Source: Sunstone Games press release Official Site: kaijucombat.com Special Thanks to Matt Frank
The Art of Colossal Kaiju Combat. Image courtesy of Sunstone Games. © 2013 Sunstone Games"/>COLOSSAL KAIJU COMBAT -- the indie game started last year by the folks at Sunstone Games -- released a first-glimpse trailer last weekend. As promised, they`re developing an all-out fighting game featuring giant monsters. But the real story isn`t so much what they`ve accomplished as how they`ve accomplished it. Because all of the original characters in CKC have been fan-developed, and selected by the community. If you visit their active forums you`ll discover more than a thousand original monster concepts lovingly drawn, discussed, and dissected by the community. From this pool the very best become "progenitors" -- which means the character`s creator gets face-time (well, skype-time) with the game`s lead designer (Simon Strange) and art director (Matt Frank.) to finalize and polish the creation. The result of this collaboration becomes an official part of the CKC universe -- with a bio, concept art, and combat description posted on the game`s official online design doc. The first commercial game in the CKC franchise (THE FALL OF NEMESIS) uses just 11 of these progenitors. But future games will scoop up more and more of them, which creates an ongoing need for awesome monster concepts. In addition to the video game, Sunstone Games produces high-quality Trading Cards, which feature monsters which are popular within the community, but not yet up to the polish level required for progenitors.
When all this was first announced just over a year ago, it seemed like a great concept fraught with peril. No AAA game studio has ever had such close connections with their fanbase, and that`s largely for good reasons. Game development is ugly, sweaty work -- and shielding anything less that final from outside eyes is standard practice. But Sunstone Games has stood by their "radical transparency" model - discussing every aspect of development freely and openly -- often putting up key design decisions for public vote, or even soliciting menu-screen layouts from fans. All of this is carefully documented in their online design documentation - including links back to the discussions which led to each decision. So now they`ve released a trailer for the world to see, and indeed they`ve take mutant polar bears, walking eels, android werewolves, giant sharks etc -- and creating something much more cohesive than it sounds. The team is small and the budget is modest, but they`re not afraid to dream big! COLOSSAL KAIJU COMBAT has just launched their Greenlight campaign to be published via Steam -- you can search for "Kaiju" via Steam or just check it out at steamcommunity.com/189069844. They also have a Kickstarter to fund porting their engine to OUYA -- lots of physical & PC rewards there even if you don`t have any interest in that console.
About Sunstone Games
Sunstone Games is a cross-media game developer -- working on mobile games, physical boardgames, and PC/console titles. They believe in developing for people of all varieties & backgrounds, and practice radical transparency in their design & development process. <br clear=all