HYdrophobia
Hydrophobia is an upcoming game from the snooker champion Blade Interactive. It will release in March 2009. Hydrophobia will be survival-adventure video game. It would be available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It will provide realistic fluid dynamic technology for flowing water and allow it to interact with the environment. It will run on HydroEngine, game engine developed by Blade interactive. All the levels of Hydrophobia are designed using Blade’s InfiniteWorldsGCS system. First teaser of the game was released at E3 2008.
Main feature of the game will involve the player being able to interact with the environment and realistic water dynamics. According to Rob Hewson, biggest part of the game is “player versus environment is certainly a large part of the experience, the wonderful thing about water is that it is constantly affecting every area of the environment, so you get incredible amount of emergent behaviour. As a player, you have to constantly adapt according to surroundings and have to react quickly because the walls, doors and windows are going to cave in differently each time according to the distribution of water.
In adding to that you have to visit previous location that have been submerged in water and are able to interact with in various ways. According to Hewson a player has to “fight through an area one time and there might a meter of water flowing around and affecting the environment. Another player might play through the same area and blow out windows or walls causing a great deal of water to flow into the scene. It means perhaps the gameplay switches to floating cover. Another player might shoots barrels, which let even more water into the scene but also ignite floating fuel fire, which are carried out fast, and to avoid them player has show underwater action.
Story of Hydrophobia starts from a cruise liner Queen of the World. Kate Wilson a system engineer is the main protagonist of the game. She turns into a reluctant hero when terrorists attack the cruise liner. She has to confront her fears while facing terrorists on the Queen. Terrorists attack the ship on the first anniversary of the Queen of the World, and Kate has to stop them. Setting of the world shown in the game are as a mid 21st century water hit area and most of the earth is sunk in the water. The Queen of the World is a Project built by five biggest corporate giants of the world as “Five Founding Fathers.” This group has prospered due to Queen while rest of the worlds is suffering. Queen is bombed by terrorist group in the starting. The group is named as Malthusian- after the economist, who predicted that population growth, will one day out pace agriculture production.
HydroEngine is a video game engine developed exclusively for Hydrophobia by Blade Interactive. The engine took almost three years to build. It has a unique capability to model flowing water and other liquids with great reality. In the gaming world, this feature is presented for the first time. Game engine is completely dynamic, meaning that effect is not repeated and thus it allows different effects each time. HydroEngine can also interface with development platform. According to the developers this engine will be used on large scale in future games. Despite the fact that the game is not released a sequel had been announced by the company. According to the managing manager of the Project, the sequel will take place in the fixed drowned Boston.
Tags: Blade Interactive, HydroEngine, Hydrophobia, InfiniteWorldsGCS, Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Xbox 360