players come across in Rick Future?
Sascha: Since Rick Future is a sci-fi game there will be a lot of Aliens and other rather unusual characters to interact with. There are not too many Humans left after the destruction of the earth many years ago, so the majority of the NPCs in the game will be of Alien nature.
Small Dev Talk: What is the environment like in Rick Future?
Sascha: The game is set in the dangerous Gon’Dual sector of the galaxy, which is really not the safest place to be. The player will be able to travel between different planets and stations in the sector. All the locations in the game are being built in 3D which adds a lot of new possibilities if you compare it to traditional 2D locations which are still very common in adventure games.
Small Dev Talk: What inspired you to create Rick Future?
Sascha: After having worked on many big AAA games like Crysis, we really wanted to make something smaller and something that allows us to put in all our crazy ideas. These days, in big AAA productions you cannot just say, ‘Hey I have this great idea, let’s put it in’. Everything is planned many months in advance, which makes it very difficult to make changes or add in new ideas. So we said, let’s build an adventure game in 3D. This allows us to put in all the features and ideas that are very hard to add in a big large scale production.
Small Dev Talk: What is your favourite aspect of Rick Future?
Sascha: That’s quite difficult to answer, since there are really so many small things in the game that make it great. But if I had to choose one thing it would probably be that fact that you can play three characters instead of just one. This leads to so many interesting and funny gameplay situations that it just became my favourite feature of the game.
Small Dev Talk: What challenges did you and your team come across in the development of Rick Future?
Sascha: Coming from the corporate AAA world where you just throw money at problems to make them go away, we had to learn that producing a game with a low budget is much more difficult. Solving problems without having a big budget is hard - really hard. You can’t just say, ’Hey let’s make some concept art of this location before building it’, because there is no money to pay the artist. Then again, maybe this circumstance challenges you to be more creative, work with what you have and focus on the important parts.
Small Dev Talk: Do you have any advice for upcoming developers?
Sascha: One advice I would give all new teams is to not underestimate how important it is to keep everything organized and have a good pipeline. Even if you are a one or two man team, use a version control system, bug tracking and a software for internal documentation. It takes time to set up initially and people need to get out of their comfort zone and familiar with new software – but it can save you sooo much time later on, not to mention save your ass when you are trying to figure out how and when a bug made it into your game. I have seen indie teams neglect all that and use a shared Dropbox folder for development. That is a disaster waiting to happen.
There are probably a million more things that I could list… J
Small Dev Talk: Why did you choose to use CryENGINE to develop Rick Future?
Sascha: Using CryENGINE was a logical choice for us. Everybody in our team is very experienced with the engine since we have worked with it for many years. In addition to this CryENGINE is a very powerful engine that allows us to do very complex things in a short amount of time. It not only the rendering that makes CryENGINE great but the toolkit it comes with.
Small Dev Talk: I noticed that Rick Future is on Steam Greenlight. If your game becomes greenlit, will you take advantage of Steam’s great features such as Steam Workshop, Big Picture, Inventory, Achievements or Trading cards?
Sascha: Absolutely. I use those myself at home and love it! Of course I want my game to support as much of that as possible. We have a lot of plans and ideas collected internally about this. Everything has to fit in with the game though. We do not want to add in a Steam feature – or ANY feature - just for the purpose of having it in there.
Small Dev Talk: What is the expected release date for Rick Future and how much will it cost or will it be Free-To-Play?
Sascha: We are planning to release the game in 2014. Ha ha, I really cannot be more specific than this right now. There are a lot of question marks there! J We are a two man indie company with a small budget and have to be flexible, altering between working on the game and working for money. Paying our rent comes first, obviously. Personally I would be very happy if we can release the game with a price of far below 20$, but we have not made any decisions yet.
Small Dev Talk: Do you have anything to say towards our readers?
Sascha: Please check out our game and give us feedback! J We are always happy about feedback and like to include players as much as possible even in the early phases of production. We have put a handful of cool things in the game that were brought to us from other people, telling us their ideas about the game. Tell us what you like or what sucks and we will have the chance to fix it.
Post Dated: 2013-08-23 21:16. Last Modified: 2013-08-23 at 21:26. Written by Alexander Sullivan
// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>