Chair Entertainment Seats Epic, Unreal Engine 3

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Independent developer Chair Entertainment announced it has licensed Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 for use in its PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC projects, joining EA, Square Enix, Sega, Activision, Gearbox, BioWare, and just about every other developer under the sun.

As revealed earlier this year, the first Chair Entertainment title to utilize Epic's technology will be the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade underwater shooter Undertow. Based on the childhood drawings of Chair Entertainment creative director Donald Mustard, Undertow depicts fast-paced underwater battles and supports up to 16 players online. Along with the inspirational childhood sketches, Chair Entertainment also sent along several new Undertow screenshots.

"We love working with cool independent studios like Chair that are truly focused on delivering value to gamers and creating experiences that break new boundaries in gameplay and creativity," said Epic vice president Mark Rein. "Sure, we love working with the big developers and publishers too, but there's something really satisfying about seeing a young company with great talent doing some awesome stuff with our technology. Undertow is just the first great game you'll see from these guys--prepare to be wowed some more."

The company has yet to formally announce any other projects, but a game inspired by its multi-media franchise Empire is in the works, along with a comic book and feature film. An Empire novel, written by sci-fi author Orson Scott Card, was released in December 2006. Card formerly worked with members of Chair Entertainment before their departure from developer GlyphX, whose Xbox and PC action-adventure title Advent Rising was also penned by the author.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
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    June 19, 2007 12:17 PM

    Ahahahaha, those drawings are awesome. I used to do that kind of thing, but I never went full-on underwater. Mostly forest and mountain terrain with a little pool of water between to separate the guys with white hats from the guys with black hats.

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      June 19, 2007 12:38 PM

      when I was around 9 or 10 I'd take a huge feed of paper from our printer and do similar, except based on massive star trek or star wars ship battles. It'd start out as a fleet, then there'd be another fleet, and then there'd be shooting and exploding and eventually the entire thing turned into a stack of scribbles.

      I think my dad threw them out :(

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      June 19, 2007 12:39 PM

      I was always about the space combat....

      but damn this could be really cool if they make it fun

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      June 19, 2007 1:01 PM

      Hehe, yea, i had the back of notebooks full of that shit that I doodled and scribbled all the way through HighSchool.

      My mom saved them in some box in an attic, fun to look back on when you are randomly cleaning stuff out of their house.

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      June 19, 2007 1:29 PM

      In fifth grade, I think, I made full on levels for gradius type games and wizards and warriors type games in my notebook at school. I guess I should've saved 'em!

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      June 19, 2007 2:06 PM

      I had similar drawings as well. Mine would be big block letters and then have little stick dude duking it out on/in them.

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