I recently got a chance to ask Overpowered Games‘ developer and founder Justin Pierce about his recently-revealed game Telos, which features grapplers, zero-G gameplay, a 2-story mech and more.
One of the first things mentioned on your development blog is that you want to ‘rethink the competitive multiplayer first person shooter.’ A lot of developers these days are quick to throw out the term eSports whenever announcing their up-and-coming shooter. Is this a game that will cater to that crowd from the beginning, or will you let that form on its own?
Justin Pierce: I definitely have eSports in mind for Telos. I played CS competitively growing up — didn’t compete on a professional level, but I did attend CPL a couple times. I really like what League of Legends and Dota 2 are doing with eSports nowadays — as an indie, I obviously don’t have the sort of resources they do, but I’m studying what they’re doing. They don’t make the games exclusively for eSports but it’s definitely a big consideration and, generally speaking, that’s the approach I’m trying to take.
While on the topic of competitive shooters, other than gameplay balance and level design, proper spectating tools and features like demo recordings can also help expose the game to a wider audience. Can players expect these during Telos’ lifetime?
Justin: Right now I’m focusing on getting the core game to a point where it’s a lot of fun to play, but I’ve also put a lot of thought into making sure it’ll be fun to watch as well. Can’t make any promises yet for specific features though.
What kind of gamemodes and weapons are you planning on incorporating into the game?
Justin: For game modes, the current plan is to focus on a custom variation of CTF. With weapons, my goal is to have a lot of variety. I’m sure some weapons will feel familiar, but I’m also excited to experiment with fresh weapon mechanics for different roles.
When people usually think of a first-person shooter, they envision themselves playing as a human being, typically a soldier. However in Telos you went with a 2-story tall mech that looks closer to a spider or Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell. Can players exit their mech, and can we expect to see a variety of different models to choose from? Where did the idea of playing in a mech such as this originate from?
Justin: Larger scale just seemed more exciting to me — another fun way to break from the norm. The original prototype was actually zero g exclusively and the character had no legs because it didn’t need them. When I later added gravity and needed legs to move around on surfaces, I thought it’d be a pain to do good-looking humanoid animations that would match the crazy movement so I explored alternatives — I thought it was neat in Zone of the Enders, where the mech sort of skates on the surface. A multiped mech can also have a bounding box closer to a sphere, rather than the tall cylinder of a humanoid.
I originally had a concept with six legs but trimmed it to four. The current art for the player character is a placeholder — I’m not confident enough in my mechanical design skills yet. It’ll likely stay anatomically similar to what’s there now, but otherwise that is definitely not the final design. Not sure yet about having different models to choose from.
I often get asked about being able to exit the mech — I think a pilot would be pretty useless against such a large machine, so I’ll likely leave that mechanic to Titanfall.
In the first development video it’s mentioned that players will glide across the surface instead of walking, along with showing off the grappling hook and zero-gravity environments. I’m instantly reminded of the skiing mechanic and grappler from Tribes, along with Shattered Horizon’s zero-gravity gameplay. Did any of these games influence your design decisions?
Justin: Yeah the ‘glide along surface’ line was mostly so people didn’t think it’d walk around like a crab. I study as many games as I can looking for inspiration, including those you’ve mentioned, but also games in other genres. Grapple hooks always seem fun — Worms, Bionic Commando, SmashBall, PixelJunk Eden, Just Cause 2 — I seem to gravitate toward them. The grapple was implemented before I decided to add normal gravity and it offered a quicker way to maneuver in zero g — feels like you’re Spider-Man in space. I’ll still be evolving the movement system as the rest of the game comes into place.
How well does Unity3D handle development on a game like this? Was it your first engine choice?
Justin: I’ve been working almost exclusively in Unity for over 4 years now on various projects so it’s basically my specialty. The built-in Unity prefabs/scripts for FPS games aren’t up to my standards and wouldn’t be able to do what I needed so I just build my own custom stuff, which ends up giving me a lot more control anyway — Unity is pretty flexible so I don’t really feel like it’s a handicap. For me personally, I think going with UDK or Source would have slowed down development despite them being geared more toward FPS games, but that’s just me personally — I know Unity very well.
Are player-hosted servers or modding something players can expect? Has a pricing model been decided, or is it too early to discuss?
Justin: None of that has been decided yet, but generally I do like the idea of user generated content.
Lastly, what are your thoughts on FPS-Z as a genre? That is, first-person shooters that empasize movement in the Z-axis, as opposed to traditional shooters where you’re simply walking and running with the occasional jump here and there. Mechanics like skiing in Tribes and strafe jumping in Quake seemed to have died out in favor for more traditional mechanics, though Titanfall looks to break the mold with its wall-running and jetpacks.”
Yeah I think 1998-2002 was the golden age of FPS games. Publishers grew scared of experimenting when budgets got bigger, but I think we might see a renaissance soon 🙂
That concludes my interview with Justin Peirce. Those interested in Telos should keep an eye on his development blog, which has several social media links to follow as well, and of course FPS-Z.com for any future updates regarding the game.
