Bitmonster Announces Lili for iOS
A girl sails on a bright blue ocean, peering through her spyglass at the landmass before her: Geos, an island full of life both in the bright green plants and the quirky wooden-like creatures that call it home. You take on the role of this mysterious girl in Bitmonster Games’s first title, an adventure/RPG for iOS devices called Lili. The game, while still in development, boasts “one of the most beautiful environments you’ll ever see on an iOS device.” Nothing less would be expected from such a successful group of designers.
Geos Spotted
Bitmonster Games is a newly founded indie game company looking to develop successful games for mobile platforms, starting with their first title due out in a few weeks. The team is made up of six developers formerly with Epic Games, many of whom worked previously on the Gears of War franchise, and an Executive Production Management Director in Chief: Lucky the Cat (Likely the brains behind the operation ^_~). This all star team is headed up by Lee Perry, former Lead Designer at Epic Games, who has 18 years of art and design experience under his belt.
The developers’ debut title will utilize Unreal Engine 3, the product of a multi-title licensing deal with Epic Games. The deal makes sense considering portability of the engine (as talked about in Convergence Theory) that will make it easier for development on multiple platforms in the future.
Running through the Landscape
“As a designer, it’s exciting to see that the Unreal Engine 3 tools are better than ever, and they provide everything we need to achieve a gratifying and imaginative experience,” Lee Perry said in an interview with VentureBeat. Given previous experience with the engine that backs powerhouse games like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, utilizing this very capable engine makes a lot of sense.
Bitmonster has so far teased that the gameplay will be about conquering personal issues and challenging an oppressive regime; such talk reminds this gamer of similarities such as Dom dealing with the death of his love and the impossible challenge of facing the horde. Likely the similarities between the two titles end there as a simple glance at the teaser trailer reveals to us a very different world.
“We set out to create an adventure that is appropriate for nearly everyone,” Perry told VentureBeat. “My daughter has never seen anything I have worked on. We want to play games with our families.” Perhaps one day Perry Jr. will know the joy of chainsawing a Locust Drone quite literally in half and hearing the pieces fall to the earth.
Conversing with a Native
According to Bitmonster’s website, Lili will focus on item collecting, mini games, humorous character interactions and a “non-combat system,” an announcement that has much of the industry a-twitter (no pun intended). Perry has yet to give any explanation as to what this sort of system might be, deflecting questions with promises that all will be revealed soon enough.
Bitmonster Games will be at Casual Connect in Seattle on July 24-26. No exact release date has been announced for Lili just yet, but keep your eye on Gaming Illustrated to hear about all the updates as they happen.
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Miranda L Visser
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