This month’s Edge magazine contains a feature on Gamecock – an unfortunately named upstart publisher which plans to avoid sequels and licenses. The founders – ex-Take 2 employees Mike Wilson and Harry Miller – have five titles on the go at the moment at a variety of studios, some of which have worked on very big titles in the past.
Mushroom Men: The Spore War from Red Fly Studios is a B-movie style take on Pikmin starring a three-inch high fungus. It’s currently destined for “consoles and handhelds†and will involve warfare in household environments. Common household trinkets and rubbish can be recycled into new weapons and tools. Rather than being colourful and twee though, the artwork suggests a dark, gothic theme.
Dungeon crawler Hero is being handled by Firefly Studios – they of Stranglehold fame – and according to Edge they wanted to create this new IP instead of a sequel to the million selling Stranglehold. Why? Because it promises to be fun. Instead of entering a room with a chest at the end and a couple of enemies aimlessly waiting to be killed, you’ll find yourself in a situation where the enemies are actually trying to make off with the loot themselves. Hopefully it’ll do away with all the dungeon crawler traditions.
On DS and PC there’s Insecticide, which is being put together by people – Crackpot – who worked on LucasArt classics Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. This too is an adventure game, albeit one that features gunplay and multiplayer modes, set in the third-person. It’s not clear if it’ll employ a ‘point and click’ interface, but the artwork is reminiscent of Beyond Good & Evil.
Hail to the Chimp – from Wideload Games, and destined for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – is billed as a follow up to Stubbs the Zombie, but it’s hard to see how – it’s a beat ‘em up cum party game with a satirical twist. Wideload chose to go with Gamecock due to their business model that allows all developers to keep the rights to their productions. They even waited a year for them to get their funding sorted.
The fifth title – Fury from Auran – is currently PC only and is an MMO combining FPS and RPG. Classes can be swapped during combat, interestingly.
Various videos and teaser trailers can be found over on Gamecock’s website. And I’ve changed my mind: Gamecock is an absolutely brilliant name for a publisher.