What better way to understand the gaming industry better than to make a game? That's the decision that documentary company Noclip has made, as the group has announced that it's making its very own video game to gain greater insight into the way games are sold and marketed.
What's this new Noclip game all about?
If you know Noclip's name, it's probably from documentary efforts like revealing the gameplay for Half-Life Ravenholm or airing never-before-seen footage of the original Doom 4 prototype. Now, however, the documentary company is embarking on a brand new project, and it's arguably the most ambitious one Noclip has undertaken.
In a new video, Noclip's Danny O'Dwyer explains that the group wanted to know more about the other side of the games industry, namely how games are sold. Noclip wanted to gain insight into how developers interact with Steam, what kind of deals are offered to developers by publishers, and other elements of the industry, and in order to get that insight, the group decided to make its own video game.
Noclip's game is called Stunt Derby, and it's a collaboration with developer Alex Austin, who makes games under the name Cryptic Sea. Austin's previous works include games like the Edmund McMillen collaboration Gish, as well as games like Golf for Workgroups and Sub Rosa. O'Dwyer says the group originally pitched a series of game ideas to Austin, but he decided to go with one he'd already been working on to some degree.
The Noclip video announcing the creation of Stunt Derby also goes into the process of creating a Steam page for the game, as well as the process by which developers can hand out Steam keys to people. There's also some interesting information regarding developing a game that's primarily focused on physics, for which Austin is well-known; if you're interested in a blow-by-blow of how certain game systems or mechanics are arrived at, the new Noclip video has some good stuff for you.
Apparently, Noclip's end goal is to create a game that it can sell on Steam for somewhere between $3 and $10, with around $5 seeming to be the price that the company is thinking of right now. At the moment, though, if you want to support Noclip's endeavors, you can do so simply by wishlisting Stunt Derby on Steam. It should be an interesting journey if nothing else.
