[Interview] General: Underworld Ascendant - What is the Improvisation Engine?

SBFord

When Paul Neurath and his team set out to make a new Underworld game, they wanted to make sure it stayed true to the originals from the early 1990s. Lucky for them, despite much success and critical adulation, no one’s quite made a game like Underworld since then. We chatted with Paul about Underworld Ascendant and its use of the Improvisation Engine to make a much more believable and unscripted world for its players.

Read more of Bill Murphy's Underworld Ascendant: What is the Improvisation Engine?

rusmurf

Good stuff, can't wait to play it.

RemyVorender

Some great ideas here. 

Wizardry

I get the feeling they are aiming for a straight forward narrow dungeon crawler with puzzles.It has been done before,fun for maybe a week tops.

 

Also if your going to add puzzles ,they can no way whatsoever have any hand holding,like sparklies ,that ruins immersion so bad,i would logout of the game immediately.I have actually done that many times in the past,if i see some real bad design decisions as soon as i enter a game,i know the rest can't be worth sticking around for.

 

BTW pen n paper was a good start to gaming,it had too many flaws and not perfect,we need to move beyond that limited design and quit trying to relive it.

 

FFXI for example started way back in 2002,yet it has introduced tons of NEW ideas to gaming and some maybe not entirely new but not seen very often.Point is you can take an old game,old idea but you need to expand on it moving forward.

 

Example ,players playing as the creatures in the game,how many doing that?

 

Epic sieges by NPC's attacking cities?

 

How about JUST the EPIC feel in a game,that is so sorely lacking it's not funny.

 

In a Dungeon crawler game you are limiting what you can do big time,starting with the movable space,which his usually too small and narrow.

Elements,how do you introduce elmental properties inside a dungeon,no sun,no rain,geesh we don't even have day night cycles.

 

 

 

Elvoc

looks pretty good, almost has a secret world feel, even though there is a specific solution for those actions.

Ambrose99

Playing through Underworld right now and, imo, the game still really holds up for being 23 years old. As long as the story, layout, and puzzles isn't the same (too fresh in the mind), I'll definitely be playing this, too.