Intrepid Explorer

While the core of BC features a simulated world and subsequently plenty of sandbox style gameplay, there is a narrative that drives the player through the game and sets objectives for the player to achieve. This ensures that the player is kept moving through the world and is continually discovering new lands, creatures and exciting challenges.

In regard to the setting BC is deliberately played out in a very primitive context. This allows us to make the environment as interactive as possible and ensures that all the weaponry and technology is derived from objects found in the world space. As you begin the game at 'ground zero', every advance you make has a very noticeable effect on how effectively you play the game and overcome the challenges you face.

The great thing about BC is that the player can do exactly that. You get the chance to become the missing link that not only ensures that the tribe of primitive man survives, but continues to prosper and grow. Discovering fire and using it to you advantage is pivotal to the gamer's experience. However, while there is a broad degree of player freedom in BC, the player is not able to innovate open-ended technology in a way that allows a break from the primitive context.

BC is an action adventure game giving the player an enormous amount of freedom and variety in terms of gameplay and player experience. I think it's important to look at genre definition as a way of describing to the player what's on offer here. While there is an exciting layer of quests and experience power-ups familiar to most players in terms of structure, what makes the game really cool is the simulation and behaviour modelling so that if you go out to hunt, you are really engaged in fight for survival against a creature that is just as likely to make a decision to hunt you.

There are obviously elements of the game that have evolved as part of the experience that Lionhead has acquired from developing previous titles. BC has a much greater depth of simulation than Black & White for example, and concentrates on this over very complex learning behaviours.

Certainly you can command tribes people to collect food and water for the good of the tribe, you can also assign characters to defend their routes and the settlement periphery, however the player is always responsible for the advancement of the tribe and all of the action unfolds around the player.

As the player can take control of any one of the characters in the tribe, the tribes people benefit from direct learning from the player.

Once you have discovered an improved technology, the advancement will be available to other characters in the tribe that share the 'calling' (the skill class) of the lead character. The NPC characters in the tribe will then be able to make use of it when appropriate and when they accrued enough experience to use it.

Every member of the tribe has a basic emotional intelligence such that they can be upset by a fellow's death. However as these characters are really primitive in nature, they can equally take perverse pleasure in another's misfortune.

When the player is in control of the environment and is successfully bringing food and water into the camp and stopping predators from raiding, the conditions will be met that allow new characters to be born into the tribe. A new child will be assigned to a parent to inherit a calling. When the child reached adolescence, a naming ceremony will take place allowing the character to enter the fold and become a functioning, playable member of the clan.

Control is very easy to express in BC. While you directly control one character at ant time, you can tag up to another four characters to form a team or hunting party around you and then cycle direct control through any character in the team. Similarly there is a unifying UI device called the roll call that allows you to assign a context sensitive task to any other character in the tribe in any part of the map.

There is a real time scarring system that displays damage accrued on a character. Characters can be healed through rest and recovery or if available, can be given healing herbs in the field to speed up this process.

BC is built around a powerful player skill modifying combat system that hosts creatures from 1 to 20m in relative height and scale and allows creatures to attack as a lone praetor or in packs as appropriate. Each creature exhibits modified attacks and defensive moves relative to the behaviour modelling of the species.

The simulation is based on modelling a working ecosystem where each creature shares a need for food, water and safety. If a creature is running out of food (for example) then it will be forced to migrate to a new nest. What effect does this have on the player? If the player has a raptor nest within a close proximity to camp, it might be useful to him to try and get rid of them. There are a number of ways in doing this. He can run in 'all guns blazing' and attempt to kill all of the raptors all off (risking the lives of his cavemen), or go the safer route and poison the raptors food supply (although this will take longer) or wait until night time and sneak in the nest using the Hunters skill and steal the eggs. It will then take them longer to reproduce and make it easier for the player to kill off.

The great things about the ecosystem are; 1) its easy for the player to see what's going on in the land as we show ecosystem details on an 'easy to understand' map screen, 2) every time you play the game you will get a different experience. Whenever we demonstrate BC at any game shows (like E3) it's a bugger to demo! Sometimes you can see some really cool goings on with the ecosystem with creatures fighting against each other, species dieing off, while other times the land will be quiet with each species appearing to observe each other anticipating attack. It makes the game completely unpredictable!

The world is divided into five lands, themed on an increasingly hostile climate change as the player ascends in height to a dormant volcano range. The tribe is lead on a migration through each environment, establishing a new camp in each level region.

The player's primary nemesis is a rival race of semi-evolved ape creatures - the simians. The simians hold the territory around the high ground so as the player migrates upland, he is forced to encroach on their habitat. While the simians offer organised opposition and can gather and use simple projectile weapons, the player can use knowledge gained in terms of manipulating other creatures in the ecosystem to his own advantage. The large predators find a simian meal as enticing as a human one.

BC will make a fantastic multiplayer game. We already have plans for a feature rich multiplayer sequel for future development.

You will have to play the game to find out.

We will certainly try not to. A number of really cool features have already been slated for inclusion in the sequel development simply for the reason that not enough time is available to complete our entire wish list for this game which is already a very ambitious and exciting project.