I remember telling some employees before that game development isn’t a democracy. I said at best development should be a benevolent dictatorship. I held that opinion because oftentimes when you get too many cooks in a kitchen, it does spoil the soup. Oddly enough I haven’t felt that way with PAIN for quite a few reasons. This message board has had a lot to do with how we design PAIN.
PAIN design is liberating. We don’t have to worry about context, story, logic, or even reality. In a lot of ways, PAIN development is about as chaotic and creative as you can be. So before I dig into what’s next, let me thank all of you for buying PAIN because it really has granted us freedom to try new concepts.
November is an exciting month for us as we are launching the next environment for PAIN. It’s called Movie Studio, and it’s our take on the wackiness of movie making. This is also the first time where we have incorporated this board’s collective input. So to directly contradict my earlier statement…
PAIN development is (at least somewhat) a democracy. We have listened to what you wanted and tried our best to make sure all the things that you wanted are in this area. That includes (but not limited to):
More than one launcher location (There are three that you can dynamically switch to)
- Single Player Fun with Explosives
- New Cratetastic Mode
- Unlockable FREE Character
- HORSE Mode
- Bowling Mode (With all new distractions)
Movie Studio is the first area that we created after hearing all your input (democracy again). Amusement Park was started before PAIN was released (and took quite a while to make). Movie Studio was made in a third of that time, and I think it shows how much better we as a team have gotten at this since the original PAIN area.
We also have a new single player mode in the Lot called CRATETASTIC. I think you will love the mode if you were in any way a fan of Spank the Monkey. Take Spank the Monkey and replace the monkeys with explosives. This mode gets hectic because you can switch launch locations.
We heard everyone comment about the lack of a free character with a purchased area so we kidnapped Buzz and locked him up inside the Movie Studio. Unlock the Afterparty area and get enough points, and he’s all yours.
Bowling and HORSE are also back. There are no mimes in this Bowling mode, but I am confident you will enjoy what we victimize instead.
You can thank your collective outrage for the Fun with Explosives inclusion (democracy + demonstrations = action). The Movie Studio just entered test when Amusement Park came out. You all really went off about the lack of Single Player FWE inclusion. I called Jeff and told him how I wasn’t willing to explain why it wasn’t in Movie Studio. The funny part was how we all agreed that it was our favorite mode. So the designers burned the midnight oil, and it was added to the content push.
Lastly, you always vote for the PAINdemonium like areas as your favorite modes. So instead of doing two of these we made three of them. Strangely enough they are easier to design than all the other modes. We thought it might be a good idea to give you more than what we usually do.
Watch the movie. Check out the screenshots and most of all, keep making your opinions heard. It helps us make better content. Stay tuned for the next couple weeks too. We will have some more cool content to share with you.
...and GO VOTE! I sure am.