GameCityNights 3

Following the cancellation of Alan Wake lead writer Sam Lake’s appearance at the ScreenLit festival on April 24^th due to that pesky ash cloud, GameCity announced that GameCityNights 3 would be a double-headliner special, with Sam taking part in a webchat live on the night, followed by Beatnik Games talking about their debut release, Plain Sight.

GameCityNights is the brainchild of games festival and exposition company GameCity, who aim to brighten up the days....or rather, nights of gamers each month by holding an event that brings together game developers, students and general fanatics by way of providing food, drink, a fiendishly hard quiz and talks from developers, with the audience then able to trial the game that has just been talked about to make up their mind for themselves.

Sat in front of a...subtle... promotional backdrop, Sam was ready to talk to the assembled audience from Remedy HQ in Finland via the wonders of Skype. A quick look at Google Earth just before the talk kicked off place revealed that Remedy HQ was cast in shadow by the huge volcanic ash cloud still looming overhead.

The game has currently been in development for around 6 years, and asked what had been going on during that time, Sam’s response was a wry grin and a “making a good game – I hope!” Sam then went on to explain that after the success of the Max Payne games, Remedy felt that they would take the time to fully develop Alan Wake into the game that they wanted it to be.

With plans to cross Alan Wake into other media forms, including game novelisations, we were informed that the film rights hadn’t yet been sold, and that Sam “wasn’t certain” that they would be sold. However, that wasn’t a flat out denial, so an Alan Wake film could still be on the cards some years down the line.

Continuing along this train of thought, Sam stated that they [Remedy] envision the concept of Alan Wake as a TV series, with the game taking place on the main feature, and DLC to take the place of special features that act “as a bridge between Alan Wake 1 and any potential sequels”.

After Sam Lake's talk on the development and creation of Alan Wake, Beatnik Games took to the stage to talk about their first foray into the world of games development, with “suicidal ninja robot” game, Plain Sight.

Founded in 2007 by Robin Lacey and Damien Cerri, Beatnik Games were all FPS gamers who were becoming disenfranchised with the way that certain shooters were starting to look the same and the way that online gameplay was being plagued with the problem of “getting shot in the face by someone with a Sniper Rifle from miles away.”

With this in mind, Beatnik set out to produce a game that incorporated the need to keep moving to survive. Killing your opponents in the game gains you energy instead of points. The more energy you have, the brighter and more visible you become to other people. To keep alive, you need to keep on the move – a great way to solve the problem of those who like to set up tent and stove on a high vantage point.

Transferring this energy into points is done by way of blowing your robot up, with these points then enabling you to buy upgrades and items for your robot to take back into battle.

Plain Sight is currently available to buy from Steam, and Beatnik are hoping that the game will also be available on the PlayStation Network in early 2011.