A few days ago we had a chance to stop in and say hi to Klei Entertainment's Jamie Cheng, Jeff Agala and the rest of the team. Rising to fame with Eets, and getting featured here with their last project Sugar Rush, these guys are now hard at work on their gorgeous new sidescrolling beat-em-up Shank.
The game's demo booth made a big splash at PAX and left quite an impression on us, and a lot of other folks. Now we've had a chance to catch up with team Klei to see what's coming up for Shank - from the cinematic stylings to future plans, the tricks and tech they use to create the incredibly smooth animation, and the new weapons that you might find in the finished game when it comes out for... Xbox 360? PSN? PC download? Virtual Console?!? More on that after this look at the game hero doing horrible things to Neoseeker courtesy of Jeff Agala's talented hand!
(Pictured: Jeff Agala, Klei's Artistic Director on the right and Jamie Cheng, the CEO and head enchilada on the left.)
For those who don't know, Shank is, at it's core, a 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up game with its roots in action movies from the likes of Tarantino and Rodriguez. You play as 'Shank' - a strong, silent, goateed bruiser with an arsenal of weapons and a lot of butt-kicking on his to-do list. Armed with blades, pistols, a shotgun, grenades and even a chainsaw, Shank has a pile of weapons. But it's the gorgeous artwork and incredibly smooth action tying everything together; whether it's Shank going from running to climbing without missing a beat, or switching from his knives to the chainsaw in the middle of an attack combo, that will really blow you away. Check out this video walkthrough of the PAX demo to see Shank in action.
Now, some games abound with their disjointed limbs and almost-but-not-quite-touching action scenes. But, Shank manages to be smooth like buttered caramel. When Shank grabs someone you can almost see their shirt bunch up. The trick is something called procedural animation and it's one of the few being used to bring Shank to life. The details of it confuse me some, but rather than animating each frame, the basic shape and mobility details, and interaction framework for each character is built and loaded into the game. Then the characters are animated on the fly, letting things move without chewing through memory like a fat guy in a Smartie factory.
Another of Klei's favorite tricks is the art of BOOM! They've included some sweet OMG-shrapnel-in-my-eye grade explosion animations into the game, all without making the texture buffer break down and cry. How? Procedural animation strikes again! Rather than a dozen frames of animation, it's broken down to a couple stages, each with a single frame, that is then animated to flow into the next stage. Jeff Agala says that a lot of the tricks he's using are letting him transfer the drawing process from inside his head, to inside the game. Does it work? Watch the video again and see what you think.
On top of the technical tricks, Shank is also using a few very artsy tricks to play with the scenery. The most noted one of those is when Shank crosses an overhead walkway with the sun shining down and the graphics transition to black cutouts against the background. More tricks like this are in the works and Klei is promising at least one "WoW!" moment per level. There was going to be a second moment like that in the PAX demo but the shattering-glass effect wasn't perfected in time for the show.
Next - The non-lightsaber weapons of Shank, the future of Shank, and a chance to take Shank home with you!
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