What is BLTD? Part #2

Yesterday we checked in with Zombie Stuidos’ lead game designer Jared Gerritzen on Blacklight Tango Down. We were enlightened, so here’s the concluding part of that interview.

X360: In your press release, the art style and architecture is described as a combination of futuristic and antique, which sounds a bit like a Bladerunner scenario to us – would that be an accurate comparison?

JG: Bladerunner was a huge influence. We also looked closely at alleys in big cities for reference in the Blacklight world. A realistic world was our goal – taking real-world settings and buildings and transforming them into what we thought they’d look like 60 year into the future. It’s been an extremely fun and creative process and it has turned out better than I could have imagined.

X360: Any particular reason why you’ve chosen XBLA for Blacklight? It’s an Unreal Engine 3 game, we’d imagine it’s a commercially viable retail box product too.

JG: Agreed, Unreal 3 makes you instantly think this should be a big title: Blacklight: Tango Down is a big title. We believe Downloadable Content (DLC) is set to become the standard game distribution model. Think about the last time you went to a music store to buy a CD… DLC on the consoles was originally used only for small games because of the limitation of the hard drive, and the platform holders felt that players would want to play old and nostalgic games.  However, that has rapidly changed, and as players get more and more used to downloading things, be it a patch, map pack or arcade game, they will also begin to demand that as a primary means of game distribution.  We’re confident you’ll be seeing more and more high quality titles in console marketplaces.  We want to be a part of it. We decided to make a game that could be sold over DLC in an effort to try and beat some of the “big” companies to the punch, who will inevitably follow and start to take it over. It’s a viable outlet for great games that don’t have millions of dollars of development and marketing behind them.

X360: Have you started on the film and comic yet?

JG: Yes, the comic and movie are both in production right now. I have worked quite closely with the movie writer and also personally co-wrote the comic to keep them both focused, consistent and technically sound. I’ve also set up future projects. More to come on those…

Thanks Jared, and check out the official BLTD website here.