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Team 17 Interview; Alien Breed XBLA Detailed

S

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
http://www.developmag.com/interviews/477/YORKSHIRE-PROFILE-Team-17

Team 17 is one of the longest-running studios still around today. Founded in 1990, it has released an astonishing 140 games in its time, across more than 16 different formats.

Location:
Osset, Yorkshire
Employees:
Approx. 90
Previous work:
Worms series, Alien Breed series, Superfrog, Super Stardust, Body Blows series
Currently working on:
Alien Breed XBLA, Worms Armageddon, Leisure Suit Larry

The company found its fame on the Amiga platform, creating classic games such as Alien Breed, Superfrog and the title that built the empire – Worms.

Although often seen as just being the Worms company, Team 17 has long been working on external IP – most recently on a next-generation version of Leisure Suit Larry, called Box Office Bust, formerly for Vivendi but now to be published by Codemasters.

As well as continuing to evolve Worms on contemporary platforms, the studio’s current main focus is a reinvention of the classic shooter Alien Breed, brought kicking and screaming into the current high-definition and online co-op world.


“We’ve been trying to convince publishers about a PS2 or PSP version of Alien Breed for years now, and we got very close, but it never happened for various reasons,” says studio head Martyn Brown.

“We’ve had a 15-year relationship with Epic, so we’ve used their engine to do our own thing, to release our own digital distribution title. We’ve taken the core game but taken a much more modern and evocative take on it. It’s a bit like Diablo 3 meets Dead Space.

“It’s coming out in chapters – the game is in three chunks, each kind of a standalone game, with about five hours of gameplay. We’re probably about five months from release.”

At a time when many companies are trying to release their digital games on as many networks at possible, Team 17 has a definite preference for Microsoft: Alien Breed will initially only be on XBLA, and while Microsoft’s service is getting a sequel to Worms, PSN is merely getting an update of the original title.

“We get a lot of support from Microsoft, so we’re releasing with them initially,” says Brown. “Worms has done enormous numbers on Xbox Live Arcade. The PSN version will be interesting – a lot of the games on PSN tend to be experimental; there’s not that many ‘solid’ games out there. So we’ll see how that goes.”

Despite being less than 90 people, the studio is working on over 10 SKUs currently. How does it manage to work on so many things at once?

“We’ve been around a while, so we’ve got really mature technology. There’s maybe 20 or 25 people working on Alien Breed because we’re using Unreal. It could be treble that if we weren’t using UE3, so that’s pretty efficient. The internal tech for Worms has been around for years, so it’s only been four or five guys on the PS3 version, maybe 10 on the Xbox Live Arcade one. And two guys on the iPhone version.”

But the real story for Team 17 is how it’s embracing the digital space – it predicts that its current Worms titles for the PSP, DS and Wii platforms might be the last physical products it ever makes.

“We’re really embracing the digital space. It’s absolutely more promising for us – the industry’s only going one way. I don’t think it’ll be that long before it’s all digital. Plus, it means we can self-publish as developers. We had six years of publishing in the retail space in the early nineties.

Things were different then: it came to a point where more money was being spent on marketing than development, so we backed out and have stayed developers for about ten years. With digital platforms the marketing isn’t such a big deal – it’s kind of there in front of you, so it seems the right time for us to re-enter that.”
Click to expand...
 
L

Label

The Amiga Brotherhood
My dreams have just come true. yes. YES YEEEESSS!!

Now bring on Cannon Fodder! :D (I wish Sensible Software were still around :( )
 
M

Maximilian E.

AKA MS-Evangelist
FUCK YEAH!!!

this will be very interesting...
but please, more amiga games on XBLA...
...
FUCK YEAAAAh...

EDIT:
So they are updating the gfx with unreal engine? Well, I hope they can maintain the core experience. It would be nice to have the original titel/titels in there somewhere as a unlockable or something,...


sweetest pre-E3 news in a looong time..
 
D

davygee

Banned
When I had an Amiga, they were without doubt the best game makers in the industry at the time. Classics such as Alien Breed, AB2 and Tower Assault as well as Superfrog, Project X and Assassin are classics. They knew how to get the best out of the Amiga.

I would love an Alien Breed game based on the original, shame I have a PS3 then, hope they make a PS3 version.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Team 17 Interview; Alien Breed XBLA Detailed
Click to expand...
Alien Breed XBLA Detailed
Click to expand...
Alien Breed XBLA
Click to expand...
Alien Breed
Click to expand...

e4c5tbdj.jpg
 
poppabk

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
The Amiga exclusives that the 360 gets are the one thing that might eventually push me into a purchase.
 
stuminus3

stuminus3

Banned
Founded in 1990, it has released an astonishing 140 games in its time, across more than 16 different formats.
Click to expand...
What the... I assume this counts every single port of every single version of Worms as a different game? o_O

<3 Alien Breed. Team 17 were truly stars back in the day.
 
S

Superfrog

Member
satriales said:
Superfrog next please.
Click to expand...
Yes? :D

The Alien Breed remake was already announced in August 2008. There's even already a neat new logo:

2ducgo2.jpg


A few older quotes from Martyn Brown on AB:

spadge said:
"We can't give out any real detail yet, but for those who enjoyed the original I think you'll find we'll do it more than justice - and for those who have no idea what the game was, they'll find something of note to play (with a pal, if they like). And I can say safely suggest it's not an FPS, nor a re-dressed port. There's a ton of energy for this inside the company and we've ached for this opportunity for a while - we certainly don't intend to f**k it up."
Click to expand...
http://www.eurogamer.net/article_discussion.php?article_id=238791

"We're doing it [the Alien Breed remake] with a budget far in excess of anything that has been spent anywhere on a digital title to date."
Click to expand...
http://news.*****.com/article/16093/Exclusive_All_New_Alien_Breed_Confirmed

*drool*
 
P

pswii60

Member
Oh man, I used to love Team 17 games back in the Amiga days. Never really liked Worms though!

Alien Breed is good news :)
 
F

Firestorm

Member
If you want a ten page thread, bold the following:
“We get a lot of support from Microsoft, so we’re releasing with them initially,” says Brown. “Worms has done enormous numbers on Xbox Live Arcade. The PSN version will be interesting – a lot of the games on PSN tend to be experimental; there’s not that many ‘solid’ games out there. So we’ll see how that goes.”
Click to expand...
 
A

_Angelus_

Banned
Don't do it. The last thing we need is another baby thread about "why is PSN being neglected of another great game?!"
Every network has exclusives,its always gonna be that way.
 
DCharlie

DCharlie

And even i am moderately surprised
re: Paradroid - Jester had the rights to do a paradroid remake/sequel , they released one vid of it yeaaaaaaars ago (well, a concept render i guess)

I would be all over Paradroid. Uridium too. And i would like them to use the C64 version of Paradroid as a base, not Paradroid 90.

Anyways, Alien Breed? SPLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGE
 
L

Label

The Amiga Brotherhood
U K Narayan said:
Is Alien Breed scary?
Click to expand...


I used to get scared, wel not scared but totally fucking pumped when you had to escape within the time limit! :lol

ooohhhh I cannot wait for this :D
 
D

duckroll

Member
Looks a bit weird. I won't really criticize anything until I've played a demo at least, since I'm a pretty big Alien Breed fan back in the day, but I'm not too sure about the camera angle. I'll really prefer for it to be classic top down, no need to mess with the formula imo. They should really consider remaking Tower Assault for either the PSP or the DS. I think it'll work great on portables with a quicksave feature and multiplayer.... ^^;
 
D

dejay

Banned
Hard to tell about a game like this from those screenshots. I was expecting more of a top down feel but I'm keen to try the new perspective.
 
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