About a month ago we took a look at a game called Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, a top-down stealth game with the ultimate goal to steal, hijack, or otherwise obtain others goods. With the co-op, you have one of 4 main characters of different classes with different abilities to help the mission. Co-op in this has caught our attention, and Indiegames.com decided to ask the creator of Pocketwatch Games, developer of Monaco, a few important questions about the co-op and general process of creating a game like this.
Andy Schatz is responsible for Monaco, and as such he is the authority on what's what. First, we are curious why the game is called Monaco, and where the concept came from. Andy answered that question, as well as elaborated on the story a bit. Since the game is engineered around co-op, we think it's safe to assume the story will be implemented in the co-op.
"The game is called Monaco because it's all set in the tiny country of Monaco on the Mediterranean. The plot and characters are inpired by heist films. It's a winding plot that involves some real life events dealing with scandals involving the prince of Monaco, interwoven with a conspiracy that is inspired by the American who escaped from the Monaco prison after killing the billionaire banker, Edmond Safka."
He goes on to mention the story is written, but hasn't been implemented just yet. I for one can't wait to see how the heist films and storyline tie in with the 4 available classes and characters. Andy also discusses a bit about how the game will play, and the general goals.
"Each mission requires you to get some goal item and find your escape route as fast as you can without dying. You can get trophies for collecting as much loot as possible and compete with your friends to get perfect runs and fast times."
A bit of friendly competition drives goals, and potential achievements or trophies if this eventually finds its way to the Xbox LIVE arcade, or Playstation Network. So far, the game is working toward an xbox Indie channel release, but if it is as fun as his friends say it is, we may look forward to a great XBLA and/or PSN game. When testing the game, Andy had a bit of a "special guest" of sorts, one of the creators of one of our favorite 4-player brawlers Castle Crashers.
"Nowadays I'm running 2-4 player tests with friends and people are laughing, and hooting and hollering the way people do when they play a game like Castle Crashers, so I know that's a good sign. Dan Paladin and I were actually playing a couple nights ago, and he gave me some incredibly good feedback on the game, much of which I was able to implement in the last two days."
While this sounds promising for the overall gameplay, the best part of this interview comes when Andy admits that co-op was just too much fun not to have.
"At this point in my testing (about 5 weeks of development) I started to discover how truly fun the co-op gameplay was. It really outshined the single player, though I still think the single player is fun as hell. That's what got me to start thinking about a bigger version of the title, with networked co-op as well as same screen."
With the potential of a multi-platform "bigger version" of Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, co-op fans may have something more to look forward to. We definitely love our online and local co-op, so the option makes us giddy. We can't wait to hear more about this, and see a bit more about how the game will play, feel, look, and where we can look forward to seeing this released in the future.
Source: Indiegames.com