Its a single-player only game. We decided that early-on since the combat system doesn't lend itself very well to multiplayer. We'd also rather do single-player really well than try to do everything just at an OK level.
The combo system is similar to God of War. It uses Quick-Timed Events where you need to press buttons in a particular order.
Yeah, exactly... we made the shield transparent when you block so that you can still see the boss. The shield is opaque unless you're holding it in front of you.
We're going to attempt as close to as simultaneous a release as possible, but that's out of our hands (Nintendo makes the final decision about when to release the game in each territory).
Great question... there's one set of weapons -- a warhammer and shield. You can attack with both of them (the shield can act both defensively and you can also shield bash with it). You also have a variety of "spells" at your disposal that the weapon summons, such as conjuring lighting bolts, a pillar of fire, a meteor, or a tornado.
We only have 1 character mostly because of the storyline. You play the role of Gracius, Prince of Avalance. You have been put into an arena to fight for your life. But why? And who (or what) has caused it? This is all revealed in flashback cutscenes as you defeat each boss.
Its one arena. This is for technical limitations of the 40MB download. However, in exchange for only having 1 arena, we were able to cram in a lot of content, such as:
There are hundreds of hand-crafted custom animations on full 3d models for the bosses
4 epic soundtracks -- available for download in the coming weeks in MP3 form
To keep the game from being repetitive we have designed the game as follows:
First and foremost, its boss battles, with no fodder creatures. I believe that fodder is the reason why games are repetitive. So our core game design lends itself to very intense and interesting experiences.
There are 14 combos you can perform, each of which have an over-the-top cutscenes. These combos give you nice variety when fighting.
Each boss has numerous different powers that you need to learn and adapt to. The boss abilities require good timing, agility, and determination to overcome. You can think of each boss as a little "puzzle" that requires both mental awareness and dexterity.
No new games are planned right now. We're making 1 game at a time, to make sure its awesome. But depending on how well sales do for this game we'd LOVE to make a sequel.
No downloadable content. No episodes. You buy the game once and you get everything. We don't like charging people over-and-over again
We don't have a release date yet... its hard to give an exact timetable due to the process for approving a game by Nintendo, but we are expecting Fall 2009.
I can't comment too much on Gladiator A.D. since I haven't played it, but we definitely are in the same genre and I think there are a lot of similarities in terms of the overall theme of the game compared to ours.
Our game is an action game, and not an RPG. 90% of our effort went into making the in-game experience as awesome as possible.
With that said, there is a very cool story, and its told by a series of 2D animated cutscenes with voice acting. The story is a tale of betrayal and irony. Hearing the full story is a nice incentive to finish the game.
The game borrows some RPG ideas from games like Diablo and World of Warcraft in that we have a full tech-tree. You can customize your character by choosing your path. Visit this link to see the tech tree:
We're going for a lower-than-M rating. There's no nudity/blood. We made this decision so that the game was appealing to as wide an audience as possible. Although who knows what future sequels might bring
The controls are very simple: You hold the Wii-remote sideways. There's no motion sensing in the game, mostly because it is inaccurate for a fast-paced arcade game like this.
Yes, the game's combat system feels similar to Punch-Out. We absolutely adored the 1980s Punch-Out and some of the ideas in our game were inspired by that game, although we've been very careful to make the game distinct and unique on its own. We've been working on the game for quite awhile, far before Wii Punch-Out was even announced.
We actually tried out several different camera perspectives... it was a toss-up between an over-the-shoulder camera and a first-person camera.
In the end we decided first-person was better because the bosses looked a lot cooler and more realistic if they were in-your-face and big because you were looking right at them.
The European version of the game is finished, and has passed lotcheck. We just didn't have time to update the web site in awhile. Its now up to date. I expect to be able to announce a release date any day now, as soon as we hear back from Nintendo of Europe.
Thanks for the feedback everyone on the game. I'd love to hear more impressions from the rest of the community.
Thanks for the comments guys. Needless to say we're super excited that our first game is launching today, and we hope you guys enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed making it.
The Europe version of Helix is ready and should be out very soon. As soon as I have a date I will post it.
One of the reasons the graphics look basic is because we are using music visualization software to draw realtime particle effects to the beat of the music. The software we're using is called ProjectM (http://projectm.sf.net). In this manner, the background actually somewhat 'pulses' to the beat of the music. The controllers also rumble to the beat of the music, to help you stay on-beat. This is one of the tricks we used to cram as much music as we could into the game.
I like Dr. Mario Online Rx the best so far. I'm a big Tetris / Dr Mario fan and I bought those games back in the 80s/90s. I'm looking forward to World of Goo the most.
There's actually 37 (!!) different moves you can do in the game. So there's a lot of expressiveness that you can do -- its not just uppercuts. We have custom built the levels of the game to have the moves coincide with the beats of the music and the voice of the singers, so that you are actually performing moves with the music. The moves that you perform are an "artistic interpretation" of the music itself.
We definitely strongly recommend that you own 2 Wii Remotes for the best experience. But you don't need 2 Wii Remotes to play. If you only have 1 Wii Remote, then you just don't score points for the hand that has no Wii Remote.
Well, we are a pretty small startup company in Austin TX, so we aren't going to be manufacturing fitness hardware if that's what you're getting at. But we're definitely interested in making fitness games and if Helix does well, then you definitely should look forward to more games from us in that area.
As far as the price, that is something that Nintendo sets (not us). But if you look at other music rhythm games that are $50 that you purchase in retail stores, they include maybe 50 songs. We're including 26 songs, so we are not too worried about the price being too high since there's a lot of value included in the game.
I wouldn't say that this game is specifically aimed at the casual crowd. We are actually shooting for everyone to enjoy this, both casual and hardcore. The way we're making that happen is by making the game simple to learn but difficult to master.
Its simple to learn because no buttons are required, you just need to move the controllers.
Its difficult to master because on the hardest difficulty, you need to do as many as 4 moves per second, which really makes you sweat.
So really we think that anyone will enjoy this game that wants to get some cardiovascular exercise while playing a game. Combining exercise with video games is a personal hobby of mine and is one of the reasons I decided that we are going to create this game.
Its tough to say which track I like the best. I'd say it comes down to personal preference, but you can listen to most of this music on iTunes if you want to get a preview of what the music is going to sound like. Here is the list:
I personally listened to thousands of tracks before I selected the 26 included in this game. We licensed it from artists all over the world, including the US, Europe, and Russia. The artists aren't that well-known but their music is really fantastic and so we're hoping this game will help to promote them.
I'm Ed Roman, the producer for this game and I work at Ghostfire Games. Thanks for this feedback.
To answer your questions, we don't have downloadable content (DLC). We decided to give you the best bang for your buck and include all of the music in 1 purchase of the game, rather than charge you over and over again and break-up the music into separate downloads.
There's 26 awesome songs included in the game, which I think is an amazing deal for a WiiWare title.
As far as balance board integration, its something that we might do if we release a Helix 2. We'll make that decision based on how well Helix does in the market.
Comments 76
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
As far as Dolby Pro Logic II, we are not adding in any special sound code for that, sorry. But the game does indeed support 16:9 and 4:3.
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Its a single-player only game. We decided that early-on since the combat system doesn't lend itself very well to multiplayer. We'd also rather do single-player really well than try to do everything just at an OK level.
The combo system is similar to God of War. It uses Quick-Timed Events where you need to press buttons in a particular order.
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Yeah, exactly... we made the shield transparent when you block so that you can still see the boss. The shield is opaque unless you're holding it in front of you.
We're going to attempt as close to as simultaneous a release as possible, but that's out of our hands (Nintendo makes the final decision about when to release the game in each territory).
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Yeah, we love the tech tree too. Overall our formula for making this game is:
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
No pirate.. the closest we have is a snake charmer. You can see him in the trailer actually. He's the dude that chucks a molitov cocktail at you
Maybe in the sequel, if we're privileged enough to make one!
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Great question... there's one set of weapons -- a warhammer and shield. You can attack with both of them (the shield can act both defensively and you can also shield bash with it). You also have a variety of "spells" at your disposal that the weapon summons, such as conjuring lighting bolts, a pillar of fire, a meteor, or a tornado.
We only have 1 character mostly because of the storyline. You play the role of Gracius, Prince of Avalance. You have been put into an arena to fight for your life. But why? And who (or what) has caused it? This is all revealed in flashback cutscenes as you defeat each boss.
-Ed
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Its one arena. This is for technical limitations of the 40MB download. However, in exchange for only having 1 arena, we were able to cram in a lot of content, such as:
-Ed
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
The price is set by Nintendo, not us, so we can't speak to the price at this time.
Yes -- its all boss battles.. the best part of games!
BTW, in case any of guys are interested... here's some links..
Join our Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12064648147
Follow our Twitter Feed:
http://www.twitter.com/ghostfiregames
Join our Forums:
http://www.ghostfiregames.com/forums/index.php
Subscribe to our newsletter:
http://www.ghostfiregames.com --- Link at top of the page.
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
To keep the game from being repetitive we have designed the game as follows:
No new games are planned right now. We're making 1 game at a time, to make sure its awesome. But depending on how well sales do for this game we'd LOVE to make a sequel.
No downloadable content. No episodes. You buy the game once and you get everything. We don't like charging people over-and-over again
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
We don't have a release date yet... its hard to give an exact timetable due to the process for approving a game by Nintendo, but we are expecting Fall 2009.
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Great questions
I can't comment too much on Gladiator A.D. since I haven't played it, but we definitely are in the same genre and I think there are a lot of similarities in terms of the overall theme of the game compared to ours.
Our game is an action game, and not an RPG. 90% of our effort went into making the in-game experience as awesome as possible.
With that said, there is a very cool story, and its told by a series of 2D animated cutscenes with voice acting. The story is a tale of betrayal and irony. Hearing the full story is a nice incentive to finish the game.
The game borrows some RPG ideas from games like Diablo and World of Warcraft in that we have a full tech-tree. You can customize your character by choosing your path. Visit this link to see the tech tree:
http://www.ghostfiregames.com/gladiator/rage-of-the-gladiator/skills/
Re: Rage of the Gladiator
Hey guys,
I'm Ed, the producer for Rage of the Gladiator. Feel free to post any questions and I'd be happy to answer them!
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
We're going for a lower-than-M rating. There's no nudity/blood. We made this decision so that the game was appealing to as wide an audience as possible. Although who knows what future sequels might bring
The controls are very simple: You hold the Wii-remote sideways. There's no motion sensing in the game, mostly because it is inaccurate for a fast-paced arcade game like this.
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Yes, the game's combat system feels similar to Punch-Out. We absolutely adored the 1980s Punch-Out and some of the ideas in our game were inspired by that game, although we've been very careful to make the game distinct and unique on its own. We've been working on the game for quite awhile, far before Wii Punch-Out was even announced.
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
We actually tried out several different camera perspectives... it was a toss-up between an over-the-shoulder camera and a first-person camera.
In the end we decided first-person was better because the bosses looked a lot cooler and more realistic if they were in-your-face and big because you were looking right at them.
-Ed
Re: Rage of the Gladiator Coming to WiiWare
Hey guys.. I'm Ed, the producer for Rage of the Gladiator. I'd be happy to answer any questions or hear any impressions so feel free to post away!
Re: Review: Helix (WiiWare)
The European version of the game is finished, and has passed lotcheck. We just didn't have time to update the web site in awhile. Its now up to date. I expect to be able to announce a release date any day now, as soon as we hear back from Nintendo of Europe.
Thanks for the feedback everyone on the game. I'd love to hear more impressions from the rest of the community.
-Ed
Re: USA WiiWare Update: Helix
You can still play the game with 1 Wii Remote. Its just not quite as enjoyable.
Re: USA WiiWare Update: Helix
Hey, this is Ed Roman from Ghostfire Games.
Thanks for the comments guys. Needless to say we're super excited that our first game is launching today, and we hope you guys enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed making it.
The Europe version of Helix is ready and should be out very soon. As soon as I have a date I will post it.
Re: Official Helix WiiWare Trailer - Shake Your Booty!
One of the reasons the graphics look basic is because we are using music visualization software to draw realtime particle effects to the beat of the music. The software we're using is called ProjectM (http://projectm.sf.net). In this manner, the background actually somewhat 'pulses' to the beat of the music. The controllers also rumble to the beat of the music, to help you stay on-beat. This is one of the tricks we used to cram as much music as we could into the game.
Re: Official Helix WiiWare Trailer - Shake Your Booty!
I like Dr. Mario Online Rx the best so far. I'm a big Tetris / Dr Mario fan and I bought those games back in the 80s/90s. I'm looking forward to World of Goo the most.
Re: Official Helix WiiWare Trailer - Shake Your Booty!
Great questions, worrybomb.
There's actually 37 (!!) different moves you can do in the game. So there's a lot of expressiveness that you can do -- its not just uppercuts. We have custom built the levels of the game to have the moves coincide with the beats of the music and the voice of the singers, so that you are actually performing moves with the music. The moves that you perform are an "artistic interpretation" of the music itself.
We definitely strongly recommend that you own 2 Wii Remotes for the best experience. But you don't need 2 Wii Remotes to play. If you only have 1 Wii Remote, then you just don't score points for the hand that has no Wii Remote.
Re: Official Helix WiiWare Trailer - Shake Your Booty!
Well, we are a pretty small startup company in Austin TX, so we aren't going to be manufacturing fitness hardware if that's what you're getting at. But we're definitely interested in making fitness games and if Helix does well, then you definitely should look forward to more games from us in that area.
As far as the price, that is something that Nintendo sets (not us). But if you look at other music rhythm games that are $50 that you purchase in retail stores, they include maybe 50 songs. We're including 26 songs, so we are not too worried about the price being too high since there's a lot of value included in the game.
Re: Official Helix WiiWare Trailer - Shake Your Booty!
I wouldn't say that this game is specifically aimed at the casual crowd. We are actually shooting for everyone to enjoy this, both casual and hardcore. The way we're making that happen is by making the game simple to learn but difficult to master.
Its simple to learn because no buttons are required, you just need to move the controllers.
Its difficult to master because on the hardest difficulty, you need to do as many as 4 moves per second, which really makes you sweat.
So really we think that anyone will enjoy this game that wants to get some cardiovascular exercise while playing a game. Combining exercise with video games is a personal hobby of mine and is one of the reasons I decided that we are going to create this game.
Re: Official Helix WiiWare Trailer - Shake Your Booty!
Its tough to say which track I like the best. I'd say it comes down to personal preference, but you can listen to most of this music on iTunes if you want to get a preview of what the music is going to sound like. Here is the list:
http://www.ghostfiregames.com/tracks.html
I personally listened to thousands of tracks before I selected the 26 included in this game. We licensed it from artists all over the world, including the US, Europe, and Russia. The artists aren't that well-known but their music is really fantastic and so we're hoping this game will help to promote them.
-Ed
Re: Official Helix WiiWare Trailer - Shake Your Booty!
Hi there,
I'm Ed Roman, the producer for this game and I work at Ghostfire Games. Thanks for this feedback.
To answer your questions, we don't have downloadable content (DLC). We decided to give you the best bang for your buck and include all of the music in 1 purchase of the game, rather than charge you over and over again and break-up the music into separate downloads.
There's 26 awesome songs included in the game, which I think is an amazing deal for a WiiWare title.
As far as balance board integration, its something that we might do if we release a Helix 2. We'll make that decision based on how well Helix does in the market.
-Ed