Crisis on the Planet of the Apes
|
Crisis on the Planet of the Apes was FoxNext VR Studio's first commercial release as a standalone entity and certainly the biggest game I've worked on to date. Produced in partnership with Imaginati Studios in London, England, Crisis puts players into the role of an unnamed ape thrust into a conflict between the military and CDC. Set in the years between Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Crisis tells a wholly new and canonical story instead of that world. A quick Google will tell you that the game met with mixed reviews. We tried some really new things and while some were successful (I still think we have one of the most comfortable and innovative cover solutions in VR), others were not (The method of locomotion was widely panned). We really tried to create a holistic VR experience, but in the process created features that were too difficult for users to activate. Worse still, we gave them a great experience in other places which only served to highlight how much we had missed the goal in others. Still, we shipped a ~2 hour single player campaign with over 15 minutes of mo-cap in just under a year with a team that had never made a VR game before. From a production and teamwork perspective I'll always count this as a success. Additionally, the trailer had more than 6 million impressions the Fox social media landscape- That's many, many more times than anything else I've worked on. Project Responsibilities Lead Designer & Senior Project Manager (Fox Next) On Crisis, my work really took shape in two distinct ways. The first was as a designer. Working with the team in London and with access to the Unreal project files, we rapidly iterated on level layouts, enemy placement and number and overall feel of the combat. Additionally, we conducted intense playtests with actual consumers and it became the responsibility of Fox to distill those notes and impressions into actionable feedback that also represented the consensus of the FoxNext studio group. In other words, I played the game a hell of a lot, watched other people play it for hours and made specific recommendations for improvement across the suite of game mechanics and implementation. The second way my work took shape was as Senior Project Manger. With the assistance of Jody Belliveau, we shepherded the project to a day-and-date release on Oculus Rift Store, Steam and PSN in both Europe (SIEE) and America (SIEA). This included VRC and FQA consultations, trophy & platform integrations and DRM. Additionally, as we approached ship I ran Backlog Grooming and Sprint Planning in conjunction with Imaginati to make sure Fox's priorities were represented and maintained. After ship I also maintained the health of the repo and built, re-imaged and shipped the final patches for Steam, Oculus & PSN (All regions). Official Website: http://apesvr.com Where to download it: Steam Oculus Store PSN |
TEAMFoxNext VR Studio
General Manager Brendan Handler Creative Design & Production Benjamin Miller Creative Development Steve Tzirlin Business Development Kelly DiGregorio Senior Designer Scott Stephan Publishing & Useability Jody Belliveau Technical Manager George Goldman Writer Matt Michnovetz Technical Designer Taylor Morris Senior Programmer Borut Pfeifer Script Editor Jeff Juhasz Coordinator Tim Yang Coordinator Nate Winslow Quality Assurance Tester Earvin Ramos Imaginati Studios Executive Producer Martin Alltimes Head of Production Seb Canniff Senior Producer Ian Tierney Lead Programmer Stelios Michael Programmer Alex Nibbs Lead Artist Colin Wren Principle VFX Artist Omar Parada Senior Character Artist Manuel Lopez Character Artist Panagiotis Giannakopoulos World Artist NIck Peckham Senior UI Artist Edwin Bradford Additional Art James Brace Lead Animator David Moore Animator David Campbell Senior Motion Editor Maciek Sznabel Senior Motion Editor Arnaud Mavoka-Isana Animator Alex Marmo Animator Richie Prado Animator Moses Awoyemi Animator Stephen Payne Lead Designer Jason Mallett Technical Designer Wayne Jackson Additional Design Blaise Imiolczyk Head of Audio Alexander Horowitz Additional Sound Pablo Valverde Testing David jenkins Testing John Wright Testing Matteo Pagni Testing Jake Bovingdon Project Manager Christopher Bacchi Test Lead Romeo Andrei Cana Sound Designer Chris Sweetman Sound Designer Samuel Justice Technical Sound Designer Joe Hudson VO Director Johnny Gidcomb VO Director Micah Dahlberg |
MEDIA
|
|
|