The sometimes controversial UK station Channel 4 has offered to fund a video game now being developed by indepdenent UK team Introversion. Like most would, the team accepted.
The game in question is called Chronometer, but there's really not much to be said for it - noone in the public eye actually knows what it is. All that's known is its finished pre-production, and designer Chris Delay says it's been one of the developer's long-standing ideas that's "been edited and revised and updated more times than any other". This, I'm thinking, means the game is either pretty garbagey, or tight, refined, and a solid overall experience. Seems more likely to be the latter though, upon reading screenwriter Chris Hastings revelations on the game's origins in the company blog:
"I specifically remember the moment I explained it to Mark [Note: Mark is the team's "Creative/Sales arbiter"] – in a KFC in London of all places, and he just stopped and stared at me while I was speaking. He genuinely couldn’t continue eating. By the time I’d finished I went back to my food and Mark just sat there silent for a few minutes before uttering “fuck me”, slowly shaking his head in disbelief."
Delay explains on the site it was something they could never make themselves, it was "a fascinating thought experiment in ambitious game design and nothing more", but that all changed when Channel 4 approached them and asked if they had any ideas they needed cash for - certainly not something that happens every day.
Now, while C4 funded the pre-production phase (three months work), whether or not it's going to go ahead fully remains to be seen. Delay says "the conditions would have to be right" for both parties, but so far they've been "fantastic" to work with. Sounds like a future in the making for Introversion and Channel 4 alike.
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