Before Stewart Butterfield and Cal Henderson launched the successful photo site Flickr, they tried their hands at MMO design. Back in Flickr's early days, they ran Game Neverending, an MMO that closed about nine months after the launch of Flickr.
They're back, this time with an eye toward developing a browser-based, sidescrolling MMO with the hopefully ironic name of Glitch. The game is described as an exploration in "the minds of eleven great giants walking sacred paths on a barren asteroid who sing and think and hum the world into existence."
While Glitch has a simple, youthful feel at first glance (check out the teaser trailer), the developers are aiming for players in their 20s and 30s. Don't expect all of the simple graphics to remain, either. The Glitch site mentions the avatars in the game, saying "Those are placeholders, an early prototype we're using for testing."
Glitch is expected to launch in late 2010. You can sign up for private alpha testing now, and expect a public beta this summer.
Reader Comments (4)
Posted: Feb 10th 2010 9:43AM Pingles said
Side-scroller? As an old-timer it's tough for me to go back to those after waiting for years for access to a 3rd dimension in gaming.
But I'm also a fan of creative thinking so I will give the alpha a shot.
But I'm also a fan of creative thinking so I will give the alpha a shot.
Posted: Feb 10th 2010 10:14AM (Unverified) said
Wow. Sure puts LittleBigPlanet to shame. Right?
Right?
Right?
Posted: Feb 10th 2010 12:45PM pcgneurotic said
They should've called it Glith, then they could've had *another* Incredibly Stupid And Annoying Internet Name to their credit.
Having said that, it does sound interesting, and I look forward to seeing how it turns out. If they could capture the fun of Maple Story without all the sickly-sweet J-Cute, it'd be awesome.
Having said that, it does sound interesting, and I look forward to seeing how it turns out. If they could capture the fun of Maple Story without all the sickly-sweet J-Cute, it'd be awesome.
Posted: Feb 10th 2010 2:35PM (Unverified) said
From the look of it I'm reminded of the little mouse/giant mind game the characters in "Ender's Game" played. I dunno, this is always how I visualized that game too look like from the book.







