Flickr’s co-founder, Stewart Butterfield, has unveiled “Glitch,” a Mario-esque game he started working on before building Flickr and selling it to Yahoo! in 2005.
Glitch is a side scrolling game (reminiscent of Megaman, Mario, etc.), which has an innovative social aspect to it that’s similar to Farmville. Based on the successes of Mario and Farmville, Glitch looks like it will be a hot title when it hits shelves in 2011.
The premise behind the game is that you’re inside cartoon giants’ thoughts, and the goal behind it is to successfully develop a next-generation social game. There’s quite a bit of sharing and Farmville-style point-spending that takes place, but Glitch’s style is distinctly abstract. Based on the the trailer, it looks pretty modern and intriguing, with vivid colors and characters plus well-toned graphics.
According to Stewart Butterfield, the game’s creator, describes the game as ‘free’, but not too free. “It’s definitely a virtual world, though not as open-ended as Second Life. We don’t just drop you in the world and say, “go crazy.” There are quests and missions. You can earn skill and achievements over time.”
Stewart Butterfield and his team of 16 other designers gave Glitch a ringing endorsement (of course). Butterfield told Venturebeat, “Stylistically, it’s a mix of all different kinds of things with contemporary illustration. It’s different from traditional console games or social games. There are some indie games doing similar stuff. We have a lot of traditional two-dimensional artists. The game takes place inside the minds of 11 giants who are imagining the world. As you go from place to place, the style is different and the world changes. Your imagination brings the different parts of the world to life.”
Butterfield and his team are evidently placing a lot of emphasis on creativity, originality and innovation. There’s no doubt that by the time Spring rolls around, plenty of people will be looking to test out ‘Glitch’ as soon as it drops.
Looking for more social networking news? Check out New Digg Has Launched and How to Block All Facebook Apps. If you didn’t block Farmville amongst those apps yet, you can hit the snooze button, literally, with the animal farm alarm clock.
via Vg247
