There aren't many indie developers working right now that trade more heavily in peculiar and refreshing ideas than Twisted Pixel Games. TP is a studio that attempts new stuff as a matter of course and isn’t afraid to pump a little quirk into a game, which is the main reason why I’m such a fan of the Texas-based studio and thrilled about its next game, The Gunstringer.
If you didn’t hear, The Gunstringer is a Western-themed shooter that’ll have you taking control of an undead puppet with revenge broiling in his gut. In the game, you’ll control the gunstringer hands-free via Kinect by, perhaps, holding up your hands as if you were controlling marionette strings. Details are sketchy, but that’s the basic gist of what we know about the game at the moment. Sounds crazy, right?
I decided to hit up TP’s CEO Michael “Big Dog” Wilford with a couple of questions about The Gunstringer the other afternoon, attempting to glean what I could with the time available to us. In the text below, we talk about the inspirations for the Gunstringer, the choice to use Kinect, and other fun things Wilford couldn’t really comment on without disrupting future plans. Check it out to learn a little bit more about the game.
== TEASER ==I’m seeing a lot of Comic Jumper in this one, but that might just be in my head. Could you talk about how Comic Jumper may have informed Gunstringer? Any mechanics or functionalities? Aside from controls, where does this game break from Comic Jumper?
So, you chose Kinect as the game’s controller. Why? Also, could you describe how the different parts of the game will control and what other Kinect-enabled games have taught you?
We wanted to make a Kinect game because Kinect is a pretty awesome piece of technology. There's a lot of cool stuff you can do with it that hasn't been done yet since the hardware is still so young.
This is our chance to make a unique core platforming shooter game with really interesting puppeteering motion controls. I can't tell you more about the gameplay right now since it's all still in development and there's a lot of things being figured out, but we're planning to have a playable demo at PAX East that you can check out for yourself.
Yeah, actually, we just wrapped a pretty big film shoot over the weekend where we invited hundreds of local Austin actors and fans to come be a part of something we're doing for The Gunstringer. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but we're doing some cool stuff.
I’ve got to ask about release date. Also, I’d love to hear about where the idea of Gunstringer came from in the first place.
All we're saying right now is that it's a Kinect-exclusive coming out sometime this year. As for the idea, we've actually had the idea to do a marionette game for a long time, so when we saw Kinect we jumped at the chance to finally build it. Although the Gunstringer character didn't come about until about five minutes before we pitched the game.
Big thanks to Michael Wilford for taking a slice out of a busy day for a brief conversation. The Gunstringer is due out at some point in 2011 for the Xbox 360.