The Endless Mission seeks to provide gamers a glimpse of the game making process and a better understanding of just how much goes into even the simplest of experiences. By providing a lucrative set of creation tools and potentially unlimited set of levels thanks to user generated content, this is one game capable of turning heads. We dove in head first ahead of the game’s Early Access release on November 14th.
From the first person perspective, players take control of a game designer in training. This trainee’s first day on the job involves getting acclimated to The Terminal – a large and mysterious alien like construct that is seemingly fueled by virtual realities. The Terminal’s lone inhabitant when you arrive is Ada – a perky artificial intelligence whose personification bears more than a passing resemblance to Rachel from Friends.
Yours and Ada’s role in The Terminal in unclear at first, but steadily reveals itself as you collect misplaced USB sticks strewn about the facility. The purpose of these small snippets of lore are twofold. For one, they provide context to why The Terminal exists and what your true function is. More importantly, they draw parallels between the game world you’re playing in and the real world process of video game making. In one story segment, Ada becomes rather anxious as she balances priorities. She needs to decide what takes precedence for her virtual reality experiences – does she focus on quickly drawing in as many players as possible, or ironing out all the bugs and technical flaws in favor of building an audience later.
The Terminal features three main areas. The Hall of Genres features Academy Games – The Endless Mission‘s pre-packaged stages. Here players can quickly jump into a level from a predefined genre including real time strategy, a platformer, or a racing game. Each one of these levels are incredibly simple and meant to coax the player into using these simplistic backdrops to create something more complex.
User generated content is shown off in The Hall of Creation. This area provides access to The Endless Mission‘s growing catalog of player made levels and proudly displays the most popular ones. These levels can come from each of the game’s genres, or some bizarre combination of the three. One level took characters from the RTS genre and transplanted them into an urban third person shooter. In early access there are some impressive levels created by aspiring designers. Some levels, on the other hand, are barely playable. Luckily, The Hall of Creation allows you to upvote or downvote any levels you’ve played, as well as view screenshots and the number of downloads.
The lower terminal is where players will move through the game’s version of a campaign. You’ll use a quest log populated with main and side missions to help Ada bring The Terminal to full operation. These missions play out in a combination of the RTS, platforming and racing world genres – each with their own unique set of characters and personalities. Missions are accomplished by using both conventional mechanics for each of the genres as well as developer tools. Players can quickly swap in and out of hacker mode – a special mode that grants the ability to play with game asset characteristics just as a developer would. Rather than trying to platform your way to an end goal, you’ll be granted the ability to augment the scale of an obstacle that might be too big. Instead of firing a weapon at an enemy, you can enter hacker mode to set a baddie’s heath pool to 50% of its total.
These game design mechanics skillfully provide an introduction into all of the elements that go into creating even the smallest elements of a game level. They serve to both train the player as well as give an appreciation for how much goes on behind the scenes. All of this is seemingly done to make the transition into Editor Mode that much less of a daunting task.
In this mode, players are able to choose from either a blank canvas or a semi populated level from one of The Endless Mission‘s genres to start making levels of their own. But this isn’t as simple as level creators like LittleBigPlanet‘s that we’re used to. Novice creators will need to train themselves to understand all that is going on. While it is still an entry level creation suite, the best levels are likely to be produced by those who really take the time to understand fundamentals. This may sound overwhelming, but the development team at E-Line Media have produced an extensive suite of tutorial videos to educate those willing.
The Endless Mission is poised to create a unique experience that helps gamers empathize with the game making process. It also gives them the tools and know how to jump in and start doing it themselves. We see a game like this undoubtedly having longevity with those curious about making a working transition into the industry. And, if enough quality content is produced by the game’s audience, there’s potential for a fun and varied game for those just looking to play.
