A game like this has huge expectations and quite a few questions as well about the final outcome. In order to get answers for some of these questions we reached out to Randy Greenback, Executive Producer of Gun Media, to get some inside information about the game and what to expect from it.
Kickstarting the project
On the first day of the project launch on Kickstarter, Friday the 13th: the Game managed to raise over $200,000 and attracted more than 3,000 backers. The project met its goal on November 10, but the game raised $823,704 in total, overshooting the goal by almost 18%, which means some stretch goals were also be met by the developing team. To read more about them, you can visit the Kickstarter project page here.
An Introduction
Friday the 13th: The Game is a third-person survival-horror game where players take on the role of a teen counselor – or, for the first time ever, Jason Voorhees.
The game is an asymmetrical multiplayer, where one player overpowers others. You might remember this mechanic from Evolve, another asymmetric online multiplayer title. Like others of the sort, it will limit the number of players per match.
The game is based on the same plot as the movies, and will have many murders recreated from the series. Aside from recreating fan-favorite scenes, the game will also feature scores of new ways to kill. Feel the rush of excitement yet? Not quite? Here is pre-alpha gameplay footage to pump some hype in you. Go on, take a look, but do remember to come back and finish reading this.
Another Introduction
You now know about the game, but what about one of the faces behind it? Here’s a brief introduction for Randy Greenback. Randy is a well-known developer with over 21 years of experience – mostly with AAA titles from companies like Westwood Studios, EA, Red Storm/Ubisoft, & Insomniac Games. Now he’s the Executive Producer for Gun Media.
He has worked on huge franchises like Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, America’s Army, Ratchet & Clank, Command & Conquer and many more. Most recently, he was the Executive Producer on Breach & Clear: Deadline. He’s fascinated with, tinkering with, and pitching designs for asymmetrical multiplayer games since the late 90s. The opportunity to fully realize such a game has now come with Friday the 13th: The Game.
Randy is huge fan of retro games and also a collector. He is the proud owner of a Turbografx-16/PC-Engine. He says:
His top 5 favorite games are Dune 2, The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Pixel Junk Monsters, and X-Com. Apart from gaming he enjoys raising his 3 children, mentoring others to help them break into the gaming scene, and painting (quality of a gentleman, I think).
The Interview
A furiously trending topic like this demanded quite a few answers from the development team. And we tried to get some of those for you.
GameSkinny(GS): How and when did the idea for the game sprout?
We announced the game and it started getting a lot of press, and that attracted the eye of Sean S. Cunningham. Sean was the Director of the first Friday the 13th film and owner of the IP. Once he saw the game we were making, the passion we were putting into the project and who we had already secured, he reached out to us to see if we wanted to use the license. The rest is history.
GS: Controlling a serial-killer is something players are inexperienced with. How does the studio plans to capture the killing style of maybe the biggest, most bad-ass of them all?
GS: Jason Voorhees stalks his prey and plans his attack, something you cannot put as default inside a character. Does this mean, how the game turns out depends totally on the players or will some kind of hints and support will be provided to both the murderer and the victims?
GS: A number of Jasons were portrayed in the movie series. Will we see all of those? Should fans expect some new variations?
GS: Defending against Jason can be very hard, how will the teenagers be able to survive? Which brings another important question, can Jason be killed?
GS: Will the game have a single-player campaign? If yes, will it feature a new story or a recreation of an older story?
GS: The movie is centered around Camp Crystal Lake, will the game have only one map or more than one? How big will the size be?
GS: Jason is quite powerful and will have an upper-hand over the teenagers (obviously). Will teamwork be the only weapon available to the survivors? Is escape a possibility?
Escape is a possibility as well, and there will be multiple ways to survive by fleeing. We’ve talked about a few of them, being escape via a car or a boat, but both vehicles will need to be repaired before that can happen. The boat only seats 2 counselors, and the car just 4. There are many ways that matches can resolve, especially when a group are working together to repair a vehicle and then some get left behind when Jason shows up.
GS: Fans of the series would expect some scenes from the movie to be recreated in the game. Will there be such scenes?
GS: These questions were all about what the fans expect, but as Executive Producer of the game, what are your expectations?
For more background information you can visit the official website of the game. Follow the game’s page on Twitter and Facebook for latest info about the development progress.
We would like to thank Randy Greenback for sparing time for this interview from an extremely busy schedule.
What are your expectations from the game? Comment below!
