The follow up to last year’s brilliant VR Jam winner Ciess has been announced by it’s developer E McNeill. We take a look at Darknet and ask McNeill to answer some of our burning questions.

From Jam to (Virtual) Reality

The Indiecade VR Jam was an incredibly successful event by any standards. 100s of entrants were asked to craft a fully operational virtual reality game or experience in just 3 weeks and the results were better than I think anyone expected. The level of creativity and craftsmanship on display when the finalists were announced blew us here at Road to VR away and produced some genuinely excellent games that people have gone on to play well after the event finished.

Chief among those that excelled was Ciess, a beautiful neon vision of the world inside computer networks which pitched you with the task of defeating system security in the pursuit of financial gain. Ciess was essentially an action puzzle game wrapped in a brilliantly playable and intuitive environment. It’s a game that uses VR to immerse the player with a view to enhancing their view of the world and your goals within it. It was also incredibly well polished for a game with such a brief development period and was one I returned to many times well after the VR Jam was over. It was fairly clear this was a game people wanted to see more of.

Today, McNeill announced that those people will get their followup and it is to be called Darknet. The new game takes the essence of Ciess, a loose homage to all those ridiculous Hollywood visualisations we’ve all groaned over at the movies. Think seminal but ludicrous 1995 film Hackers and it’s garish realisation of talented uber-hackers escapades in cyberspace as a prime example. Darknet actively encourages these comparisons and in fact goes as far as to name your in-game protagonist a “Hollywood Hacker”.

“There is no right and wrong. There’s only fun and boring.”

So what’s new in Darknet? Well, as you can see from the brief snippets of gameplay shown in the pre-alpha trailer the visuals have been been given a makeover. That glorious neon so beloved of 80 and 90s Sci-Fi is now accentuated and sharper. In terms of gameplay, McNeill has redesigned the games mechanics to allow for “truly deep strategic gameplay” as he puts it. some of these changes are apparent in the new footage, but details are at present thin on the ground. That along with a revamped soundtrack is probably more than enough to encourage salivating amongst Ciess fans everywhere.

E promises that the game will launch alongside the Oculus Rift “whenever that may be”. Whether or not he has any further insight into a likely launch window for the long awaited commercial version of the Oculus Rift is unclear, but either way don’t expect a release before or close to the end of the year. Pricing too is as yet a mystery, but as soon as we learning anything we’ll of course let you know.

We asked E McNeill to answer a few questions on the development to try and dig a little deeper:

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Road to VR: Congratulations on the launch of Darknet. How did you go about deciding where to take Ciess creatively after your VR Jam victory?

McNeill: It was pretty clear from the start that I’d want to make it into something bigger, but it took some time to figure out how to do it right. I felt certain that there was a lot of potential there, but I spent a lot of time with a notebook and pen, just thinking through how I might fulfill that potential. Most of that process is finished, but now I need to actually build the damn thing!

Road to VR: You cite ‘hollywood hacking’ as the influence at the core of Darknet. What films in particular did you have in mind whilst developing Darknet?

McNeill: I watched Johnny Mnemonic, Hackers, The Lawnmower Man, Swordfish, Ghost in the Shell, Weird Science, Code Hunter, and the TRON movies while I was designing Darknet. Part of the fun is in experiencing that classic cyberpunk fantasy, so I wanted to make sure I had all the source material! But really, “Hollywood Hacking” is just convenient shorthand; the biggest single inspiration is probably Neuromancer.

“Hollywood Hacking” is just convenient shorthand; the biggest single inspiration is probably Neuromancer.

Road to VR: Clearly the requirements of creating a full commercial game versus a Jam demo are very different. What does Darknet bring to the table in order to tempt people to part with their cash?

McNeill: It will be a much more full experience; the goal is to create deep strategic gameplay and a satisfying metagame. Ciess already stood out from most demos for being a strategic game rather than an action game, horror game, scenic tour, or novelty experience (not that those are bad things!). But it was ultimately pretty shallow, whereas Darknet has some real volume.

Road to VR: What new gameplay features are you most proud of in this new version?

McNeill: The old low-level hacking gameplay in Ciess was a little lackluster. “Good enough for a game jam.” I think the new hacking gameplay in Darknet is a lot more interesting, with much greater potential for depth. I wrote a dev blog post about the details.

Road to VR: Darknet is clearly a more polished title when compared with Ciess. Have you expanded the team to include specialist artists / creative people to aide development?

McNeill: I got a few weekends of concept art from a very talented artist, Michael Heald, and the entire visual makeover was started and finished in a little over two weeks. He was a miracle. I might end up getting some more outside help later in the project, but I definitely think there’s value in staying as small as possible, too.

Road to VR: If you had to sum up your aim for the look of Darknet’s world, how would you?

McNeill: “Clean cyberpunk”. I love most of cyberpunk, but I’m not really interested in the gritty, depressing part. Perhaps it’s a contradiction in terms, and not “true” cyberpunk, but I want a look that reflects a glorious, optimistic future of cyberspace.

“I want a look that reflects a glorious, optimistic future of cyberspace”

Road to VR: Do you now have a commercial backer and a publishing deal or are you still independent?

McNeill: Still 100% independent. I’m funded solely by my own savings account.

Road to VR: Has Darknet been designed with an eye on the rumoured forthcoming DK2 and impending commercial version of the Rift? i.e. Any plans for gameplay features based around positional tracking and taking advantage of the extra resolution?

McNeill: Yes! Since I’m targeting the CV1, I’m trying to keep those features in mind. I’ve gotten to try the positional tracking, and it can add a lot, especially up close. I’ve designed a few things in the game around that.

Road to VR: You plan on making this an ‘open development’ venture, does that mean you’ll be listening to and implementing ideas and feedback as you go?

“I’m funded solely by my own savings account.”

McNeill: I’ll be listening to feedback, but I think it’s important not to let that compromise the design vision or the production realities of the game. To me, it’s more like a window into the development process, rather than crowdsourcing the game design.

Road to VR: Any peripheral support planned for Darknet? i.e. PrioVR / STEM etc.

McNeill: Nope. Oculus is primarily targeting a seated experience with gamepads, and I think Darknet is one of the few games that can take advantage of those limitations perfectly.

Road to VR: When can we expect a full release of the game and will you be offering early access via a donation scheme etc?

McNeill: I’m hoping to release at the same time as the Rift CV1. Not sure yet about early access, but since the game won’t be designed around the DK1, it might be tricky.

Road to VR: Any Kickstarter plans for Darknet?

McNeill: Not yet! Things might change, but right now, as a solo dev living cheaply, time feels more scarce than money.

Road to VR: How much will Darknet be at launch and where might we expect to be able to buy the game?

McNeill: Again, it’s still early, but I’m thinking around $15, give or take $5. I hope it will be available on Steam, and perhaps whatever Oculus Share eventually becomes.

Road to VR: Are you in contact with Oculus VR as development progresses? As a VR Jam winner, have they been keen to encourage a full commercial release in support of their HMD?

McNeill: They’ve been very responsive and encouraging, but there’s no official news to report yet.

Road to VR: What’s the best and worst hacking film ever made?

McNeill: Tough one! It depends on what you count as a “hacking film”; if your definition is loose, then my favorite is definitely The Matrix. If that’s not hacky enough, I might say Code Hunter (a.k.a. Storm Watch) just because I was expecting it to be so awful. As for worst… Well, it’s the same problem. Weird Science was easily the worst film in the bunch I watched (I couldn’t finish it), but it just had one hacking scene. Johnny Mnemonic and Swordfish probably tie for a close second.

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We’re very much looking forward to seeing more of Darknet, especially in the latest Oculus hardware. We wish E the best of luck with development and we’ll do our best to catch up with him at GDC 2014 to try the game out for ourselves.

You can keep in touch with Darknet’s development at the below channels:

Blog: www.darknetgame.com

Subreddit: /r/darkcom