Fable: Journey was 4 months old at E3

Kinect game Fable: The Journey had only been in development for four months when it was shown at E3, Peter Molyneux has revealed. That's why there were "huge faults" with the demo.

But the Lionhead founder has promised a fuller, playable demo for German video game extravaganza Gamescom, in August.

"This project really only started... Well in earnest it started about seven months ago and we started coding about four months ago," Molyneux told OXM, presumably at E3, which would make Fable: The Journey nearly five months old now.

"There's huge faults with this demo," he admitted, referring to the E3 build.

"The quality isn't quite there, and we haven't had enough time to fulfil all our ambitions. But come Gamescom, our ambition is to give you something to play with because, rough though it is at the moment, it already feels pretty cool."

Molyneux said Microsoft came to Lionhead and asked, "Could you do a core game for Kinect?" Lionhead already had a wealth of Kinect experience from off-and-on project Milo & Kate. Molyneux said mechanics covering "seated stuff, relaxed gameplay, voice and gesturing and all of that stuff" were "in the bank". And so Molyneux evidently told Microsoft "yes".

The problems came, however, when switching Fable: The Journey from proprietary Lionhead tech to Unreal Engine 3 in such a short space of time. "This is the result," said Molyneux, "that demo".

Molyneux made a frank admission following the Fable: The Journey reveal that he had "made a horrendous mistake" by taking out player-controlled movement. The impression the demo gave off was that Fable: The Journey was on-rails, which it isn't.

Molyneux explained that had he added navigation it would have lengthened the demo, been "confusing" and detracted from the "cool" magic.

Gamescom takes place from 17th August in Cologne, Germany.