Zander dejah described one of his Star Wars VR games as a “high fidelity walking simulator”. And so, as he started working on prototypes, he aimed for something completely different.
He calls it “LO-KILL-MOTION”.
Vendetta Forever made a splash when the demo appeared in August. This frenetic shooter, developed by Dejah’s Meatspace Interactive allows you to move only by teleporting your weapons onto enemies that you have killed. This is ‘LOKILL-MOTION,’ and it looks promising. It was, as I wrote in my preview article, “a fitting tribute” to classic action movies, while delivering a stylishly satisfying experience. In my recent
, I said it was “a fitting tribute to these classic action films while doing something uniquely suited for VR and delivering stylishly satisfying action. Vendetta Forever was a small side project for Vendetta Forever, the sole developer. Two friends helped with the environmental art and soundtrack. Dejah began by prototyping individual gameplay mechanics, and then started to explore ideas for a new movement system. This is because I am bored with it. This idea to teleport where the enemies were and switch weapons with them was prototyped. “I built an arena where you could jump from one guy to another, killing, stealing, and repeating the loop for half an hour. “
Finding this fun, Dejah began creating small scenarios that utilized this mechanic and began testing ideas for different environments.
“What would be fun to zoom around in, what kind of environments could I go up? fire escapes? Can I go across rooftops? Can I travel through the alleys or across rooftops? Ideas kept coming in… My first level was loosely based off my kitchen. It seemed cool to me that I could jump across the middle island and go down the hallway. Then, turn around, because two men were behind me. Dejah was approached by a couple of publishers before agreeing to work with nDreams. Eventually, Dejah was approached by a couple of publishers before agreeing to work with nDreams.
Given the innovative method of moving through VR, I asked how Dejah approached designing so many different quick-fire scenes that rarely last more than a minute.
“If I designed a level that lasted five minutes, oh my god, I would lose focus way too quickly. All the scenes have been kept short and to-the-point. “I wanted to maintain a constant level of intensity, with little ups and drops, but also big endings on some. Dejah was inspired by his favorite scenes from action movies to condense the gameplay into its “purest” form. “I prototyped several scenes from these movies and they grew into what I would call completely original levels. Inspiration came from movies, games, and stuff around the house. On an airplane, I thought to myself: “I have to create an airplane level.” It was something I had to do. This approach involves designing levels to challenge Dejah personally. Vendetta Forever has a minimalistic design philosophy that he adheres to since its initial prototype. The presentation is sparse to emphasize the most important elements. There are no cutscenes or dialogues. It’s all about the action. The only thing you should see is the enemy in front of your face, any weapons that you have, and where you are going next. It’s a bit intense and mechanically overwhelming. Because it’s mechanically a bit overwhelming and intense.Bang Bang Slice“It’s a game that I want people to be able to pick up very seamlessly. When someone says, “Hey, I just finished work and I need to play for 15 to 20 minutes, then I do not want a long-loading screen.” I prefer to have a quick game that can be played in 15-20 minutes. “I want something that you can get into immediately, play for as long as you like, then exit. Dejah says that Vendetta Forever has been compared to
or
because the environment is not the main focus. It’s pure and mechanically satisfying. I didn’t care about the appearance of the game. It’s striking, but doesn’t offer a bounty of ‘Oh look at all the little details!’ that thousands of artists have spent millions of dollars cultivating, so you can just run past it. It’s a response to Dejah’s problem with modern games. He believes that many put disproportionate effort into the presentation, while the gameplay doesn’t get the same attention. He took the lessons he learned from working on Star Wars
and 11001010 at ILM Immersive into his next title. ILM, Lucasfilm and other studios place a lot of emphasis on graphical quality and narrative depth. Vader Immortal has a compelling story, but gameplay is a secondary concern. In the first episode, there was little gameplay. It was mostly a story-driven walking simulator. Gameplay was slowly being added throughout the second and third episodes.
“Then in Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge, we got more gameplay focus but first things first, it’s got to look like Star Wars. The story has to be Star Wars. It’s almost a side note if it is fun to play. The focus at Lucasfilm was on story and narrative, not gameplay. After four years of doing that, I just wanted to have fun. Dejah says that Vader Immortal’s lightsaber-dojo is his favorite feature of the game. He also wants to make a “replayable” game. Going off my demo play through, the intent is clearly presented through gameplay modifiers and online leaderboards.
It’s also amusing to learn that Dejah’s been taken by surprise with some stage scores.
“When I get my own scores beaten, I’m like, ‘God, what the hell?’ It’s time to go back, because I am at least #20 in most cases. It’s time to go back to #1, but I can’t believe some of the scores. I have seen people speedrun or do things that I could never imagine. Vendetta Forever targets 90fps in both Quest 2 as well as Quest 3 for the platform differences. Dejah was unable to confirm specific performance details for PlayStation VR2, as the porting is handled by another group. PS VR2 will have graphical enhancements and adaptive triggers. It also has headset haptic input, real-time shading, eye tracking, etc. We’ll see what happens with the launch. Vendetta Forever will be available on the
and
platforms from October 24. Quest pre-orders unlock an exclusive bonus.