Schlagwort: 10tons

  • Dysmantle launches on PS4 and PS5 tomorrow

    Dysmantle launches on PS4 and PS5 tomorrow

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    “As you ascend from your shelter after the long long years, a brave new old world awaits you. A world inhabited with nasty and vile creatures. A world with no other human soul to be seen. A world with nature in its reigns now. A world that’s about to get even worse.”

    This is how Dysmantle begins. The world might be getting worse, but the team at 10tons wants you to be able to  relax and enjoy it.

    Post-apocalyptic survival games are usually dark and grim, but we wanted to do something different. If you are tired of starving to death in a bleak landscape, you can start Dysmantling! Your basic action is to tear down everything you see. Might be you need a bigger hammer for that sweet radiator you found, but eventually you’ll get them all.

    In true post-apocalyptic fashion, you’ll have to sometimes run or fight for your life.

    In addition to dismantling everything, there’s a lot more you can do. You can fish, farm, explore, fight, craft, build, hunt, cook, and even tame animals. You can build a completely satisfying and relaxing post-apocalyptic life inside Dysmantle.

    Personally I enjoy fishing in real life. And there are many opportunities for that in Dysmantle, too. You’ll obviously need a fishing rod first. There are a few additional items you can craft, but after that it’s mostly about finding the best locations. After reeling catches in, you can cook up powerful items with the rarer fish. 

    No trolling allowed – either on the internet or with a fishing line…

    In addition to fishing, you can also tame animals (which isn’t a skill yours truly possesses). In Dysmantle you can befriend the animals running around the wilderness with the skill Animal Friend. Each skill level makes the animals less and less afraid of you, and also unlocks some new interaction features.

    DysmantleDysmantle

    You can also craft animal treats to feed the animals. Once fed, you might find you’ve become quite popular with the animals as they follow you around. You can expand your selection of animal treats, and can lead a whole flock wherever you fancy.

    These are just two of many post-apocalyptic leisures you can do in Dysmantle. There’s also local co-op, so you can enjoy all these activities with a friend. Maybe you both have a following soon.

    We’re also happy to say that the game will be in great shape when it arrives on PS4 and PS5. We’ve developed the game in “early access” mode on PC for over a year and we’re ever-thankful to our early access players. We’re so proud to be releasing the robust PlayStation version , which already has all the bells, whistles, and polish. 

    Dymantle is a new type of game from the 10tons team: A vast open world with dozens of hours of gameplay. It took us four years to get here and we’re happy with the result and we hope you enjoy it too!

    Website: LINK

  • Crimsonland dev discusses the twin-stick shooter’s cult hit longevity

    Crimsonland dev discusses the twin-stick shooter’s cult hit longevity

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Crimsonland was the very first game 10tons made. It was the very first game I made. If someone would have said at that time that I’d still be talking about it almost 18 years later… not sure if I’d have believed that. That’s crazy.

    Nevertheless, over the years, Crimsonland has gathered some sort of a cult following. Some players can’t seem to get enough of it. The biggest fans have played it over thousands of hours. While I can only speculate why all this has happened, I do have a few guesses how the game earned its hardcore following.

    Maze of monsters

    When the game originally came out in 2003, most 2D games still used software rendering. Using 3D accelerators enabled us to have thousands of moving monsters on screen at once. This had some novelty value especially back then, and there’s no denying that it can be very satisfying to mow down those monster hordes. This also defined the concept of level structure in a new way. Suddenly the monsters themselves provided an ever evolving maze to navigate through. You needed to plan and plow your way through the enemies to get to that next sweet powerup. Everything is in flux all the time, so you need to be constantly taking risks, planning new routes, and trying to figure out soft spots in the horde. I think this sort of plasticity keeps the gameplay fresh longer.

    Level up, die, repeat

    The survival mode of Crimsonland may have been one of the first action roguelike style experiences out there. Inspired by bigger RPGs like the Fallout series, one goal was to fit that RPG progress into shorter action game format. Kill monsters, gather experience points, level up, and try to survive as long as possible. Each time you level up, you get to pick one of the random Perks. As you get to know what each Perk does, and what combinations of weapons and Perks might be useful, you’ll start to form new strategies. You perished this time, but maybe in the next run you’ll get lucky? This makes it very tempting to play that one more new game.

    But I can only speculate why the game got popular. The truth is that the fans and them spreading the word is what has made Crimsonland popular. People are still talking about the game. And there’s still one question we hear all the time. When is Crimsonland 2 coming out?

    Crimsonland’s future

    Over the years, we’ve actually had more than one prototype for Crimsonland 2. The first one was focused on networked online multiplayer, but it quickly became apparent that having networked multiplayer wasn’t very compatible with thousands of monsters back then (2005). Eventually we gave up on that and focused on other projects.

    Another Crimsonland 2 prototype focused on a bigger open world sort of experience. That one proved to be a bit too big a project for our studio at the time, so we shelved that prototype too and focused on something else. Some of those open-world ideas did end up in our open-world RPG Dysmantle which is planned for release on PS4 and PS5 later this year. It’s an open-world action RPG, but the gameplay doesn’t resemble Crimsonland.

    Because of Crimsonland’s strange ability to defy time, we’ve kept it technically up to date, and even added some new features over the years. We also did a bigger modernization update a few years ago. As hardware has gotten more powerful, we’ve kept increasing the amount of monsters rushing in. The latest version on PS5 is the probably definitive Crimsonland experience at the moment. There’s never been as many monsters in Crimsonland as now.

    You’d think that at this point I’ve gotten my share of Crimsonland. But the truth is, I still play the game now and then. It’s one of my most played games in my PlayStation games library. After a long day, I power up my PS5 and launch Crimsonland. And mow down a few thousand monsters. And dream of Crimsonland 2.

    Website: LINK

  • Crimsonland – 18 Jahre später

    Crimsonland – 18 Jahre später

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Crimsonland war das erste Spiel, das 10tons je entwickelt hat. Es war das erste Spiel, das ich je entwickelt habe. Wenn mir damals jemand gesagt hätte, dass ich 18 Jahre später immer noch darüber reden würde … ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich es geglaubt hätte. Das ist einfach verrückt.

    Aber über die Jahre hat Crimsonland so etwas wie Kultstatus gewonnen. Einige Spieler scheinen einfach nicht genug davon zu bekommen. Die größten Fans haben sicher Tausende von Stunden mit dem Spiel verbracht. Ich kann zwar nur spekulieren, warum es so gekommen ist, aber ich habe durchaus ein paar Vermutungen, warum das Spiel damals so durch die Decke gegangen ist.

    Als das Spiel im Jahr 2003 das Licht der Welt erblickte, nutzen die meisten 2D-Spiele noch Software-Rendering. Durch den Einsatz von 3D-Beschleunigung konnten wir Tausende von bewegten Monstern gleichzeitig auf dem Bildschirm darstellen. Das war damals etwas völlig Neues und es lässt sich nicht von der Hand weisen, dass es unglaublich befriedigend sein kann, solche Horden von Monstern niederzumähen. Außerdem ermöglichte dies eine gewisse Revolution der Levelstruktur. Plötzlich wurden die Monster selbst zu einem lebendigen Labyrinth, durch das man navigieren musste. Man musste einen Weg planen und sich durch die Gegner pflügen, um zum nächsten Powerup zu kommen. Das gesamte Level ist ständig im Wandel und man muss permanent Risiken eingehen, neue Routen planen und versuchen, die Schwachstellen in der Horde zu finden. Ich denke, diese Form der Plastizität sorgt dafür, dass das Gameplay nicht so schnell langweilig wird.

    Der Survival-Modus von Crimsonland war vielleicht eine der ersten Action-Roguelike-Erfahrungen überhaupt. Inspiriert von größeren RPGs wie der Fallout-Reihe bestand eines der Ziele darin, diese Form des RPG-Fortschritts in ein kürzeres Action-Format zu packen. Man tötet Monster, sammelt Erfahrungspunkte, steigt im Level auf und versucht, so lange wie möglich zu überleben. Jedes Mal, wenn man im Level aufsteigt, kann man sich einen der zufälligen Boni aussuchen. Man lernt nach und nach die Funktionsweise der einzelnen Boni und welche Kombinationen aus Waffen und Boni am nützlichsten sind und kommt so immer wieder auf neue Strategien. Dieses Mal ist man vielleicht gestorben, aber beim nächsten Mal hat man sicher mehr Glück. Dieses Konzept macht es sehr verlockend, immer wieder von vorn anzufangen.

    Aber ich kann nur spekulieren, warum das Spiel so populär geworden ist. Die Wahrheit ist, dass die Fans und ihre lautstarke Verbreitung des Spiels dafür gesorgt haben, dass Crimsonland so populär ist. Man redet bis heute über das Spiel. Und uns erreicht bis heute immer wieder eine Frage. Wann kommt Crimsonland 2?

    Über die Jahre hinweg gab es tatsächlich mehrere Prototypen für Crimsonland 2. Der erste davon hatte einen Fokus auf Online-Multiplayer. Aber es wurde schnell klar, dass ein Netzwerk-Modus damals (2005) nicht wirklich kompatibel mit den Tausenden von Monstern auf dem Bildschirm war. Letzten Endes mussten wir die Idee aufgeben und uns anderen Projekten widmen.

    Ein weiterer Prototyp von Crimsonland 2 basierte auf einer größeren offenen Welt. Dieses Projekt stellte sich aber letztendlich als zu ambitioniert für unser damaliges Studio heraus, weshalb wir diesen Prototyp ebenfalls auf Eis legen und uns auf etwas anderes konzentrieren mussten. Einige der Ideen flossen später in unser Open-World-RPG Dysmantle ein, welches noch im Laufe dieses Jahres für PS4 und PS5 erscheinen soll. Dysmantle ist ein Action-RPG mit offener Welt, dessen Gameplay sich jedoch grundlegend von Crimsonland unterscheidet.

    Da sich Crimsonland kurioserweise seit all den Jahren gegen den Zahn der Zeit durchzusetzen vermag, haben wir es technisch immer wieder auf dem neuesten Stand gehalten und über die Jahre sogar einige neue Features hinzugefügt. Vor einigen Jahren haben wir es außerdem einer größeren Modernisierung unterzogen. Während die Hardware immer stärker wurde, konnten wir die Anzahl der Monster immer weiter erhöhen. Die neueste Version auf PS5 bietet wahrscheinlich das aktuell beste Crimsonland-Erlebnis. Es gab nie zuvor so viele Monster in Crimsonland wie jetzt.

    Man könnte vielleicht denken, dass ich mittlerweile genug von Crimsonland hätte. Aber die Wahrheit ist: Ich spiele das Spiel bis heute immer mal wieder. Es ist eines der meistgespielten Spiele in meiner PlayStation-Spielebibliothek. Nach einem langen Tag schalte ich gern meine PS5 an und starte Crimsonland. Und mähe ein paar tausend Monster nieder. Und träume von Crimsonland 2.

    Website: LINK

  • Undead Horde Brings Necromancy to Your Living Room Today on PS4

    Undead Horde Brings Necromancy to Your Living Room Today on PS4

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Hello, dear PlayStation.Blog readers! Undead Horde releases today on PlayStation 4! The game is a “necromancer simulator” combining elements from action-RPG, strategy, hack ’n slash and minion games. I’d like to share some background details from our development process, to try to answer the question: “What is Undead Horde?”

    In late 2017 we were furiously trying to come up with a new game project at 10tons. We had done several top-down shooters in a row including , , and at that time we had nearly finished . Though we love top-down shooters, we really wanted to do something different for a change. At that point, games with larger armies fighting each other in some form were somewhat fresh, so we started to dig around there.

    We started to do some prototyping. First we created a kind of “massive fantasy battle simulator,” but in the end the prototype wasn’t that popular in our internal testing even though the team seemed to like it.


    A battle between amazons and undead barbarians

    We continued on and remembered a fun and somewhat popular little game called Right Click to Necromance (RCTN). It still felt fun so we took on a new task: Can we make a game where you raise the dead like in RCTN, but so that the game would have a story and a campaign lasting several hours? This was the basic question behind Undead Horde. We also felt that the whole theme of necromancy hasn’t been thoroughly explored yet with games. A game called Nekro was canceled and a lot of other minion games didn’t have actual necromancers.

    So this is what Undead Horde became: A game where you command undead minions which you can raise directly from the battlefield. You can also raise undead from summoning statues & graves also, but the main source is usually your slain enemies. You can find a very early development shot from this phase and compare it to the final shot above — a lot changed along the way visually too.


    Undead Horde early development screenshot

    Unlike in RCTN, the player controls a necromancer instead of the horde. This was done since we wanted to have a main character to focus on. The undead minions are mostly axe fodder, so the actual progression happens through your necromancer with items and leveling. There are some heroes and stronger units though, which the player can try to keep alive if he wants to try “quality over quantity” tactics. The player can do a lot of conventional ARPG stuff as well: fight, cast spells, loot, complete quests and explore the world.

    We think Undead Horde brings something new to the ARPG table — there’s no combination of necromancy, action RPG, and minion control like it. The new elements also provided us with some challenges, as many gameplay problems had no off-the-shelf solution, and we realize that the gameplay style isn’t necessarily for everyone.

    The story in Undead Horde is quite simple — you’re Orcen, the last necromancer. Your goal is to take back the Overworld where the undead once ruled. A paladin named Benevictor is your arch enemy and the leader of the living; the demise of the undead was of his making.

    The game takes Orcen through forests, deserts, catacombs, and wastelands of ice & fire with the ultimate goal of reaching the Citadel where Benevictor has retreated. After the first playthrough, the game can be replayed with the full selection of minions from the start and with mutated world parameters.

    I hope this post offered an interesting first impression about the game. Watch the trailer to learn a bit more about the game and its story. Pick it up today to do some undead re-animation yourself!

    Website: LINK