Bossa Studios: World’s Adrift

Bossa Studios is the indie developer behind uniquely fun games such as the comedically gory Surgeon Simulator, and I Am Bread, the game where you play the role of bread looking for a toaster. They have a new project called World’s Adrift that is set for release next year that is just as innovative, but with much greater ambition.

World’s Adrift is a sandbox environment full of floating islands, grappling hooks, and flying galleons. In this game, players will be able to maneuver around with grappling hooks and hang gliders, and build their own ships. Quite exciting isn’t it?

Bossa’s co-founder, Henrique Olifiers, said the idea behind the game was to really push the envelope and show people that MMOs can be more than just that cardboard thing. He said that with games like Minecraft that allow you to build your own world from the ground up, going back to playing a restrictive MMO where one person is telling you what to do just doesn’t make sense.

This is where Improbable’s simulation technology, on which the super-powered sandbox game is built on, and Bossa Studios is challenging this idea. If you kill an animal, its bones will be on the floor. If you continue kill  species, it’s possible to completely wipe it out from existence. Along with these features, the real-time physics in the game might pose a problem for players. Luke Williams, the game designer said that because the game is inherently physics based, you have to change the way you think about things. If your engine is rolling down a hill you have to think about where your building station is, instead of blaming the developers.

The game is one that is more realistic than others, at least in terms of consequences and scavenging. A crashed galleon can be scavenged for parts by other players, animals can be killed off completely, and people can go to war. Williams said they are working on the ecosystem for the game and trying out different models to see which one works best. For the story, Williams and Olifiers referred to how Eve Online players get to create their own story and they see the same thing happening in Worlds Adrift.

“The nature of the sandbox means we want players to have little stories, like maybe in their first hour they do have an oil tanker sized thing rock up and maybe they do get slaughtered. or they help them out, or they stow aboard. We don’t have systems of ownership for islands but we suspect people might group together and decide this region of the world is now ours and they’ll command an armada.” ~Luke Williams

The game so far looks very cool and there is a planned beta for later in the year. Register here to be the first to play the game.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz