But current players are clocking in 400 hours of playtime at three minutes per game, and he has plans to add three more mechanics that turn SpyParty into a 1,000-hour game on par with Counter-Strike, StarCraft and Dota. Hecker has concerns about the game's development time – he's still dipping into savings, and he worries about fan and press fatigue. Eventually, SpyParty will hit Steam Early Access, but Hecker wants to make sure the core game and its community are solidified first. The beta is live now, available for $15 through the SpyParty website. And I have plenty of game design stuff to do in that time.
![spyparty alice spyparty alice](https://live.staticflickr.com/4079/4793872005_ec59d3dbde_b.jpg)
"But now that we've got a cadence on the five characters, it's gonna be another year or more just to get the rest of the characters in. "I try to avoid making a timeline because I don't want to get depressed – it's kind of better not to know," Hecker says. That helps us hone in on a (very) tentative launch window. It would be a total shame not to do it."Ĭimino is now tackling the art and animation for new characters in groups of five, with the previous five characters revealed one year ago. We've got this opportunity and it's a huge weak point of games. As opposed to your space marine fantasy, where it would be weird if there were an old lady up there. You want the crazy, wacky set of characters. "Fictionally speaking, it totally rewards that kind of diversity. "It's one of the only games – it's me and The Sims, basically – that can do that kind of thing," Hecker says. Sexual orientation won't be represented by any character's appearance, either – that's represented in the game itself with the "seduce target" mission that allows players to choose same-sex or opposite-sex targets. Class, however, is one diversity area the game won't hit, since the entire thing centers on a fancy, high-society cocktail party. Hecker and Cimino are attempting to include all the variants they can. Hecker isn't yet sure if he'll allow players to shoot the dog (complete with yappy sound effects). The little dog head is fully articulated and will react to things around it. J is a plump old lady in a stunning purple suit, but the real story here is her purse dog. Plus, Hecker thinks "the dot-com turtleneck snob look is going to get him shot a lot."
SPYPARTY ALICE FULL
H's hair is roughly two full characters, but "it's worth it because it looks so awesome," Hecker says. H's voluminous hair contains 23,767 triangles – most SpyParty characters take up 12,000 triangles total. G is a redesign of the game's current, placeholder general figure. F is an Asian woman in an "equestrian fashion" outfit that looks like she "just came in from the polo match." She's modeled after Cimino's girlfriend, Alice. All 10 pretty characters will be playable in a new map at PAX at the end of August, with plans to get them in the beta a few weeks afterward.Įach new character has its own rich (and we do mean rich) development backstory:
![spyparty alice spyparty alice](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6a/e6/1d/6ae61d6d2fc46ac1bdd724aac4be40a4.jpg)
Hecker and Cimino unveiled five new characters today, bringing the new-art total to 10. That's right – SpyParty will have 20 playable characters, each done up in the revamped, 3D art style revealed in 2012.
![spyparty alice spyparty alice](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7f/49/9d/7f499d79bb7bc212a28a6dfc2024d603.jpg)
I'm slow anyway, but it just takes time, even if I were fast." "It's insane to do a competitive-level, multiplayer, 3D game with 20 custom-animated, high-end, AAA-quality chraracters – with two people," Hecker says.
SPYPARTY ALICE PLUS
Hecker and Cimino are all of these things, plus more roles, all of the time. That, and the development team is just him and artist John Cimino – no extra PR team, concept art division, website designer or programmers. Hecker says part of the problem is that he just needs to type faster, but really, SpyParty is taking so long because he needs it to be perfect. SpyParty has been in development for five years. It's taking too long – but probably not for the reasons they think."
![spyparty alice spyparty alice](http://www.spyparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/convo_03.jpg)
We're so very very busy.Chris Hecker has something to say to everyone who thinks he's taking too long to develop SpyParty: "They're right. We've also been playing Two Point Hospital, Spy Party and Unavowed.
SPYPARTY ALICE PATCH
And Brendan tests our bug knowledge with a patch notes quiz. Meanwhile, Alice Bell tells us about a rude Wyvern who keeps interrupting a romance scene in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Alice Liguori of the video squad joins us to say hello, and to celebrate the twitchy bodies of the Sims.