So we visited Microsoft at Gamescom 2013, to see what they have to show us. Out of everything that we saw there, I’m sure I’m speaking for the entire GamersPack crew when I say that Project Spark is easily one of our most anticipated games.
Project Spark lets you, the gamers, to create your own games by using its engine. We already had plenty of projects like this in the past, claiming to do the same, but this time it appears Microsoft and Team Dakota have created a truly interactive engine that can deliver on this promise. In the “game” you create your character and the world around it in a most intuitive way. If you’re not the creative type, you can always use worlds other players have created and mold it to your needs.
Building the world can be done in an almost automatic manner, in which you pick up a “paint brush” of, lets say, trees, and paint an entire forest with one stroke. The game has it own ecosystem, which means that if you create a mountain and than cover it with forests, the higher you go up the mountain, the thinner the vegetation is (just like in real life). Don’t Worry, you can override it and cover the entire mountain with huge trees in you want.
The most interesting part of world-building system is the “brain” of every object. You can “go inside” every thing in the world and change it’s behavior and attributes. If you decide this bear is actually a bird, it will start tweeting and fly away. On a more serious note, Project Spark lets you control every aspect of every character and item with your controller. If, for example, you want to make a fighting game with different combos for each character – it’s entirely possible to do.
Microsoft has also shown how the game works with the new Kinect. With the Kinect, players can create new animations and record dialog lines for their characters. This is nothing short an amazing, because it gives the player total control over the way the game will be played. Another reveal that happened during Gamescom was the scale of the worlds we’ll be able to create – five by five kilometers.
Naturally, after all that, the ability to change the point of view of your game is a given. You can make first-person shooters or top-down racing games with ease, no coding or secret game design know-how.
Project Spark will be available for free on Windows 8 devices and any Microsoft home console.
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