Galak-Z by 17Bit - Pew Pew Space Lasers! PAX 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,855 words · ~9 min read
0:00
lineus Tech tips coverage of PS 2013 is brought to you by Western Digital Intel
0:04
and steel series hey guys we're here at gala Z at the Indie Mega booth just
0:08
checking out their game and I had to stop by because it looks so much fun
0:12
this looks like asteroids but way later with all the advancements that it should
0:16
have had what can you tell me about this game so this is a culmination of years
0:20
of of shooter kind of experience and shooter inspiration I guess put together
0:25
so I mean it obviously looks like a classic 16bit shooter game but it's
0:28
actually under the hood it's more like a modern shter it's much more like something like Far Cry 3 where you've
0:32
got you know very dedicated AI very dedicated uh physics the explosions and
0:37
stuff all have actually physics bombs they'll send guys off flying the AI
0:40
we've teamed up with a company called sentient they're a new uh Hardware or a new software company they're making
0:45
middleware for AI for really high-end Ai and so we've got that plugged into the
0:48
game where this is more like I mean it really is something similar to like Far Cry 3 and 2D these guys have Vision
0:53
cones they can hear you they're out on random controls looking for you if they
0:56
hear something fishy they'll go into an investigation mode if they locate you
0:59
they'll call backup I mean they're very good at like pinning their fire down on
1:02
you getting you in a trial position and like taking you down the weaker guys will stay out they let the the bigger
1:07
guys come in after you um it's not a shooting game where you just pop them a
1:10
couple times and they go down I mean some of the bigger guys it's like a real drawn out heavy duty combat so I love
1:15
Modern Combat stuff like I love Halo I love Far Cry 3 and we really wanted to
1:20
get that feeling of just like this intense combat experience perfect outer
1:24
space dog fighting into this game where it looks like you're looking through the
1:27
lens of a classic 16 bit you know space shooter but it's very much not a schmu
1:31
it's not a twin stick shooter it's an action adventure game that's very combat
1:35
focused and that's great and dropping names for AI like Far Cry 3 is big but
1:39
if I and if I hadn't seen the gameplay so far I would kind of look at you in an
1:44
interesting way but I've seen it I've seen what you're talking about you're definitely completely right some
1:48
interesting things that I just saw a few seconds ago was actually he was hiding
1:51
behind a rock and the AI was not able to find him because he wasn't shooting for
1:55
one so he couldn't track down his shots and he wasn't using his uh his boost so
2:00
they couldn't hear his boost that's really interesting you don't usually see
2:03
AI elements like that in a game like this so it's it's awesome that you called that out um what other mechanics
2:09
core mechanics do you find in this game um it's we kind of compare a lot to ice
2:14
hockey where you're you know you're very aggressively moving around but you need to be as good moving backwards as you
2:19
are forwards so they we've got forward thrusters side thrusters back thrusters
2:22
you know you've got a very finite level of control over the ship so you're like boosting around shooting backwards is a
2:27
big thing like you fly up on a guy lay into him you can jump over him for a
2:31
second out of the gameplay plane land on the other side still facing him and lay
2:34
into him as you're boosting backwards and then you like lock on with your missiles and let him have it so you know
2:39
the combat is just very intense it's super engaging and it's it's organic and
2:43
it's evolving all the time so every combat experience is different and it's always engaging one thing that I've
2:47
noticed about the Indie megao so far is a lot of the games here just make you
2:51
feel like a badass while you're playing them and being able to flip over people
2:54
and jump all over the place and lock on missiles and dance around and Dodge
2:57
around a boss and hide behind rocks and all this kind of stuff is just so cool
3:01
because you're very active into the game it's it's a game that has a story but
3:05
while you're really really action based the entire time anyways and talking
3:08
about a game that has a story what is the setting for this game so the setting
3:12
is deep space you're part of the kind of the Human Alliance you know Earth
3:15
Federation uh I got to come up with a cool name which I haven't done yet but
3:19
you're you're in deep space and there's a terrible Ambush by the enemy Imperials
3:22
and the fleet is basically devastated and you are like one of the last
3:26
Fighters you're kind of a green pilot you don't have much experience the guy
3:29
who owns the ship that you're in was actually killed on the deck when they got hit so he jumped into one of the
3:33
last remaining Fighters got out you can see the beginning of the the intro he
3:36
sort of there a big battle there he kind of barely gets his way out of it and
3:39
gets knocked out and goes flying off into deep space he's picked up later by
3:43
one of the the last remaining sort of Mega craft and he's the last fighter so
3:47
she's like get back here you know and so you get back to the ship and you have to
3:51
kind of start you know exploring the Galaxy mining for resources powering
3:55
back up your mother's ship and being able to jump further and further as you're repairing your ship you know
3:59
you're very out gun you're very out man so it's just sort of you know going out on these missions doing some Recon
4:03
finding supplies bringing them back to the ship powering it up and then being
4:06
able to move on to further levels yeah like you're talking mining for resources
4:10
finding all these supplies all this kind of stuff another thing I noticed is you can blow up the rocks and you can blow
4:14
up shipwrecks to loot things what kind of stuff is someone expecting to find in
4:18
these objects well these ships are the wreckage of you know Giant star Fighters
4:22
that have been destroyed in these battles so there's all kinds of supplies on board there's Health packs there's uh
4:26
you know fuel upgrades there's missile upgrades there's all kinds of of stuff
4:30
to upgrade your ship and move on you're looking for the warp crystals which are
4:33
really powerful for your engines to get back online so you guys can warp further and further trying to get home through
4:37
deeply occupied enem enemy space um it's you know think of something like
4:41
Borderlands too where you're upgrading your weapons you're upgrading your your abilities you know Metroid is a huge
4:45
inspiration for this obviously so that sort of you know just this this genuine
4:49
long ramp up of just getting better and getting new abilities and powering up
4:53
and feeling like a badass the whole time a great a great reference that you just
4:56
made Borderlands too the the loot hungry person in so many Gamers I've noticed
5:00
will enjoy this game because while you're dodging around while you're actively fighting while you're trying to
5:04
lock on missiles while you're doing all that stuff you're always blowing up
5:08
rocks and blowing up shipwrecks and all this kind of stuff and also getting all
5:11
these little objects like you're talking about the warp the warp core thing that you're just talking about that's that's
5:15
great now as we can see in the background there's giant enemies and
5:18
earlier we saw one of the reviewers playing and there was what seemed like a boss chasing him around and that took a
5:23
long time but once he got stuck in a corner and was like okay this is it
5:26
every once I'm lock on missiles just blow everything away is there is there
5:30
more like boss style enemies in this game yes there's going to be some very large enemies to take down here you know
5:34
uh you may need to take on with a friend we're going to be working on sort of the
5:37
the network multiplayer like what that looks like yet um we haven't really done
5:40
any testing but we've got some big Ideas uh you know we're still like I said
5:44
we're about a year out still so we've got a lot of work to do but uh we intend
5:47
to have the you know tiny enemies all the way up to massive scale stuff like
5:51
really Dynamic epic space drama that's great and like to see that
5:55
you're almost a year out and I know it's a kind of not the biggest demo ever but
6:00
it's very polished as far as I've seen so that's great I'm really excited to
6:03
see where you guys can take this in a year I know you guys are all about Innovation so I'm expecting fully to see
6:08
a few extra things I know you said you haven't even named part of the game yet
6:12
which is great because in a year from now that'll be named and there'll be
6:15
other stuff in the game very excited is there anything else you want to add on
6:19
um I mean I I just hope people can come by the birth this weekend and check it out if not you know we'll be launching
6:23
on PS4 and on Steam uh we have high hopes for the game we think I mean the
6:27
response has been phenomenal this weekend everyone loves it um and we're just having a fantastic time this has
6:31
been a great weekend so thanks for coming down and thank you for showing me
6:34
the game if you want to see any of our content from the Indie meab Booth or any
6:38
of our content from packs be sure to subscribe to Linus Tech tips