Ed Annunziata, creator of Ecco the Dolphin has taken to Kickstarter to fund his underwater adventure MMO which starts the moment all human life on Earth ends.
Though what exactly you’ll be doing in The Big Blue is difficult to fathom.
Maybe the Kickstarter pitch will explain things:
Nope. Not particularly.
As far as I can make out, the human race has become extinct for some reason, then the sea becomes a giant neural network for some reason, you gain control of the, now, hyper intelligent creatures of the ocean for some reason and then… then, what?
On the Kickstarter page Annunziata lists “Exploration”, “Quests”, “Collection and spawning of life forms”, and “Action puzzle solving” as the “basic game play” of The Big Blue but you can’t see any of these at work in the simple game prototype that’s linked to on the page. All that has you do is open clam shells to the sound of a drum beat and stalk dolphins.
Plus, considering Annunziata is claiming his team’s “goal is to create the most beautiful water and lighting effects ever seen” the protoype shows just how far they’ve got to go. It’s not fair to judge a game on a prototype but it seems disingenuous to make such claims when you’re asking people to pledge money to support your work.
These claims continue throughout the pitch document “Using procedural animation system the creatures of the Big Blue will be very lifelike. The movements through the water, and even above the surface, will be perfect and super realistic.“
The difficulty of gauging this pitch is there is some real talent working with the team. As well as lead composer Spencer Nilsen, scoring the game is Bear McCreary, famous for his work on Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead. Then they also have Jon Berg working on creature design – Berg was behind the design of the Imperial Walker in The Empire Strikes Back. These are some pedigree artists to have attached to your project.
Yet, until the Kickstarter pitch is further fleshed out with what exactly players would do in the game and where their money is going it seems like a project to be wary of. At the time of writing, mind, it’s $14,000 towards its $665,000 target with a month left on the clock.
And here’s that Kickstarter link again so you can read through the details yourself.