Massimo Guarini’s next game will be “emotionally challenging” and about the same length as a movie.
After the less-than-successful launch of Shadows of the Damned, Guarini left Grasshopper manufacture to start his own independent studio, Ovosconico. The Milan-based studio announced today that it’s begun work on its first game, an untitled “movie-length” project that will apparently poke at the sensitive bits of the player’s psyche.
“All I can say is that I want to craft memorable experiences,” he said. “There is so much more to be explored besides throw-away iPhone games and 40-hour long traditional productions. I think the best way for us to achieve our vision is to provide a rich emotional experience packaged in a movie-length time frame, and possibly sold at a reasonable price.”
It seems Guarini is attempting to emulate the success of shorter, more adventurous games like Journey, Braid and Limbo. Of course the “possibly sold at a reasonable price” bit is a touch worrying. The pricing of indie games is hugely important, as many thrifty gamers still directly equate “value” with “length.”
Guarini has previously stated that he thinks the industry’s infatuation with newer, shinier technology is limiting creative freedom.
“I totally expect games to grow as an industry and as a medium. We’re just not there yet; it’s just a young industry,” he told Gamasutra before the release of Shadows of the Damned. “So for now it’s still very much software running, and that aspect influences a lot of the mentality of developers and the mentality of companies. You don’t see that in movies right now because that’s it, the technology of movies is 24 frames per second. That’s pretty much all there is about it, so you can experiment with all the rest. So I’m expecting the same thing to happen in video games — it’ll just take some time.”
Source: Gamespot
