{"id":10974,"date":"2012-12-11T09:23:11","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T17:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/?p=10974"},"modified":"2012-12-11T16:23:49","modified_gmt":"2012-12-12T00:23:49","slug":"john-scalzi-announces-morningstar-a-videogame-for-tablets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/videogames\/john-scalzi-announces-morningstar-a-videogame-for-tablets\/","title":{"rendered":"John Scalzi announces Morningstar<\/em>, a… videogame for tablets?"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Morningstar,\n

\nSet 120 years in the future, the premise revolves around a plausible future Earth, one that has developed near space flight, but nothing much faster. The story opens with Earth discovering a signal from an alien life. This discovery kicks off something called the Morning Star protocol, an agreement that outlines what to do if alien intelligence is discovered. The research vessel MSRV-Joplin is outfitted with military weapons and sent to Saturn, where the signal is coming from, to explore.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not so much an announcement, as knowledge of Scalzi’s involvement with the creation of a videogame has been floating around for a while, but this is the first concrete information about the title. Scalzi reports on the project:<\/p>\n

\nAs most of you know, for the last year or so I\u2019ve been working on a video game with Industrial Toys, the new video game studio formed by former Bungie founder Alex Seropian. We\u2019ve been quietly chugging along in the background putting the game together; my job has been working with them to create an overall game concept as well as the narrative that fits into that concept. It\u2019s been a hell of a lot of fun, in no small part because my co-workers at Industrial Toys are some of the smartest and most creative people in the video game business.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

As the trailer notes, the video game is a first-person shooter, but with a bit of a twist: It\u2019s designed specifically for mobile gaming on tablets, which means that everything \u2014 gameplay, controls, story \u2014 was put together incorporating both the physical layout of tablets and the gameplay dynamic of mobile gaming. It\u2019s not a port from another video game medium, in other words: It\u2019s at home in mobile. Which is also very exciting.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The involvement of Alex Seropian<\/a>, best known for his involvement in the early Halo<\/em> games, and also behind under-the-radar critical darling, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse<\/em>, is a definite boon, though Scalzi’s involvement appears to be more creatively-driven, rather than development driven, which, naturally, plays to his strengths. He joins other authors such as Orson Scott Card, Richard Morgan and Warren Ellis as successful novelists working within the videogame industry, to some capacity.<\/p>\n\n\t\t