lunes, 30 de diciembre de 2013

Mobile Game Rewards Library Check-ins With Epic Swords

God of Blades Title ScreenThe upcoming iOS title God of Blades asks players to venture to their local libraries to unlock better items in the game.

God of Blades, which is coming to all iOS devices later this year, is a side-scrolling action game set in a fantasy world. Your character, known as The Nameless King, moves across the world as a spirit, vanquishing enemies with his collection of awesome swords.

But it's much more than just a hack-and-slash, say the creators at White Whale Games. The small studio in Austin, TX is spending time to lovingly craft this passion project. The whole theme of the game is literary. The side-scrolling levels are meant to resemble Japanese scrolls and the nameless spectre gathers swords from many lost tales to complete his battles.

It's also this literary theme that inspired White Whale to incorporate check-ins. Using Foursquare's API, anyone who checks in at a library will be rewarded with one of several ultra-powerful swords.

"We just wanted to encourage people to go out there and enjoy the adventure that is life," co-founder and lead designer George Royer said.

Royer intends to bring a deeper level to a game that is already about stories and memories. A portion of the game revolves around a fictional literary canon — a series of "lost" pulp novels from the 1940s to the '70s. The covers of the novels, which all say they are from the "God of Blades Universe," are being designed by Jason Rosenstock, White Whale's creative director.

"We took a lot of inspiration from the pulp novels of the time, and have gotten a great response from people," Rosenstock said.

Rosenstock is also drawing intricate backgrounds for all the levels reminiscent of another lost medium: the moving panaroma of the 18th and 19th centuries. These kilometer-long paintings were rolled up slowly to give the illusion of movement and action. Rosenstock said he is using art techniques hardly touched by digital, including practical effect, which is pressing paint between two panes of glass to get vibrant hues and color patterns.

White Whale said the game will be released for iOS and PC later this year. Check out some of the scenes from the game, as well as the covers of the above-mentioned novels, in the gallery below.

What do you think of check-ins incorporated into games? Let us know in the comments.

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