Mark Cooke’s G-Mixer

“Linger in Shadows” – the recent PlayStation Network release – is yet another part of the long history of the crossover of the demoscene and the game industry. For a nominal fee the user is greeted with what is largely a traditional demo. It has all the classic elements: lots of procedural content, mix of 2D paintings and 3D imagery, “greets” to other scene groups, and a soundtrack that matches the visuals. It is looks impressive, doing well to showcase the talents of the programmers and artists of the development team at Plastic.

The two significant and unusual things about Linger in Shadows are first, that the group was funded and published by Sony, and that second there are a number of interactive elements in the demo.

Why would Sony fund a small group of developers to create a non-game for their platform? Was it an extension of Ken Kutaragi’s original vision that the PS3 was to be more than a games console? Personally, I’m impressed that they would invest in such a project. I would be surprised if Linger in Shadows is profitable. I believe it could be used as a marketing tool in technology circles to show Sony’s interest in art projects or to promote the abilities of its platform. This is the kind of project that could attract the attention of artists outside of the mainstream game industry. With the current economy though and Sony’s recent sales struggles I doubt another similar project will get greenlit. I hope to be proven wrong.

The other attention grabbing part of the demo is that unlike a traditional PC based demo there are a number of interactive components. At various times while watching the demo, the user can spin the controller to move objects or light sources in the scene, for example. Other times they can scrub the movie’s time line forward and backward. Using the camera to look around can find hidden objects and greets that unlock PSN Trophies. It is certainly no game but the addition of these elements gives the demo an extra layer to peel back.

Linger in Shadows may go unappreciated by the gaming populace and in some ways it isn’t surprising. As a game developer a lot of the appeal of the demoscene is not just in watching something beautiful and admiring the creativity of the human race but in inspiration in both technology and artistry. Users without that specific interest may not find Linger in Shadows or any other demo particularly interesting and so be it. That said, games like Max Payne are widely appreciated by gamers. That game’s developer, Remedy Entertainment, was born out of the demoscene group Future Crew. I’m certain there are countless other members of the game industry who either came from the demoscene or were inspired by it.

Finally, I’m happy to report that Plastic has generously released some of the tools used to create the demo. The content looks like it was developed largely inside of Maya with a custom plug-in that acts as a WYSIWYG real-time renderer. It reminds me of working with the Unreal Engine or Crytek. The ability to edit something and then be immediately able to preview it as it would look in game is very powerful. Below is a video of their tools, more information can be found on Plastic’s main site.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 4:44 am and is filed under art, game development, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.