Monthly Archives: March 2017

Narita Boy is part video game project, part idle day dream. Even its creator isnt entirely sure what it will become. But the art and energy behind it is undeniable. Like a long forgotten NES cart buried in your grandparents basement, Narita Boy insinuates itself in the imagination like a memory of something that never happened.

The game follows a dimension hopping warrior sporting a techno sword whos tasked with saving the digital kingdom from certain doom. Currently four people working on the game, including Eduardo Fornieles, its creator, and the founder of Studio Koba. Previously of Friends and Foe where he worked as a visual and conceptional developer on Vane, Fornieles left to try and bring his own vision to life. I started to feverishly create the Narita Boy universe as it appears in the 200 drawings I hooked on the wall, he said, referencing a wall in his office filled with illustrations located in a Spanish village. The desk in his office is filled with post-its and memos that attempt to contain the games sprawl as it unravels in his mind.

The project is something of a collage of childhood influences at this point, ranging from action figures and cartoons to classic video games and 80s cinema. He-man action figures were my favorite toys and Double Dragon was my first game on an arcade machine, said Fornieles. I became obsessed with Metroid and Castlevania on the NES. The delicious and strange universe of Another world also inspired me. And then theres the grainy, warbly aesthetic of VHS and movies displayed on hulking tubular CRT televisions.

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The strange magic transmitted by the analogic films of the 80s with their astonishing visuals, synth music and stories full of innocence and imagination are a key part of Narita Boy, he said. In isolation these scraps of disparate media might form a familiar pastiche, but Fornieles hopes to bring a new alchemy to bear in the hopes of relaying an experience with an identify of its own,

Narita Boy was born from the need to transmit the strange universe and the nostalgic feeling that I had in my childhood. The idea was to create something metaphysical and poetic, to combine the subtlety and beauty of Japan with postmodernism and western culture. It is once again the story of the path of the warrior and at the same time an effort to transcend the plot towards something more referential. Parody is a key factor as well as the rich and complex plot that gives the game the right to be itself and not only a nostalgic journey to the 80s.

Japan, where Fornieles worked for several years and also met his wife, looms large in the background of the games influences. He calls Tokyo the the Digital Kingdom, a huge capital with monoliths and lights everywhere. He was surrounded by high rises and from his terrace at night Fornieles felt like he was living inside scene from one of Katsuhiro Otomos Akira cityscapes. Massive rectangles of concrete shining like fireflies in a silent lake, he said. Juxtapose this with the village in Castle and Leon, Spain where Fornieles now lives and is working on the game, and the inspiration for Narita Boys larger expanses and desolate geography feels acute.

We are from Barcelona but after returning from Tokyo my wife and I settled in the village of my family, in Castile and Leon, where all my ancestors come from, he said. The energy in the village is wonderful and is boosting our creativity. He believes the tranquility and calmness village life affords is key to building out his vision of the games world of cyberpunk nostalgia. The contrast it cuts throws also appears in the way the game shifts between these two types of spaces. On the one hand, theres Blade Runners dense hot Los Angeles, and on the other, Fornieles said, The country side is the void, the meditation, the exploration parts of Narita Boy when he cross a big and almost empty land.

So what does cyberpunk mean to him? The term gets thrown around a lot, especially in video games, as short hand for a certain look or sound, and in a way thats all thats really left of it. The future imagined in most cyberpunk stories has already been replaced by the recent past. Hacking, digital surveillance, and the growth of corporate influence are all common tropes at this point bordering on banal.

To escape those cliches, Fornieles tries to stay abstract. For me, cyberpunk is the first paragraph from Neuromancer, Tetsuo about to explode, hundreds of air con between old buildings in Tokyo where wires remember human hair in the morning, the skyline of Odaiwa from my terrace in Tokyo at night and Ghost in the Shell... Hes similarly vague when it comes to how old media and outdated technology are realized in the games particular style. Retro is the taste for the nostalgia. The past rebooted by the new trends. The retro to me brings the impression of distant and obsolete futures, he said.

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In terms of the game itself as people will play it, this means a hack and slash action with exploration in the vein of a Metroidvania-style side-scroller. At least for now. The project is in its infancy and still full of unknowns. In Narita Boy everything is about an experience, said Fornieles. An ironic and artistic experience where image, code and music dances together.

For all of his metaphors, Fornieless concrete memory of the Double Dragon machine he used to play at an arcade near his grandparents in a summer town along the Catalan coast seemed to capture his aspirations for Narita Boy the best. When I asked if the arcade cabinet was still there and he played it since, Fornieles turned wistful. The cabinet is not there anymore, he said. It would be awesome, right? I remember stealing 25 cents from my aunt to play the game. And I still remember the smell of frankfurts, tobacco and the insert coin message flickering on the screen.

Those same flickers are half of Narita Boys appeal. The games trailers depict a game filtered through old technology, like scratchy MP3s trying to imitate vinyl on a turntable. The field of view is even curved, as if the game itself is something being re-discovered rather than newly created. Its also reminiscent of the first line of Neuromancer cited by Fornieles.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. Narita Boys ambition seems to be making that dead channel playable again. The game is currently planned for release in December of 2018.

Originally posted here:

Narita Boy Is A Cyberpunk Game Inspired By TV Scanlines - Kotaku - Kotaku

As it catapulting the Polish studio to success, The Witcher series is extremely important for CD Projekt RED, but it's "not all that we have to offer," says CDPR President Adam Kicinski. Cyberpunk 2077 is coming, and it's even bigger than they originally planned.

CD Projekt RED is known for delivering juggernaut AAA games that truly exemplify the pinnacle of games development. Titles like The Witcher 3 are massive in scope, massive in size, and best of all, massive in quality. With its ambitious new sci-fi game Cyberpunk 2077, CDPR plans to top The Witcher 3 in practically every way.

"The success of The Witcher 3 influences our planning. It affects what we have to expect from Cyberpunk 2077," CD Projekt RED's Adam Kicinski said in a recent interview with TVN24 Business World.

"The project is even more ambitious than originally planned. Because we have to create a game that will be even more successful [than The Witcher 3]," he said. "The world's biggest commercial successes are still missing. The Witcher 3 is the best game of the year in the world according to many, but it's not a game that broke any sales records."

Remember that the studio claimed Cyberpunk 2077 is far bigger and ambitious than anything they've ever done, and now Kicinski says the scope is even bigger. Kind of mind boggling isn't it?

CD Projekt RED hopes to make Cyberpunk 2077 a massive commercial success, so much that it eclipses The Witcher 3's overall sales. To achieve this, Cyberpunk 2077 will appeal to everyone rather than fantasy fans--fantasy is a niche market, and although Cyberpunk is more sci-fi based, it'll be much more accessible to mainstream gamers.

As for the massive scope, Cyberpunk 2077 will feature a truly next-gen world filled with seamless multiplayer and dynamic AI. There will also be amazing cities with flying cars and persistent interactions to craft something new and unique.

In fact the devs were awarded a $7 million grant from the Polish government to make these amazing worlds a reality.

The Polish studio has prepared quite well for Cyberpunk 2077's huge resource cost by expanding both of its Warsaw and Krakow-based studios to 500+ developers. Remember that CDPR has a massive business structure that's now worth over $1 billion, and will likely continue to grow thanks to its multi-faceted strategies including the GOG.com marketplace.

CDPR has announced a promo campaign across the United States, Western Europe and Poland for later this year, so we could see new Cyberpunk 2077 info dropped sometime soon.

And yes, CDPR confirms The Witcher series isn't dead...but it's "too early to tell" about a new game in the fantasy series.

So when will Cyberpunk 2077 release? We don't have an official release date yet, and probably won't for another year or two, but we do know Cyberpunk 2077 will release alongside another AAA RPG by 2021.

Excerpt from:

Cyberpunk 2077 is more ambitious than planned - TweakTown

In an interview with Polish website Gazeta, CD Project Red Co-founder Micha Kicisk talks about how he thinkstheir upcoming titleCyberpunk 2077 is coming along. Suffice it to say, he's very positive about their new title.

"I am convinced that Cyberpunk 2077 may be a much greater commercial success than The Witcher 3. The Futuristic world of Cyberpunk is closer to what we know from everyday life. It is also increasingly popular as evidenced of the phenomenons presence in a number of films, books, comics and games. You have to remember that fantasy, is a niche topic."

For those unaware, CD Projekt Red is the team behindThe Witcher series and the commercial success of The Witcher 3: The WildHunt.Kicisk believesCyberpunk 2077can outdoThe Witcher 3because the first two games in the Witcher series were mostly popular in Central Europe due toThe Witcher being a Polish IP in the form of books, tabletop games, and even a TV show. He believesa cyberpunk setting would be more approachable for a wider audience from the gate.

"I believe that in the case of Cyberpunk CD Projekt will be able to fight not only for the prestigious prizes and awards, but also for great commercial success. The combination of these two elements in the gaming industry is difficult but entirely possible, as the example of Rockstar today, and Blizzard before them."

The commercial success ofCyberpunk 2077 could probably thank the successes ofThe Witcher 3 as it put CD Projekt Red as a developer right up there next to series likeThe Elder ScrollsandDragon Age.

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CD Project Red Co-Founder: "Cyberpunk 2077 may be a much greater commercial success than The Witcher 3" - GameZone