Graduates of USC game design school have channeled their love of silent films into a charming game.
Matt Korba, President and Creative Director of The Odd Gentlemen, is busy putting the finishing touches on a quirky little game called The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. First seen at GDC in 2008 as a student project from Korba’s days at USC, Winterbottom is unique game in which the main objective is collecting pie. The beauty comes form the style, the game has very little sound effects beyond the ragtime piano soundtrack and a limited color palette. Winterbottom‘s originality landed Korba’s company, The Odd Gentlemen, with a contract 2K Play to distribute the game over Xbox Live this winter. Jordan Deam sat down with The Odd Gentlemen for this week’s issue of The Escapist:
Certainly, videogames are no stranger to the bizarre and dreamlike; the medium will forever be in debt to a certain mushroom-chomping, turtle-hucking plumber. But Winterbottom’s weirdness is a bit more studied. “I was a film major before I was at USC,” says Korba. “I just love silent films, and I wanted to bring some of that charm into the gaming world. And I wanted it to be something that was simpler and tell a much simpler storyline that was humorous. Silent films captured that very easily.”
Independent games like Winterbottom are the perfect cure to the over-hyped game culture and I, for one, am looking forward to downloading it on XBLA. Read more about the Odd Gentlemen and their game in A Gentleman and a Scholar.
