Another interesting read from Gamasutra: a post-mortem for ACE Team’s indie hit Zeno Clash. There are a few novel things that this post-mortem deals with:

- first of all, a look at how low-budget games are made (250.000$ is damn cheap)

- second, how to deal with a failed project and turn it into a more successful one

- third, the advantages of being a developer in a “third world country”

Ορίστηκε η τιμή του Zeno Clash – Gameover.gr

Σύμφωνα με την Iceberg Interactive, η retail συσκευασία του Zeno Clash για PC θα περιλαμβάνει όλο το downloadable περιεχόμενο που έχει διατεθεί μέχρι στιγμής για το παιχνίδι -το οποίο κυκλοφορεί σε ψηφιακή μορφή από τον Απρίλιο.[next]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Zeno Clash 2 Headed For Retail, Consoles [Retail] (kotaku.com)
• Zeno Clash (Probably) Coming To Xbox 360 [Xbla] (kotaku.com)
• Punch! Biff! Zeno Clash SDK Released (rockpapershotgun.com)
• Punch! Kick! Zeno Clash 2! (rockpapershotgun.com)

PC – Keyboard / Mouse – 2009
Developer: ACE Team
Publisher: Valve Corporation
Playtime: 3.3 hours
Paid: $9.99 on Steam.

Zeno Clash has received a Metacritic score of 78. Sales are a mystery, but were apparently good enough to warrant a sequel.

This is probably the strangest commercially-released game I’ve played. Even its origins are a surprise – an independently-developed Chilean effort running on the Source engine, currently only digitally-distributed (unless you import from a selection of Eastern European nations). The first thing that will really strike you is the art style. The world of Zenozoik is bizarre, colourful, and beautiful. Character, creature, and item design is similarly outlandish yet impressive, and it is frankly difficult to find anything to draw comparisons with. Certainly it is an original experience in terms of design.

You play as Ghat, one of the children of Father-Mother (who Ghat has apparently just killed, fleeing his town of Halstedom. This is how you are thrown into the game, and this is roughly the amount of explanation initially given. Zeno Clash is essentially a first-person arena combat game, in which Ghat is pitted against a number of enemies, doing battle with his bare hands and a selection of both melee and ranged weapons, which are original and well-conceived in design. This combat is challenging, but was at just the right level for me, where I experienced the fear of losing without doing so often (with the exception of one particular fight), resulting in no frustration and a raw sense of pride. This pride results from the brutal combat, which is ferocious and unrelenting – Ghat definitely isn’t messing around, and neither are the opponents. The screams of pain serve to remind you that, say, kneeing someone in the face repeatedly would really, really hurt them. The first-person perspective on fisticuffs combat adds to the visceral feeling of combat.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion, while the game itself is absolutely linear. A good deal of the game is flashback – these levels explain the actions (and to an extent the reasoning behind them) which have led to the situation Ghat and his companion Deadra are in. It continues to be unconventional, but remains interesting as more and more elements are explained, and more characters are introduced. There are some neat ideas in this game, often in the characters (particularly the Corwid of the Free). The story is also somewhat tragic, and is certainly not one I can say I’ve heard before. However, some factors go unexplained. Presumably the sequel will give some more reasoning. As an intellectual property, this series could continue for a few sequels, given enough new ideas.

The game looks great, and performed well for me; being based on the Source engine, it should work well on many computers. Strangely for a single-player Source experience, the developers opted for a checkpoint save system rather than one where the player can quick-save at any time. There is literally no way to save, which feels both unnatural and unsettling. Admittedly, the addition of the quick-save could result in players getting a good blow in, saving, and loading whenever they take damage. In the one break I took from the game, I had to repeat about five minutes of gameplay (so, one battle) and an unskippable cutscene; this wasn’t so bad, merely because firstly, it’s short, but also because it settles you back into the game atmosphere and serves as a reminder of progress.

Zeno Clash is extremely combat-intensive, and could become aggravating to those who find these battles overly difficult. (The default difficulty level is named “Hard”.) A particularly enjoyable touch is that before some battles, a brief splash screen appears with a picture of Ghat across from pictures of the enemies in the upcoming conflict, in traditional beat-‘em-up style. Most combat scenarios involve fending off multiple aggressors, and it seems that given the wrong timing, you could be stuck in a hugely annoying, iterative chain of attacks from one to the other which would result in a feeling of helplessness and death, as one acquaintance experienced. These aggressors are really recurring characters, some of which play major roles in the storyline. The use of weapons in direct combat is interesting, as Ghat can only hold the one weapon at a time, and cannot block while holding it (the block button is also the “throw weapon” button), which means you have to balance hand-to-hand combat with the use of arms.

There are some interesting passages of play where the gameplay makes a total switch, and these passages pack more personality into the game. The characters and vocal work for each, as well as language unique to the setting, all add flavour and are well-designed and performed. I have heard complaints about repetitiveness, but the game is so short that it’s not really a big issue. I suspect that my completion time was in part due to my few deaths – I felt like I was doing surprisingly well, although I was lucky at times. There is more to do after finishing the story, particularly if you hunt Steam achievements. There are also Challenge Towers to climb. Presumably, they are challenging.

Zeno Clash is a thoroughly enjoyable and unique experience. It is very short, very cheap, and was made by a very small development team, but is packed with personality. A demo is available on Steam.

I bought Zeno Clash on Steam with the weekend deal at $9.90 USD. Which brings to a $14.91 SGD on my Paypal. As usual, click for larger screenshots.

Zeno Clash is an Indie game by ACE Team. Basically, a Brawler game in First-Person perspective, with elements of shooting incorporated as well.

The story places you as Gnat, one of the many children of a hermaphrodite creature called Father-Mother (disturbing already? just you wait). The story revolves around Gnat, his siblings and Father-Mother, which I will not spoil here. It also includes creatures such as the Corwids of the Free, which are pretty much single minded, insane creatures bent on doing what they do.

The game itself? Brilliant visuals, thanks to the Source Engine, scalable, meaning you can probably run it even on a slightly aged system. The combat system may need some getting used to, probably because I haven’t played many First Person Brawling games. Pretty intense though. I had to replay some battles even though the difficulty was left as default.

Quite a nice purchase. Gotta love Steam deals.

Also, this was an interesting quote from a torrent site:

I’m one of the developers of Zeno Clash. I would appreciate you read this if you are about to download this file.

Zeno Clash is an independently funded game by a very small and sacrificed group of people. The only way in which we can continue making games like this (or a sequel) is to have good sales.

I am aware that at this moment there is still no demo of the game, but we are working on one which will be available soon.

We cannot do anything to stop piracy of the game (and honestly don’t intend to do so) but if you are downloading because you wish to try before you buy, I would ask that you purchase the game (and support the independent game development scene) if you enjoy it. We plan on updating Zeno Clash with DLC and continuing support for the game long after it’s release.

Carlos Bordeu
ACE Team

Thanks for taking the time to read this… hopefully it will make a difference.

Well, I purchased mine. Cool that they bother to post comments on torrent sites though. Go indie game devs!

An unfortunately named game.  One would suspect the “zenos” are clashing in Zeno Clash — I’m not sure what that would entail.  What there is is punching, kicking, shooting, and harder punching — what we have here is a fully functional and intuitive-feeling first-person brawler.  I wouldn’t say it’s innovative, but it’s original — and that’s what counts in my books.

The story that gives a hint of reason to all the faces you’ll be punching isn’t really worth mentioning — there are maybe some deep analogies, but I get the feeling the actual subject matter is supposed to be strange and nonsensical.  It’s relatable to Alice in Wonderland; a bunch of nonsense held together by a thin narrative structure and a nagging mystery.

While it’s hard to say anything about the content of the story other than “it’s weird”, the way it’s delivered and ingrained in gameplay deserves some hearty praise.  There is a present tense adventure underway in the form of a sort of getaway, and there are a series of flashbacks that explain exactly why you are running away.  It’s almost shaming to think that an independent game made in Chile plays with its narrative/gameplay structure more than any other game I’ve played and can remember.  I mean, it’s all very simple — we’ve all heard of flashbacks — but I think it’s the first time I’ve seen flashbacks used effectively (maybe at all outside of a cutscene).

But the meat on these narrative bones is first-person brawler combat.  Blows feel like they connect and thump flesh, and enemies ragdoll from your haymakers while managing to avoid looking silly.  All the while you feel like you’re cleaning up.  What in Condemned felt like stiff animation cycles here feels like a bare-knuckle boxing match between you and bizarre gangs of pig-men and crazy people.

Things don’t get too deep combat-wise, but the abilities at your disposal feel very wide-ranging.  You can perform a simple jab combo by left clicking twice then holding left mouse for a second.  When enemies are on the ground you can kick them.  You can grab weakened enemies Condemned-style and knee them in the face repeatedly and then throw them in a direction of your choosing.  Powerful punches are charged and delivered with the right mouse button, and E lets you lock on to specific enemies (so you can more easily circle-strafe them).  Block is spacebar, and if timed correctly allows you the chance to do a powerful counter-attack.  Performing some of these actions in different directions allows for things like dodging, running to deliver an elbow to the face, or delivering a haymaker while feinting backwards.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you construct a combat system.

The biggest problem with the game is when they give you guns.  There is a certain boss character you fight several times which should be neat, but because of the so-so gunplay portions of the fights, become tedious and almost boring.  There is a moment where the gunplay becomes interesting in an on-rails section, but it never really comes to a head.  Guns can be interesting when mixed into a fight (I found myself performing running-elbows to disable gunners and get them into melee, or to steal their gun), but at the end of the day having a gun in your hands means you’re not punching someone, and that’s what this game does best.

To top it all off, there is a small arena/time attack mode — exactly the sort of thing you’d want in a game where the core mechanics are so versatile.  Because (and maybe I’m not making this clear) wacky story and neat visual styling aside, Zeno Clash is all about punching faces.  So please, produce more henchmen for me to pulverize.

Did I mention this thing was made in Chile?  I don’t know if these guys are just special, but please — more games from Chile.  These people have the right idea.

This is a quick translation of my original review in Finnish on the webpage of Uljas, Joensuu’s student magazine.

Zeno Clash is the first game of ACETeam, a small gamestudio situated in Chile. It’s a shoot-em-up melee combat game. What differentiates Zeno Clash from the masses is it’s unique visual style. The game takes place in a fantasyworld called Zenozoik. At the center of the world is a city called Hallsdom which is led by a creature called Father-Mother, who has an immense amount of children. The game begins with one of the children, called Ghat, killing Father-Mother.

The games story revolves around this. Ghat is followed on his escape from Hallsdom. The other children want to revenge Father-Mothers death. As the game progresses the player is told trough a series of flashbacks how Ghat ended up killing Father-Mother, at the same time Ghat and his girlfriend called Daerdra proceed with their escape. On the journey you travel through forests and deserts to the very borders of Zenozoik. On the journey you meet the weirdest of creatures. In the desert you see enormous rodentlike creatures the size of dinosaurs. The enemies you fight against range from a two-legged elephant to a blind bountyhunter, who attacks you from atop the aforementioned creature with squirrels mounted with explosives.

The game is visually stunning but the story and gameplay don’t quite meet up with the visual style. The storytelling is set on rails as almost all FPS:s so the players choices don’t have any effect on how the story unfolds. At times it felt like the story only existed to take you to the next fight. The creatures met on your travels make you forget this quickly. In the forests surrounding Hallsdom for example live the weird Corwids. All Corwids have a single principle by which they live their life. Oxameter walks in a straight line without letting anything change his path and Ellem wants to be invisible so he removes the eyes from anyone approachin him.

The gameplay is melee combat spiced with weapons. Against one or two foes the melee combat, which basicly consists of a couple of hit choices and dodging enemy punches, works fine, but when in the end you face up to four enemies the first-person viewpoint made playing a bit too hard  for me atleast. Lowering the difficulty helped though. The weapons are beatifully modeled and fit in well with the character design.

All in all Zeno Clash is a succesfull indie game. Even though it doesn’t live up to bigger titles in some ways, the character design and the game world are something never seen before in games. Instead of shooters set in the second world war or sci-fi surroundings it’s refreshing to see one set in a crazy fantasyworld. If you’re ready to forgive a few small qualms you’ll enjoy your stay in Zenozoik. I await with interest how ACETeam continues from this great beginning.

I’m playing the game Zeno Clash at the moment and will be reviewing it for Uljas, the student magazine of the universities of Joensuu, Kuopio and Savonlinna, once I’ve finished, sometime next week I hope. As can be seen from a screenshot of the game the art direction in the game is something different. The game was made by a small Indie-studio called ACE-team, who, since they don’t have a large company backing them up, need all the money they can get. Now to that dealing with piracy part:

The picture is from the comments made about a torrent of Zeno Clash on Mininova. What Carlos Bordeu writes is:

“I’m one of the developers of Zeno Clash. I would appreciate you read this if you are about to download this file.

Zeno Clash is an independently funded game by a very small and sacrificed group of people. The only way in which we can continue making games like this (or a sequel) is to have good sales.

I am aware that at this moment there is still no demo of the game, but we are working on one which will be available soon.

We cannot do anything to stop piracy of the game (and honestly don’t intend to do so) but if you are downloading because you wish to try before you buy, I would ask that you purchase the game (and support the independent game development scene) if you enjoy it. We plan on updating Zeno Clash with DLC and continuing support for the game long after it’s release.

Thanks for taking the time to read this… hopefully it will make a difference.

Carlos Bordeu
ACE Team”

In my opinion this is a great way to deal with piracy. Any pirates who read this might, just might, have second thoughts about pirating the game. His comment got quite a few replies as you can see if you click the picture. Perhaps the movie and music industries could learn something from ACE Team’s approach. A band commenting on Mininova about a torrent of their album wouldn’t at least hurt.

Atrévete a decir que no se ve bkn, atrévete wn.

Steam me dejó mal con la fecha de lanzamiento del game que anuncié como “probable” en la primera noticia que publiqué sobre este game chileno (aquí). Pero filo, me lo perdono por tener un blog tan bacán. Con respecto al encabezado, sí wn, nuestro Zeno Clash ya está a la venta a través del portal Steam y a un precio más que accesible. Lo mala onda va a ser conseguirme la tarjeta pa comprarlo, la de mi viejo igual sirve así que tendrá que cooperar con la causa (él no lo va a saber claro está).

Cómpralo aquí: http://store.steampowered.com/app/22200/

PD: Gracias a Phantom Stranger por recordármelo. Sí, se me olvidó. También tengo vida ok?

We’re far enough into the year to have escaped the ridiculous Christmas rush and the subsequent deathly lull; far enough to see what’s on the horizon. As such, I thought it a good time to get excited about what’s coming up in 2009…

Zeno Clash

Independent gaming on the PC seems brighter and more diverse than ever, crossing multiple genres and often attaining mainstream standards of technical and artistic quality while retaining the indie sensibility and originality. Last year we had Multiwinia and World of Goo, this year we’ve had The Path and the belaboured release of Braid and next up on the horizon is Zeno Clash, a game for which the adjective ‘quirky’ would seem to have been invented.

As you can see from the video, Zeno Clash is about as far from Burly Space Marines as it is possible to get, instead firmly entrenching itself in an intriguing explosion of absurdist fantasy imagination. The character designs are fascinating, both visually and conceptually, and there’s a high quality to everything that’s been release to date, including a rather beautifully illustrated prequel comic.

It’s been on discounted pre-order on Steam for a while now and yet I find myself reticent to actually plonk down the cash because, despite the fantastic visuals, I’m yet to be entirely convinced of the actual gameplay. In fact, I’m not even sure what the gameplay involves at this point, beyond the melee combat glimpsed in the various trailers. Fist-fighting in first person games has always been something of a holy grail, the best example to my knowledge being in The Chronicles of Riddick back in 2004. Dark Messiah also made some major strides forward in the area, albeit with swords rather than knuckles. Hopefully an independent, low-budget studio will provide the injection of creativity to finally perfect first person fighting.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

It always pained me that Halo became the poster boy for Xbox FPS games, when the console also played host to the brilliant and unique The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. The blend of adventure, stealth and explosive action felt fresh at the time and was accompanied by technically impressively visuals and a great voice cast including Vin Diesel, Ron Perlman and Dwight Schultz. Starbreeze are just about done with their sequel, Dark Athena, which will also be including a ‘remastered’ version of the original game.

Even if the new Dark Athena content wasn’t included this would be a worthwhile purchase simply for the Butcher Bay remake – it was a criminally underplayed game in its time, especially on PC where I suspect it was often dismissed as an inferior Xbox shooter (a reputation no doubt created by the lacklustre PC version of Halo). If you’ve already played Riddick you know how good it is; if you haven’t, don’t let any potential dislike of the muddled movie dissuade you from checking it out.

More Left 4 Dead

We went a bit L4D crazy last year and, while we haven’t written about it for a while, it’s still a regular fixture on the monthly gaming calendar. Despite the superficially limited number of levels, the game feels constantly fresh due to its sly mix of unpredictability and honed formula. Whether it’s in the hugely challenging Expert Campaigns or the hilarious Versus modes, L4D never fails to be thrilling and one of the most precisely designed games of the last 10 years.

At the end of this month (Valve Time notwithstanding) we get Versus access to the Dead Air and Death Toll campaigns, with the former promising to be a particular highlight with its rooftop shennanigans, plus the long-awaited release of the SDK, which should result in an influx of user content. While most of that content will most likely be utter guff – especially compared to Valve’s exquisite level design – there will no doubt be a few gems on their way. After all, who wouldn’t want to turn their office/home/street into a zombie infested playground?

Borderlands

I had a definite lack of interest in this game until very recently. A large, open-world, post-apocalyptic game in which the main Unique Selling Point was the existence of over 500,000 custom weapons, it sounded like a dull blend of micro-management, irrelevant weapon stats, generic sci-fi visuals and randomly generated content with no real purpose. Plus it’s made by Gearbox, who are responsible for the conceptually interesting but practically fumbled Brothers in Arms games.

Then this happened. (make sure you get PC Gamer UK Issue 200 for the full picture and a very cool preview article)

No, that isn’t concept art. It’s apparently entirely in-game and represents the new visual style. While I wouldn’t want to be accused of favouring style of substance, it’s undeniably beautiful and unique. Any game art that eschews direct photo-realism in exchange for something more expressive is worth supporting and Borderlands seems to be trying its hardest to show that the Unreal Engine 3 can do more than the instantly recognisable Gears of War/Bioshock globular shinyness. Looking forward to seeing more!

Although I still couldn’t care less about 500,000 unique weapons.

Dark Void

I’m interested in Capcom’s Dark Void for two reasons. The minor reason is that it looks a lot like The Rocketeer, with a mid-20th century pulp sci-fi man-with-a-rocket-stuck-to-his-back flying around like a crazed fool. The major reason is that Bear McCreary is composing the music, as he revealed in his blog recently.

Bear’s a newcomer to the video game world but is well known in TV composing circles for his work on Battlestar Galactica and the Sarah Connor Chronicles. His Battlestar scores in particular are something of a revelation, exploring a complexity of theme and composition that you don’t normally find in television. It sounds like they’re trying some innovative techniques for Dark Void, mixing the music together on the fly depending on the player’s actions and the pacing of the action – more games need to be trying stuff like that, rather than the rather lame ‘exploration music/action music’ divide.

Half Life Episode 3

Well, who knows? We might find something out about it this year.

Zeno Clash

“Zeno Clash is an action/fighting game set in a punk fantasy world. The game blends first person action with up close and brutal combat made popular in third person console classics. The game’s art style pushes the boundaries of the Source engine features (the same used to create Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, etc) and represent a departure from the visuals seen in any of today’s games. It will be released April 21st 2009 via direct to drive and retail for PC.”

“Zeno Clash features Steamworks integration for copy protection, player statistics and Steam Achievements. “Using Steamworks and Source has allowed us to create a game that has captured the attention of the independent gaming competition judges and soon launch to millions of gamers around the world,” said Andres Bordeu, co-founder at ACE Team.”

(25/03/09)NEW: Webcomic

We’d still like to celebrate the IGF event with the fans by releasing a beautiful Webcomic that sheds a little background on some of the events that take place in Zeno Clash’s story. Hope everyone enjoys it. Check out the new Gallery to find the goodies!

Zeno Clash Blog

Teaser Trailer:

Gameplay Trailer:

Many people are fearing this game will be a let down because of the focus on melee combat and the use of the source engine. Cynical. Personally, I’ve already bought this game and I hope it at least gets a worthy mention for breaking the status quo that we’re used to. Well, actually not for console tards, they get to keep their noses pressed in homogeonised GMG/DSB generica. So it’s not even THAT much out of the ordinary for us PC gaming master race 3|_371575.

Does it make you happy you’re so strange?
And in your darkest hour,
I hold secrets flame,
We can watch the world devoured in its pain…

I’m working on two new AMVs one with a comedic angle and I have finished some more of Artist-Face’s (B-NOs) caricatures which I’ll upload later/tomorrow.

Esta fue la imagen que dejó locos a los wnes de Valve Soft.

Hace un par de meses tuve la oportunidad de asistir a una charla protagonizada por ACE Team, estudio desarrollador de videojuegos independiente y chileno mas encima. Bueno, en realidad estuvo solamente uno de los 3 hermanos Bordeu (no recuerdo si fue Carlos o Edmundo), fundadores de ACE Team, y fue bastante interesante conocer cómo desarrollaron Zeno Clash, su primer game como estudio. El compadre lo reveló todo, desde los bosquejos iniciales, los que rescataron de su primer proyecto cancelado llamado Zenozoik, hasta la construcción de los niveles y el diseño de personajes. En fin, fue genialmente productivo. Ahora, volviendo al temita del game, Zeno Clash cae dentro de la tendencia FPS que tanto le fascina al 90% de la población que bota 8 horas diarias penqueándose online. Sin embargo, Zeno Clash no es una wea genérica, plagiada y sin alma como la mayoría de los shooters (Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Killzone 2, etc.) sino que se va en la volá de la fantasía-punk -cuática dándole un toque único que lo resalta enormemente de los shooters actuales (esa fue la intención en todo caso). Pero no sólo eso lo hace destacar.
Si bien, el título es un FPS de nacimiento, la acción no necesariamente se basa en disparar a todo qliao o wea que se mueva, ya que alienta al combate cuerpo a cuerpo usando los puños de Ghat (el compipa principal) o algún arma de contacto como espadas de huesos (en serio), garrotes, etcétera. Y ya que estamos hablando de las armas, Zeno Clash ofrece las más bizarras que he visto en un game: las 2 que recién dije, un martillo deforme, pistolas de cabezas de pescao, una ballesta hecha con materiales de la morgue, y las granadas cráneo. La raja wn. En cuanto a la historia, ya mencioné que se desarrolla en mundo freaktástico (Halloween Town es una alpargata al lado de esto wn), en el cual una criatura hermafrodita llamada el Padre-Madre destierra a Ghat, unos de sus regalones que aparentemente se mandó una cagá, provocando que el pergenio se esfuerce por volver a su house y aclarar la disputa familiar, cuya razón se mantiene en total misterio.

Aquí está Ghat, el prota, junto a la infaltable minoca co-prota. Obvio.

Para terminar, hace falta mencionar que el equipo utiliza el motor gráfico de Valve Software (serie Half-life) llamado Source Engine, utilizándolo por iniciativa propia para desarrollar Zeno Clash. La venta del gueim será a través de los portales de distribución digital Steam y Direct 2 Drive, por lo que no veremos gráfica ni diseño para un envase o librillo, pero filo, ya que lo bueno de esto como primera cosa es: que jamás se va agotar; y segunda cosa: el costo, alrededor de 20 U$ ($13.000 chilensis). Mortal. A todo esto, la fecha de lanzamiento aún no es especificada, pero lo más probable es que lo veamos a fines de este año o durante el primer trimestre del 2010. Ah y como el producto es apuntado a un mercado internacional, todo el audio del game será en inglés y sólo “las letritas chicas que aparecen abajo” estarán traducidas al español.
Ahora si para cerrar: si eres chileno, ¡siéntete orgulloso wn!

Fuentes: www.aceteam.cl, www.zenoclash.com.

Sure, Dead Space, FEAR: Project Origin, and those other suvivor-horror games of the last couple years (there are too many to name), are scary… sometimes.  But the fear that is a result of those games isn’t the same as what I’ve experienced from watching two videos of Zeno Clash.

Zeno Clash is a stand-alone game being created using Valve’s Source Engine.  At first glance, it looks more like a Half-Life 2 mod, but don’t be fooled.  After watching the latest gameplay video, released this past December, it’s obvious that the production of this title is top-notch. 

The developer, Ace Team, is a new studio located in Santiago, Chile.  Currently, Zeno Clash is their only title in production, but with such unique game design, who cares.  Check out their website if you’d like.

Now, to the point: Zeno Clash is creepy and scary.  The character design is something that can only be described as coming from the mind of a nut.  It reminds me a lot of how original the design was for Silent Hill, so bizzare and strange that you couldn’t help but be creeped out by it.

Zeno Clash appears to do the same.  According to the game’s website, it is “an action/fighting game set in a punk fantasy world.  The game blends the first-person genre with the fighting genre…”  What I can tell from the videos is that this game deviates from tradition… and when I say deviates… I mean takes a U-turn.  However, I don’t want to applaud it too much just yet, since it hasn’t even been released.  Moreover, it looks to be a single-player only title, which disappoints me because I believe that nearly all games should have a multiplayer component nowadays. 

Now, see if you can watch these videos and not get instantly creeped out by the tall, gangly-looking thing referred to as a hermaphrodite creature called “Father-Mother.” 

Check out the game’s official website.