Wildman Interviews and Q&A

We rounded up a few interviews and a Reddit Q&A with Gas Powered Games’ Chris Taylor on the company’s latest project, the maybe-Kickstarter-funded Wildman, which attempts to mix the RTS genre with the Diablo-style action-RPG.

Eurogamer has some scathing words from Chris on publishers in general:

“There’s multiple games that we got almost to the finish line on,” Taylor revealed, reluctant to say more because of NDAs, which suggests this happened recently.

“We got a phone call from the publisher and they said, ‘We’re terminating.’ And we’re like, ‘Yeah but we’re only a month away from beta!’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah we’re still terminating.’ And we’re like, ‘OK.’ ”

“One of these days – and it won’t be from me – you guys will get leaked through some anonymous source…” he teased (I’m not entirely sure if he was joking). “And you can read a game development contract, and you will – it’ll be like the Nazis when they opened up The Ark: all the flesh will melt all down your face.”

While NowGamer tackles the recent layoffs:

Taylor then discusses the negativity surrounding the announcement, saying “Some have said that it was an elaborate scheme to manipulate people… I’m like, wow, you’ve got to be kidding me… anyone who could pull that off has much bigger balls than me.

“I am still shocked that anyone could even think that, especially people who know me… and I’ve been in the business 25 years, I’ve got a reputation, and I’ve never, ever, been known to pull that kind of shit.

“I know it came across as negative to believe that the project would not be funded, when instead I wanted folks to know, I was trying to be realistic. If you compare Wildman against Project Eternity, Star Citizen, Wasteland 2, etc, we weren’t even in the same ballpark.”

Finally, the Reddit AMA covered a wide spectrum of subjects, so here’s a few picks:

Are you guys using the SupCom engine?

It’s not the SupCom engine. It’s a version of the Siege engine with a new renderer.

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How much control do you have over your troops?

The troops emerge and will automatically group up and head into battle. As you increase your military training, you will have more control. There is no limit to how much control we can exert over these troops, it’s a question of what is the most fun.

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Will the focus be on story-line or sequence of battles?

The story-line will follow the progression of the Wildman throughout the world, which includes battles along the way in special “War Zones”, some of which are optional and some are not.

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Just how advanced can the Wildman get? Laser weapons and beyond?

For the first release, I think up to the middle of the medieval period will be good, but additional content can take us much further to lasers and beyond.