Larian Studios - New Status Update

Lar has made a new status update available on their forums with information on their new projects D and E:

So what’s up at Larian these days? Well, as those who come here regularly know, we’re preparing for Gamescom and the announcement of Project D.

Now I read on http://www.rpgwatch.com, one of the two sites I check in the morning to see what the competition does (the other being the madness that is rpgcodex) that Moriendor (whose opinions ring a personal note as he visited our studio in the early days to help us out with testing the first Divinity) thinks we’re going to make:

a) A Real sequel to ED full price game to be released on all major platforms
b) An Isometric low budget spin-off to possibly only be distributed digitally
c) A Browser game of some sort
d) And finally a multiplayer-focused title, either an MMO (seems unlikely that they would invest in a full scale MMO but maybe a browser MMO) or something with an emphasis on cooperative gameplay

He concludes with “that would cover all of the bases as far as the current trends in gaming are concerned”.

So to respond - Project D is none of these and project E, which I think I already mentioned has a top-down camera, can hardly be called low-budget. On the contrary, it makes us bleed, but we have high hopes for it

Speaking of E, I’m very happy to announce that we managed to convince David Freeman ( http://www.beyondstructure.com ) to help us out with the script. He arrived yesterday in Gent with a surprisingly low dose of jet lag, and will be working together with us over the next couple of weeks with fine-tuning the storyline for E. I’m pretty curious what he’ll come up with, especially considering the ambitions we have for E’s storyline and how you’ll interact with it.
David wrote a book “Creation Emotion in Games” and also teaches the biggest screenwriting class in Los Angeles & London. If you have an interest in stories in games, get a copy (
http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Emotion-Games-Craft-Emotioneering/dp/1592730078 ) and you won’t be disappointed, but better yet, if you ever have a chance, participate in his class, you won’t regret it (and it puts the ideas of the book completely in perspective, which might otherwise be hard to get completely) Get on his mailing list so you can figure out when he’s in the neighbourhood, those things are usually packed but who knows, you might manage.

Now, I’m mentioning all of this because his book contains a chapter which talks about “meaningful non linear response” or MNLR for short, and it’s one of the things we’re trying to do & get right in E. If you get the book, you’ll get why this could something really cool. If not, ask David, maybe he’ll send you a chapter. If you can’t guess, I’m pretty hyped about having Jan, who wrote all the dialogue in DKS and David work together, and am very hopeful that the outcome will make for a fantastic new Divinity story.