Warco: "Getting The Shot" Means Something Different

Warco

Being a journalist in a war zone is no laughing matter. Those people risk their lives all the damn time.

So in order to capture that intensity, Defiant Development is attempting to create a new adventure from a different point of view: instead of toting a gun around in a first-person format, you're carrying a camera.

As revealed at ArsTechnica, the Brisbane-based studio is working with a journalist and filmmaker to create Warco, a "political game disguised as an FPS." Defiant's Morgan Jaffit explains that the idea actually came from Tony Maniaty, an Australian journalist who has worked in regions like East Timor and post-Soviet Eastern Europe. He thought up the game as a training simulator.

Then he started to work on the project with filmmaker Robert Connolly, who had directed a movie called "Balibo," which was a political thriller that dealt with the deaths of Australian journalists during the East Timor conflict in 1975. And now, the game is in the works. Said Jaffit:

"It offers a new perspective on a familiar theme, which enables us to use the tools and techniques of other FPSes to build a completely different kind of narrative and experience. From a design perspective, that's what excited me."

Here's some gameplay, which may look like it's from 1997, but clearly hasn't been optimized for any given platform and remains in the very early stages. Bear that in mind.

In Warco, you play the role of journalist Jesse DeMarco, who must go into dangerous situations and get footage. After doing so, he has to edit that footage and make a "compelling news story." Added Jaffit:

"It's also about navigating through a morally gray world and making decisions that have human impact. It's about finding the story you want to tell, as each of our environments is filled with different story elements you can film and combine in your own ways. It's both a story telling engine and an action adventure with a new perspective."

Unsurprisingly, Jaffit says it has proven difficult to sell this idea to publishers, but Defiant will keep trying. Intended platforms and a release date are still a long ways off, but we think it might prove interesting. We did already have one game that focused 'cough' on photography; Afrika, which really didn't turn out well in our opinion, but still had tremendous promise.

Tags: warco, defiant development, journalism game

9/24/2011 10:27:31 AM Ben Dutka

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