Update: High Voltage wants you to map The Conduit controls
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 11:54am by Jack
High Voltage continued its one-of-a-kind marketing blitz for The Conduit this evening with a new contest. It’s a pretty simple, pretty cool little contest that effectively gives you, the gamer, a chance to map the game’s controls.
Update: High Voltage’s Eric Nofsinger wrote us to clarify the prize: “The prize is getting your name in a videogame, e.g. the Jack Loftus control scheme. =) We will likely send a lot of other junk too (T-shirts, etc) but the real prize is credits / bragging rights,” he said.
More from the release, including contest rules, below the fold.
“Given how flexible our control scheme code is, and how we’re going to have several pre-set mappings to choose from,” said Lead Programmer for The Conduit, Ed Federmeyer in a press release delivered to Infendo. “Wouldn’t it be a cool contest to allow gamers to propose schemes and we can take the best and burn them into the game as additional preset control mappings?”
The High Voltage folks are making no secret of the fact that this game is designed with a certain type of person in mind, and they’re doing it in a way that I hope gets noticed by other developers in the genre.
“From the start of the project our primary goal has been to make the definitive first person shooter for the Wii, and specifically for core gamers. Asking core gamers for their input is just a logical extension of that rationale,” said High Voltage CEO Kerry J. Ganofsky.
What a concept. One of the biggest barriers to entry for the FPS is often the control scheme. Making the process more “open source,” to borrow a term from my previous job, could be pretty revolutionary. Well, maybe not revolutionary, but pretty neat.
The contest rules are simple; using a standard Wii-Remote and Nunchuk combination, fans should send in what control mapping they think would be best for the following functions:
1. Move Forward/Back
2. Strafe Left/Right
3. Jump/Activate
4. Shoot Weapon
5. Target Lock
6. Crouch
7. Reload Weapon
8. Scope/Binocular Mode
9. Switch Between Weapons Carried
10. Switch Between Grenades Carried
11. Pause Menu
12. Swap Between Weapon Carried and Weapon on Ground
13. Equip ASE (All-Seeing-Eye) / Special
14. Aim Reticule/Turn Camera
15. Melee Attack
16. Throw GrenadeFans should also feel free to also suggest Wii-motions (gestures) to trigger actions - just be sure to describe motions thoroughly enough that they are clear to High Voltage Software’s design team.
Entries should be sent to Feedback@High-Voltage.com with the subject line of “Conduit Controller Mapping Contest”. Winning entries will be made available for selection through the UI as official controller schemes for The Conduit, with appropriate in-game credit given to their creators.
Contest entries must be received prior to November 14, 2008. Entries using duplicate schemes will be awarded based on whichever was received first. Winners grant permission to High Voltage Software (HVS) to use his/her name for professional and promotional purposes. All entries become the property of HVS and under no conditions does HVS promise any financial or monetary compensation to those who enter.
Now, all they need is that publisher…
September 18th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
There’s rumour of Nintendo being the publisher. Also of EA. It’s in the air, really. I think the best idea would be to simply allow the player to change them however they will via in-game menu like any PC shooter. Having a few presets is nice, but having to stick with them is not.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Come on Nintendo! Publish this game!
September 19th, 2008 at 2:41 am
They should specific that the HOME Button can’t be used. Just in case people don’t realize it.
September 19th, 2008 at 5:05 am
I fail to see the point of the competition… The amount of people that will try this, they’re likely to get pretty much every viable combination of control schemes possible, all High-Voltage do then is pick the ones they wanted from the beginning…
Oh well, I may give it a go, could be fun anyway.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:23 am
[...] (via Infendo) [...]
September 19th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Use Metroid controls, worked fine for me.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
This is kind of neat, but it’s a little odd, IMO.
I mean, you really can’t get a sense of what would be the best controls for The Conduit unless you got a chance to play it for yourself.
Not every game should have one set of controls that are expected to make everything fall into place.
I do like the fact that it will be a choice.
But how can you really get the feeling that you’re confident that it will be the best layout for The Conduit if you didn’t get a chance to play it yet?
I played it at PAX, as did hundreds of other people, so those people would probably be the best sources to rely upon.
They asked me about the controls as well; I liked them a lot and didn’t feel a need to adjust them.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
i think it’s a fun idea to raise public awareness and hype the game. which is fine with me since most of the time people complain about their (nintendo & third party: zack & wiki come to mind) laxed marketing technique on the wii console. i also doubt that you will be stuck with the one control scheme chosen as the winner, it’ll most likely be the preset and you can toggle the controls within a game menu.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
@LordToker:
Per control-tweaking, the tweaking is done in-game, and you are free to move around, fire, etc. as you see fit until you get your correct “feel” for what you think are good controls.
High Voltage is really doing well with their “hardcore-gamer-in-mind” practice for this FPS.