Lost in the Umbra part 2
In Lost in the Umbra part 1, I talked about what few scraps there were on Capcom's Werewolf: the Apocalypse game.
Noted, I only knew about the canned game thanks to those who talked about it in a blue moon on White Wolf's forums. The game was being developed before I even got into W:tA, at the earliest I was collecting the Rage CCG.
The game I did know about and actually waited for, was DreamForge Intertainment's Werewolf: the Apocalypse - The Heart of Gaia for the PC, which was going to use the Unreal engine from Epic Games. I remember visiting Dreamforge's website often, to see what new update they had. There was a poster contest, quicktime videos, wallpapers to download, and tons of screencaps for the game.
Even back then, I found the plot to the game to be a bit far fetched. But I understand it a little better now from a video game developer's viewpoint these days.
They didn't want you to pick just any type tribe for the main character, the tribe stuff was for the capture the flag type of games that normally go with FPS games. So for story mode, they decided on a character who would be from a tribe you couldn't play as in the original source material and have an outsider's look towards cosmology. And I can already hear the teeth gnashing at the concept from the Metaplot canon fans: You played as a White Howler, a group that's dead with no freaking or logical way to come back.
While ASC, the publishers of the game, went down, you can still find all the chapters that Phil Brucato wrote for the site on this wiki: The Heart of Gaia
Because ASC became bankrupt, Dreamforge couldn't find a proper game publisher after that and had to close up as well. The game was finished close to it's release date and that means a copy of the unpublished game exists some where. But where there is a prototype to Capcom's game that can be found, nobody so far has found it.
Some of the gameplay concepts in the game:
Ryan McCulloch could change between three forms; Homid (Human), Crinos (Werewolf), and Lupus (Wolf). Each form had it's different function in the game. As a Homid, you could blend in and hide. Crinos to kick some ass, and as Lupus you could follow enemy scent trails. This is the only game I know other than Dog's Life that used the game idea of being able to track scent. Only that this game never came out and Dog's Life messes it up to make it into a general platform collecting spree instead...
You learn gifts after gaining experience points, gifts in themselves where then equipped to the character and then used like weapons in any normal FPS game. You can also use normal weapons as well.
More Information:
White Wolf wiki
Travis Williams Interview
IGN section on the game
Videos
Part 3 will talk about the various comic books and similar stuff: Croatian Song, Moonstone never finishing the Tribe comics, Neon Umbra (fan strip), etc.
After doing brief summaries of the games in part 1 and 2, I feel like talking about other unpublished video games. One such website on the topic is Unseen 64.
Noted, I only knew about the canned game thanks to those who talked about it in a blue moon on White Wolf's forums. The game was being developed before I even got into W:tA, at the earliest I was collecting the Rage CCG.
The game I did know about and actually waited for, was DreamForge Intertainment's Werewolf: the Apocalypse - The Heart of Gaia for the PC, which was going to use the Unreal engine from Epic Games. I remember visiting Dreamforge's website often, to see what new update they had. There was a poster contest, quicktime videos, wallpapers to download, and tons of screencaps for the game.
Even back then, I found the plot to the game to be a bit far fetched. But I understand it a little better now from a video game developer's viewpoint these days.
They didn't want you to pick just any type tribe for the main character, the tribe stuff was for the capture the flag type of games that normally go with FPS games. So for story mode, they decided on a character who would be from a tribe you couldn't play as in the original source material and have an outsider's look towards cosmology. And I can already hear the teeth gnashing at the concept from the Metaplot canon fans: You played as a White Howler, a group that's dead with no freaking or logical way to come back.
While ASC, the publishers of the game, went down, you can still find all the chapters that Phil Brucato wrote for the site on this wiki: The Heart of Gaia
Because ASC became bankrupt, Dreamforge couldn't find a proper game publisher after that and had to close up as well. The game was finished close to it's release date and that means a copy of the unpublished game exists some where. But where there is a prototype to Capcom's game that can be found, nobody so far has found it.
Some of the gameplay concepts in the game:
Ryan McCulloch could change between three forms; Homid (Human), Crinos (Werewolf), and Lupus (Wolf). Each form had it's different function in the game. As a Homid, you could blend in and hide. Crinos to kick some ass, and as Lupus you could follow enemy scent trails. This is the only game I know other than Dog's Life that used the game idea of being able to track scent. Only that this game never came out and Dog's Life messes it up to make it into a general platform collecting spree instead...
You learn gifts after gaining experience points, gifts in themselves where then equipped to the character and then used like weapons in any normal FPS game. You can also use normal weapons as well.
More Information:
White Wolf wiki
Travis Williams Interview
IGN section on the game
Videos
Click to viewPart 3 will talk about the various comic books and similar stuff: Croatian Song, Moonstone never finishing the Tribe comics, Neon Umbra (fan strip), etc.
After doing brief summaries of the games in part 1 and 2, I feel like talking about other unpublished video games. One such website on the topic is Unseen 64.