It seems like every year, another installment is made in the seemingly omnipresent anthropomorphism-based brawlers genre. Attempting to break into what is easily one of gaming's most over-saturated fields can be a mind-numbingly difficult task. With labels like, "copycat" and "clone" flying like shuriken, what chance does Overgrowth, the latest effort from ultra-small indie dev Wolfire, have of cracking the entrenched mold of the anthropomorphized characters with multiple classes competing in rich, physics-based hand-to-hand weapon combat in a gorgeously rendered world built from a proprietary engine genre?
Probably a pretty big one, it turns out.
Overgrowth is, as stated in the probably overlong genre classification, a physics-based brawler featuring anthropomorphized rabbits from Wolfire games. It's a multi-platform release, which usually means PS3/360/PC, but in this case means Windows/Mac/Linux. It sounds like a hard sell, and believe me, it is. My first conversation attempting to get a friend to check it out went something like this:
Me: "Oh man! This new game called Overgrowth looks CRAY! You've got to check it out, it's got like the most insane-awesome fighting ever."
Friend: "What's it about?"
Me: "Well... it's like these fighting rabbits, but with human bodies, and they have swords and can do crazy roundhouse kicks and there are wolves too and..."
It wasn't pretty. My friend started walking away at "rabbits." But Overgrowth goes from hard sell to hard-not-to-buy (is that a thing people say?) as soon as you see some gameplay footage. So without further ado:
The game's combat is more closely linked to the Playstation classic Bushido Blade than to today's run of the mill button masher. Combat is a waiting game, with counters, and single deadly strikes winning the day over relentlessly complex combos. The fact that this is the first time I've felt compelled to compare a fighting game to Bushido Blade deeply saddens me, but I look forward to any return to Bushido's realistic combat. Even if it is with wererabbits.
Overgrowth's noteworthiness is not restricted to its unprecedented premise. As is probably apparent from the commentary in the above video, Overgrowth is in the middle of a prolonged alpha stage, wherein weekly updated builds of the game are available to anyone who has slapped down 30 dollars for a pre-order.
That's pretty cool, but not especially noteworthy. What is noteworthy is the level of transparency in the development process. Wolfire's YouTube channel is loaded with developer diaries and walkthroughs of all the changes to recent builds of the game, like the one above. This insight into a very talented indie developer's process is fascinating. Such a level of community interaction is unheard of without a legion of recent college grads who have deemed themselves "social media junkies" in their twitter profile on the payroll.
Speaking of payroll, mark up another notch on Overgrowth's belt of noteworthiness, because Wolfire games has a payroll about five names long. That a team this small could undertake a project like Overgrowth is enough to make anyone feel like a failure in comparison. On top of that, Wolfire has somehow managed to make a webcomic backstory for Overgrowth and a delightfully high-concept shooter called Receiver.
It's not all gushing praise. As with anything, there are plenty of nits to pick in Overgrowth. The animations are stiff and unnatural, the environments are far too sparse and lifeless to feel anything like a realistic world, and my god the guy's voice in the walkthroughs is unenthusiastic. These are all things that could be ironed out by the game's release, but that, in itself, raises an even bigger question: When will the game be released?
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Say what you will about massive, international publishers, but they do deadlines RIGHT. They've got quarterly earnings estimates to live up to, and stupid, nerd-ass developers sure aren't going to get in their way. Without the pressure of potential hierarch whippings hovering over their heads, how long will the devs at Wolfire take to drop Overgrowth? The Valve "it's done when it's done" model certainly has merit (last time I checked, they made Half-Life 2), but it doesn't exactly brew content amongst the fanbase. Don't quote me, but I hear that Valve chief Gabe Newell's death threats count spikes with every fake Half-Life 3 rumor.
An indefinite development window is something of a risky proposition, especially when a developer is asking players to invest in a product with no finite completion date. It's a developer's dream and a publisher's nightmare.
That said, Overgrowth is obviously something special, and however long Wolfire needs to complete it is probably the right amount of time. Ideally, though, it will be sometime soon.
Because I'm tryna kick some rabbits in the face.
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