Interview

Indie Jeff's Weekly Pick: AirMech (alpha)

For this week's indie pick, I take a look at AirMech, the upcoming high-octane action-strategy title from Carbon Games, and chat about it with developer James Green.

Jeff Mattas

January 22, 2012 11:30 AM

A few months ago, when I first heard about indie developer Carbon Games' upcoming action-RTS title, AirMech, I was immediately instilled with cautious optimism. One reason for my excitement is that several members of Carbon's team worked at Titan Studios on the downloadable PSN title, Fat Princess, but most of my enthusiasm stemmed from the new, yet familiar, type of gameplay experience that AirMech is aiming to provide. I recently had a chance to spend some time playing the latest alpha build of AirMech, and though it's still very much being actively developed, I'm pleased to report that it's already wicked fun. AirMech provides a compelling blend of action and real-time strategy. As in DotA-style games, the objective is to eliminate the enemy's home base, while defending one's own. Players take direct control of a commander-type unit called an AirMech, the initial version of which can transform between a ground-based mech and a fast-flying jet at the touch of a button. The game's main course proceeds as a war of attrition, with both sides vying for control intermediary structures that can in-turn be used as staging points for a final assault. (However, co-op and survival PvE modes are also included.) A multitude of different unit-types can be constructed, ranging from infantry, to tanks, to turrets. Experience accrued during matches contributes to the player's overall level, while Kudos (also earned at the end of each match) can be spent on purchasing new units that are often more powerful, but also provide different tactical possibilities on the battlefield. In the long run, it's a suite of units that seems to support multiple play-styles, depending on how one wants to outfit his army. Individual units can also be given orders (Attack, Patrol, Capture, and Link), though they can also be conveniently grabbed and dropped into combat using the AirMech itself. In truth, issuing these commands isn't really important on the easiest difficulty setting at the moment (I was able to grab and drop my way to victory), but adds a key layer of depth in both multiplayer and matches against more aggressive AI. The game is very fast-paced, with each match lasting about 20 minutes or so, and it ran very smoothly in my time with it. I asked developer James Green about AirMech's inception, and the spiritual DNA it seems to share with both DotA-style games and the 1990 Technosoft-developed Herzog Zwei. "The initial inspiration was Herzog Zwei, and it was about 10 years ago I got the itch to make a modern update of it," Green told me. But upon revisiting the game, Green realized a pure remake probably wouldn't be the best course to take. "The controls and interface were terrible," Green explained, "but I remembered loving it so much. So the goal became to recreate the 'memory' of Herzog, rather than copy it." He illustrated how more elegant solutions to certain mechanical issues had been employed by other games in recent years, such as build-queues, twin-stick shooter functionality, and custom loadouts, but that the surge of the DotA style of gameplay was really the "icing on the cake." Based on what I've experienced of AirMech, I can really see those influences. Carbon Games really seems to have a handle on what it takes to deliver fast-paced gameplay that's as chaotic as it is enjoyable. "Each player having their own army and AirMech/Pilot combination really opens up the complementary strategic choices," Green said, "and we'll continue to introduce more unique AirMechs to encourage this cooperative behavior."

Behold the chaos of war!

"We're taking a very similar approach as we did with Fat Princess: Borrow (steal) some core elements from a bunch of games we like, give it an accessible top-down camera, develop a style that primarily serves the gameplay (easy to see units and what team they are on) and just polish, polish, polish," Green illustrated. "The main difference this time," he said, "is we don't have a publisher, so we don't have to stick to a design agreed in a contract, and we can push out patches whenever we want." Green also revealed that the goal is to get AirMech into a beta state sometime in the next month. "Internally we think of alpha as a state where we are still adding features and have some pretty glaring bugs or omissions," he said. "Beta is when we're feature complete, and focusing on fixing things more than adding things." Although there's no telling how long the beta will last--the team is taking a 'when-it's-done' approach--Green says that they'll "open up testing even wider" during the beta. As mentioned, AirMech is still in active development, but given the solid and fun core present in the alpha build, I asked Green to approximate how close to completion the game is. "I would estimate we are 80% of the way through our initial 'target release' schedule. Our team has been in the industry for quite a while, so that's a realistic number," Green said. "When we showed the game for the first time last summer," he continued, "people were saying 'wow it's almost done!' but really that was more like 10%. It's very easy to have something up and running and looking cool, and quite another to build something that supports multiplayer and scales worldwide, and runs on low-end hardware." "To player perception, I would say we are more like 50% representative of the final product," Green clarified. "A lot of the UI is in flux, and all the maps are really still just test maps. A bunch of units are still placeholder and need to be redone as well. But we're getting to the point where we will start finalizing things." Speaking of finalizing things, I also asked Green if there are any particularly exciting content-related updates that he was excited to share with the AirMech community. New types of AirMechs, as well as some major new battlefield structures are apparently on tap.

A big feature that has been waiting to go in because of art needed is the new Factory, Power Station, and Radar buildings you can capture. These work like the current buildings you can capture, except they will give the team controlling them additional benefits. The Factory makes everything build a bit faster, the Power Station increases your recharge/heal rate, and Radar expands your view of the enemy greatly. I think this will add more strategy to what part of the map teams choose to control.

I'm also really excited about some of the new AirMechs and Units in the pipeline. We've been spending a lot of time on core systems lately, so getting back to adding fun stuff will be great. There's AirMechs that can heal, another with a high powered single-shot railgun, even a massive one that can serve as a tank. We have a lot of new unit types as well, thinking along the lines of tower defense games and what they offer. Because we don't take ourselves too seriously, we can have just about any type of mechanic borrowed from any game where it makes sense from a gameplay perspective.

In other words, as great as AirMech is in its current alpha state, there's some really cool and significant new stuff coming down the pipeline. Best of all, the upcoming content really seems in-aid of further embellishing the solid core gameplay. As if that weren't enough, a version of AirMech for Chrome is also in the works, which also looks great in its early state, even though multiplayer functionality for that version is still being developed. When AirMech launches, Green confirmed that it will implement a free-to-play model similar to that of Riot Games' League of Legends. It's a model that Green thinks will work well for AirMech, provided that it's handled correctly. "Despite being a hardcore gamer myself," he said, "I have come around to the idea of F2P by viewing it as a demo of a game that you can play with the whole live community." "Riot proved to me with League of Legends that you can make a F2P game without taking advantage of your players," Green explained, "and we've been looking at their model the closest." "It's still a bit of a leap of faith for us," he qualified. "Because we are concentrating on the core game, we actually don't have that much stuff to 'sell' currently, compared to other hardcore F2P games. We believe that the core of everything is you have to have a fun game, so that is our priority for the time being. We'll transition to adding content and new gameplay after the core game is solid."

Attack!

Green also notes that plans to bring AirMech to consoles at some point is certainly something Carbon Games is strongly considering--that's a bit further down the road. While not all of the controls are accessible via a gamepad at this point, much of the game is already playable that way. Personally, I think that AirMech's combination of real-time-strategy and twin-stick shooter could bring a viable solution to the long-standing design problems of making good RTS games on consoles. AirMech is already one of the most fun action-RTS titles I've played in recent memory, and it's not even done yet. It really seems to have the potential to hit a sweet spot shared by both RTS and action game fanatics, alike. If you want to try to get in on the action you can sign up for the AirMech PC alpha on the Carbon Games website. However, it's a bit easier to get into the Chrome alpha build at the moment, which you can sign up for here.

Jeff Mattas

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 reply
January 22, 2012 11:30 AM

Jeff Mattas posted a new article, Indie Jeff's Weekly Pick: AirMech (alpha).

For this week's indie pick, I take a look at AirMech, the upcoming high-octane action-strategy title from Carbon Games, and chat about it with developer James Green.
- Mecha Tofu Pirate
  
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  January 22, 2012 11:42 AM
  
  And it's made by shackers!
  - uberartist
    
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    January 22, 2012 12:54 PM
    
    Indeed it is. I haven't been talking about it much except when asked because I know how brutal the Shack can be. I still look at the game and see what a long way we have to go in some areas, but it is still pretty fun if you realize it's not finished.
    
    Trying to carve out a new type of hybrid gameplay...no point in trying to directly compete with the other DotA games, there's already such great games made and more on the way. We hope AirMech is kind of a lite alternative for those looking for something faster paced, or with a non-fantasy theme.
- AxeMan808
  
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  January 22, 2012 12:52 PM
  
  So it's a twin stick shooter, too? It sounds kinda cool, but I'm gonna need a video of some gameplay.
  - uberartist
    
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    January 22, 2012 12:55 PM
    
    Gameplay videos of AirMech: http://www.youtube.com/user/CarbonGamesVideos
    - AxeMan808
      
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      January 22, 2012 2:17 PM
      
      Ask and ye shall receive, and thangs. Pretty cool! I could see playing that. I like the way the players are superfast compared to the minions.
      Any plans for Air Minions? Slower stuff like Apache, A-10, or even some jets for a bombing/strafing run?
      I saw there was a playable chopper in that 45min match.
      An A-10 playable would work well, I think.
    - Johnny Law
      
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      January 22, 2012 2:36 PM
      
      Just watched a little bit of that so far, but so far I like the look 'n feel you've got going. Very tactile, clear, and energetic... like a bunch of pumped-up miniatures in action.
      - Johnny Law
        
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        January 22, 2012 2:46 PM
        
        And as I was posting that, the guy doing developer commentary said "There's a lot of problems with the art... if you blur your eyes and look at the game you get an idea of what we're going for, but it still needs a lot of extra props and decorations."
        
        Hmm, probably that's not actually a bad sign, but a funny coincidence anyway. :-)
        
        uberartist
        
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        January 22, 2012 9:33 PM
        
        Don't worry, we won't ruin the aesthetic. That's why I say the "blur your eyes" part--there's touching up of textures to be done, fixing seams, adding nicer deco bits. Also, effects for sure, explosions and weapon effects need a huge pass. Just trying to prioritize according to how critical things are to the game.
- uberartist
  
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  January 22, 2012 1:06 PM
  
  Chrome Version you can play the alpha right now, just join this Google Group: https://groups.google.com/group/airmech-alpha/
  
  There's links in the messages that you can see after joining the group. It uses membership of that group for access control in the Chrome Store for now, until we get out of alpha.
  
  Having a few steps like that to get in creates a nice simple barrier to entry to keep the herp derps out.
  - ThomW
    
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    January 22, 2012 5:22 PM
    
    Very cool!
  - nomaad
    
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    January 23, 2012 12:22 AM
    
    Awesome, checking it out. Thanks!
- holinka
  
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  January 22, 2012 2:24 PM
  
  Online stability really killed Fat Princess for me. Hoping you all learned an important lesson. I gave it a spin and it has promise. I hope you explain the pros /cons of the units better in-game. Best of luck!
  
  Any legal concerns with Robotech?
  - uberartist
    
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    January 22, 2012 9:29 PM
    
    We actually did learn a lot from Fat Princess. First was don't use a system handed to you by Sony that wasn't totally tested, and two is to test early and build to scale. For FP, Sony screwed up our beta test (it was new code, not really their fault I guess) and then launched a full game with no real testing at scale.
    
    So for AirMech, it's totally the opposite--test super early, slowly scale up. We can patch whenever we need to, something you can't do on XBLA or PSN.
    
    If/when we do console versions, they will benefit from having a proven networking model. I don't think a small company can do the kind of testing they need to when launching a big console game.
    
    And for the other thing, legal concerns with transforming robots? Robotech, Transformers, Gobots, Gundam...there's no patent on transforming robots. We're not using any transformation designs from any of them. At least none of the obvious ones, and nothing intentional beyond that. They're all original transforming robots of our own design.
    - holinka
      
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      January 22, 2012 10:22 PM
      
      Cool, great to hear. I've been a part of some nightmare online launches so best of luck!
      - uberartist
        
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        January 23, 2012 12:52 AM
        
        Yeah, I hate sucky lauches as well. We won't announce we are out of beta until we feel it's super bulletproof. I mean, we welcome people to play now, if they understand it's alpha and they want to help us by playing. The best and simplest way anyone can help is by just playing some multiplayer, it puts stress on our backend which is what we need. Even without giving us feedback that helps, we log things to help us improve.
        
        For people who want a perfect experience, you can wait until later, definitely don't want to twist anyone's arm to play the game now. It's like an open party, with no cover charge! Have fun if you like, no hard feelings if it's not your thing at this time. :)
- Nighteyes
  
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  January 22, 2012 5:28 PM
  
  It's really fun, but I wish it borrowed unique hero abilities that you level up from DOTA to really make it a strong game. As of right now, it's just level up hp, air dmg, ground dmg, unit dmg which is rather boring in terms of leveling up. Also I want numbers!!!! to show me how much my damage/hp increased. Especially for units.
  - uberartist
    
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    January 22, 2012 9:30 PM
    
    Huh? Every AirMech has 4 abilities that you can put points into. You get one point for each level up to 10. It's still early, we're just alpha, as we have time we'll make all abilities more unique and special, maybe even give them a 5th one.
    - Nighteyes
      
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      January 22, 2012 11:33 PM
      
      Oh, I just have the basic airmech. You guys should probably unlock that stuff for testing, or maybe your real testers have unlocked accounts. :( But theres also a serious lack of feedback for upgrades. I put a point into HP. How much more HP is that? How much damage does the enemy do so I know how many more shots I can take? Stuff like that.
      - uberartist
        
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        January 23, 2012 12:48 AM
        
        We'll add more feedback during beta. Alpha is for those that are curious and not caught up in the balance of things, because it changes all the time. You'll probably enjoy the beta more.
        
        Lots of people have unlocked all the content, and we actually don't think we'll need to reset. Referrals will earn you free content and boosts. We don't want people just playing a few games and getting access to all the content at this time, because it will skew the testing quite a bit.
        
        Nighteyes
        
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        January 23, 2012 1:23 AM
        
        Gotcha. I am excited to see how it turns out.
        
        uberartist
        
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        January 23, 2012 9:40 AM
        
        Oh, and I forgot to say that we'll have weekly free rotation AirMechs and units as a way to sample things.
- cptincognito
  
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  January 23, 2012 10:40 AM
  
  I absolutely loved Herzog Zwei, and Airmech captures the feeling really well. Very interested in seeing how the maps and balance issues will work out. I haven't tried much PvP yet but I'm trying to get some of my friends into the chrome version. Word of advice- you WILL close the window if you use CTRL to transform (because you're probably holding down W to move), so get used to using the shift key. It's infuriating.
  - uberartist
    
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    January 23, 2012 6:37 PM
    
    The Chrome version is a bit less stable in multiplayer currently because we're kind of wading into brand new territory. We've made a lot of progress and believe the remaining issues to be solvable.
    
    Compatibility testing is a bit easier on Chrome because Google is doing a lot of that for Native Client, but that's more of a burden on us for the PC side. I expect the Chrome version to actually be more compatible than the PC version for the next while, though eventually PC should be great for the hardcore fans who would prefer total control over convenience of the browser.
    
    The accounts are shared between all platforms though. Chrome, PC, Android, whatever platforms we do, you'll just have one account you log into so you don't have to re-unlock things.