PC and PS3 versions will come later for the water action game that ”only the best” can match in production quality. Big but tiny sized game.
”Hydrophobia is of a production quality that only the best at retail can match and yes it is of a comparable gameplay length to an AAA retail game,” Dark Energy boss Jones was happy to tell IncGamers in an interview.
It’s a full release and one that has surprised its developer because the total size of the game, thanks to their proprietary engine Infinite Worlds, is so incredibly small. This has been a side effect of the technology they used.
”We produced the engine principally because it conveys a massive productivity benefit - basically it allows a small team like ourselves to produce a big budget game,” explained the studio boss. ”But it had a spin off effect of producing a game to an impossibly small file size. Impossibly small meaning under 1GB.”
”My bizarre analogy for this is Viagra. It was developed as a heart drug but had an interesting side effect.” Let’s hope for Hydrophobia’s sake that analogy doesn’t end up in the ESRB ratings summary - you know how the US gets.
”Size matters. Not sure that the industry has quite grasped this one yet. All of a sudden everyone talks about downloading games,” said Jones.
”But this bright digital future has a big elephant sitting in their virtual room. Until developers produce games with IW or its equivalent it will remain a dream.”
Hydrophobia will be releasing exclusively to Xbox 360 but only for a time, before it gets round to landing on the PC and eventually the PS3 too.
We’re reminded that ”this is a retail game digitally delivered” from a ”humble Manchester company may be about to spark a revolution.” We won’t forget …maybe. Are you looking forward to Dark Energy Digital’s Hydrophobia? It’s got a boat, flooding and terrorists!
