I recently had the good fortune to be given a tour of the I Am Legend Survival game by ESC members Cory Edo and NeoBokrug Elytis. What follows is a lightly-edited transcript of our meeting. Rest assured, all edits are to enhance clarity; there are no substitutions or purposeful omissions, other than to weed out no-relevant chatter. Thank you both, Cory and Neo -- hopefully everyone will come mob the game and partake of the goodness!

This game has the feel of a cross-over hit to me. I'd love to see this thing on a handheld console -- PSP or DS, perhaps -- if not an actual full-featured console. XBox Live Arcade, perhaps? As you'll see, the Sheep have turned what might have been a lame movie tie-in into something worthy of praise on its own merit. Drop in and check it out! Also, there's a Flickr account with photos of the various players and their mods available here.

Transcript after the jump!


Cory Edo: Let's go through the OI first. Well, this is the landing point. New signups land here as well as regular SL visitors. Split into two branches, one for new residents to learn SL, and a game track. New resident orientation loops around to meet the game track, which we'll take.

Essentially the game is set a year before the events of the movie take place. The military lost contact with the CDC lab in manhattan, so they're sending in the rest of the troops to try and find the lab and discover the Cure the scientists were working on for the New Flu. With that, we're off.

You can play as your choice of 2 factions, 4 classes: uninfected human, uninfected dog, infected human (darkseeker) or infected dog. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, and style of gameplay.

SLI: You can play just fine as a dog? Can you solo as a dog?

Cory: You can, it's a little more difficult. Dogs rely on humans to heal them on the fly with medical kits. When you die you can resurrect and come back with some life, but you can't heal on the fly unless you got a human buddy. So ... teamwork. Darkseekers and infected dogs, on the other hand, are all about the killing rampage. That faction is good for just jumping in and playing for 20 minutes and killing lots of people. Humans and dogs have a lot more tasks and things to do, so its a more involved setup for longer term players.

Cory: The screens tell a little bit about each faction. We had Canimal make us the human costumes, Wynx did the dogs, and I did the Darkseeker skin. You should see how people are modding these; it's insane. OK, HUD time!

Cory: The HUD controls everything, its all based off the HUD -- the weapons, the AOs, the stats, the kills, the salvage. You can change classes if you want to; we put a timer on it so people can't sneak attack.

SLI: Change classes in mid-game?

Cory: Yep! Changing faction is a 30-minute timeout. Changing class is a 15 minute. Just long enough so you don't do it all willy nilly.

At this point, other players began to show up and ask questions. The better questions remain in this transcript.

Khamudy Mannonen: Hey can I ask a quick question? Is there any info on the easter eggs here? I was told there was ... but I've been walking around and I can't see it.

Cory: I don't think we put anything up in the OI officially about it, we set them out basically for people to find on their own. I will say not all the weapons are easter eggs. But if you check out Chinatown and Coney Island you can get the majority of them.

SLI: What are the easter eggs, exactly?

Cory: We have custom Darkseeker skins, special t-shirts, and some of the better weapons are easter eggs. Anything else, you gotta bribe Spider Mandala and Neo.

SLI: Are these avs to keep, after you're done playing the game?

Cory: Yep! By Monday we'll have a freebie vendor set up so you can use the AOs that go with them without having to use the HUD.

SLI: Whose idea was this game?

Cory: Good question ... lost to the sands of time mostly, but the concept of a game around IAL was between Warner Bros and ESC. Once we got the contract the game team sat down and fleshed out the basic idea into what we have here.

SLI: Okay, so it's basically kill-or-be-killed? Keep going until you die? Or is there a resolution?

Cory: Well, the ultimate goal of the humans is to discover the Cure. For the Darkseekers, it's kill as much as possible and prevent the humans from finding the Cure. That'll make a little more sense once we go into the salvage system.

SLI: Will this game undergo updates and changes, or is it pretty much finished as-is?

Cory: We're doing one major update in about a month. We'll take the game down for 24 hours, update the environment, release the final sim. One good thing about doing this in SL is we're really flexible. If we get good suggestions we can implement them really quickly, really take the culture that the game develops and reflect that in the environment.

Dedric Dryke: How popular is this here veerdio game?

Cory: So far, we're doing pretty well for being open a day and a half. First day we consistantly had 25-50 people active. We were a little slower this morning, but it's Saturday.

Dedric Dryke: Do you HAVE to wear one of the types of outfits?

Cory: Nope, you only have to wear the HUD. Everything else is totally up to you. We just give you the outfits as starters.

Dedric Dryke: But dogs do come in handy it seems.

Cory: Of course we'd like it if you dressed like a dog if you play as a dog, but we aren't gonna kick you out of bed for it.

Khamudy Mannonen: There were a group of women running around earlier in hotpants and heels.

Cory: I saw a girl in a prom dress yesterday! Yeah, if you play as a dog your av is gonna get all borked, so might as well wear the costume.

Cory: Moving on! One thing that's really big in the movie is Darkseekers and the aversion to light. For the game, we have a built-in time of day dial that affects a Darkseeker's strength and voracity.

SLI: How long is a day?

NeoBokrug Elytis: 2 hours.

SLI: Are the days and nights equally long?

Cory: Yep. We would have loved to use the actual SL sun but unfortunately we couldn't. Otherwise with SL sun you got 4 hours of day and 1 of night; major imbalance.

Cory: OK, next! This is just telling you that your weapons have flashlights on them, which are great for passive defense against Darkseekers. Just don't run out of battery power or you have to find more! We were essentially a team of four with a bunch of auxillary help on the OI and costumes and weapons etc.

SLI: That's a TINY team!

Cory: Yeah, I liked it, though. I'd rather have a tiny team that's tight-knit and works well together than some big clusterf- of a team. Anyhoo, onward! You grab your beginning weapon here, a pistol with unlimited ammo. It's weak but reliable.

SLI: Are Infected hard to kill?

Cory: Oh hooooooooo yeah.

Neo: Depends on the time of day :)

Cory: That too.

Reimu Yoshikawa: Heh.

SLI: Reimu, have you been playing?

Reimu Yoshikawa: Yup.

SLI: How many hours have you logged?

Reimu Yoshikawa: Oh jeez ... Lemme see ...

Cory: Reimu's been here most of the day, haven't you? I saw you running around in a fly pink dress earlier.

Reimu Yoshikawa: Uh ... yeah. I have no life lol

SLI: 1) Are you a gamer, and 2) How does this compare to similar survival-horror type games?

Reimu Yoshikawa: Good questions. 1) Yes, very much so. 2) It's not like a standard SH type game, because it's in a FPS-like format. However, the lack of ammo and swarms of tough-to-kill zombies IS like a SH-type game. Kinda like Left 4 Dead, but on SL. :)

Neo: If you keep on the move grabbing body bags, you'll have a whole bunch of ammo. :)

Cory: If the Darkseekers don't get them first.

Reimu Yoshikawa: True, but the infected tend to get in my way. :)

SLI: And you were already a resident before-hand, correct? Would you say this game's fun enough for a non-resident to get an SL account?

Reimu Yoshikawa: Yeah. And I'd say it is fun enough. Too fun perhaps ...

Cory: Aaaw yeah!

NeoBokrug Elytis reels in the fishing line. :)

Cory: I've seen a goodly selection of new people come through already. Some don't make it past the OI; some do surprisingly well. Like, enough so I was shocked.

Reimu Yoshikawa: Reading is hard for some, lol

Cory: I know how tough SL can be to learn so I had really low expectations despite best efforts, and this is a lot to take in at once. And yeah, reading is a problem.

Cory: Anyway, get weapon, go into the shooting range, practice your moves. Next stage in Central Park. There's a number of safehouses. Empty buildings you can claim for your faction. You do so by using the generators in the back hall. Turn it on, the lights come on, turn it off, the lights go out.

SLI: Instant protection.

Cory: Exactly. They also trigger the nearby resurrection point. So if humans hold all the safehouses, they also have a larger number of resurrection circles available to them, and vice versa.

SLI: How many times can one resurrect?

Neo: As many times as you die. :)

SLI: And does someone else have to do it for you?

Cory: We want you to be addicted. Nope, you go and stand in the circle, wait for the countdown and boom: back in the game.

SLI: Oh, about teaming up with others: is it an explicit grouping? Or do you all just agree that you're in it together?

Cory: The latter. We want people to form their own groups. Alliances, etc. There's already one player created group set up.

SLI: Is it all done in Mouselook?

Cory: The humans use mouselook to fire the weapons, everyone else has a mouselook attack and special HUD attacks they can use if they want. The Darkseeker HUD attacks use Voracity. They're more powerful than the mouselook attacks.

And here we have the Salvage system, aka bodybags. If humans pick them up, they get items they can collect and combine together to make new items. If Darkseekers pick them up, they get instant boosts to health, strength, voracity, etc. It's a constant race to get the bags before someone else does. And especially before the Darkseekers do, because they can buff up pretty heavily.

SLI: Is there a finite number of them?

Cory: They randomly spawn and generate. So you never run out totally but you have to be on your toes if there are a lot of people playing, because they'll suck them up before you get to them.

SLI: Are the effects stackable?

Cory: That's a Neo question.

Neo: Yes :)

SLI: So you could have a super infected running around?

Neo: On occasion. :) There's a timer when your buffs wear off, and there is a cap to how strong you can get. But they're both pretty generous.

Cory: Let's scope out the item generation machine. We're close to done with the OI. Humans get their salvage and bring it to the CDC lab or the station in Chinatown, and combine their items to make new useful ones! We have a whole thing here where if you got the salvage back at the last station, you can practice here and make a cool t-shirt.

Neo: Two.

Cory: TWO

SLI: Are there actual salvage recipes, or is it random?

Neo: There's recipies. :)

Cory: Stored deep in Neo's skull.

SLI: You don't need to go into detail, Neo, but how many?

Neo: A bunch? I dunno offhand.

SLI: Fair enough!

Cory: These are the resurrection circles, red ones and green ones. You can grab a map of the ones in Central Park: red for Darkseekers, green for humans. The barricades are for the safehouses. Humans can set up barricades in the open doors to give them more protection. They're on a timer and strength so Darkseekers can attack to try and destroy them, and humans make more barricades from salvage. Aaaaaaaaaaaand we're done! To the foot of the bridge!

Cory: We have some cool vendors here if people want to do any shopping to dress up before they go play. Canimal, Form, Dutch Touch, Kyoot Army ... We got the official IAL Survival Group. The link to the website FAQ with the web support form, so if people have problems they can fill out the form and it gets to us if we're offline. The Explore board so new SL people can get off the IAL sims and check out other places.

Reimu Yoshikawa: Hey, I've got a request ...

Cory: Sure!

Reimu Yoshikawa: To add an ammo counter to the main HUD?

Neo: Stats.

Cory: Already there. Hit the lower right hand button to go to the user interface, then click the Stats button.

Reimu Yoshikawa: Yeah, but going into another area on the HUD from mouselook would get you killed ...

Cory: Yeah, you gotta be careful checking it.

Reimu Yoshikawa: Fair enough.

Cory: OK, ready to go check out the sims? Let's cross over into Hell.

SLI: Do you have to have a HUD to be affected by attacks in the game? Can regular avatars drop in and start getting jacked?

Cory: It' all about the HUD. You can wander around with no HUD and be fine.

SLI: This is New York compressed?

Cory: We took some liberties with the size, of course. Otherwise we'd have like 689 sims. The Park is the horrid death area. Easy to get lost.

Neo: Easy for a Darkseeker to turn a corner and rip you to shreds.

SLI: How many sims is it?

Cory: We are going to have 4 gameplay sims total. We have 3 open now. Central Park, Chinatown, and Coney Island. Columbus Circle will come out sometime next month. One of the things that was really cool about Warner Bros. is they gave us access to a LOT of movie materials. All the posters etc. you'll see put up are actual movie props.

Cory: Here's one of the safehouses. You can see the green resurrection circle over to the side. We have two safehouses total like this: one Darkseeker hideout, and one human hideout, that's the CDC lab. Let's go check that out.

Neo: And the shed in CP.

Cory: Ooh, yeah. In the middle of the Park there's utility shed with a generator that triggers the lampposts in Central Park.

SLI: The whole Park?

Neo: Yes :)

Cory: That's a big one.

SLI: Is there a kill counter? Is it possible to play the game like that?

Neo: Yes! Everyone has death and kill counters. :)

Cory: Ooh I see people up ahead! EMBEDDED REPORTER COMING THROUGH! KILL THE MEDIA!

As soon as Cory said this, players began to gather, and chaos reigned for a few minutes, causing me to run around mindlessly in a panic. The following are a few representative comments:

SHOOT IT! INCOMING! LAB INVASION! FREE BOOZE AT THE LAB!

Things finally settled down and we entered the CDC lab.

SLI: It's not possible to destroy this equipment, is it?

Cory: Nope can't destroy this stuff.

Neo: Destructable envionment? I was thinking about that at one point. But I said, too much work.

Cory: We wouldn't last 3 hours if we had that.

SLI: What's this about the degrading environment?

Cory: We're gonna take the game down for 24 hours next month and downgrade the environment. Make everything dirtier, change some stuff around, and release the next sim.

SLI: Gameplay changes to go with?

Cory: Not sure yet; gonna have to see how it settles out. There's more stuff from the movie we want to add in the area tho.

SLI: How long has Warner Bros. invested in this?

Cory: Pretty sure it's been at least a full year since plans started for this.

SLI: Let's do Chinatown.

Cory: Awesome, that's right next door.

SLI: What'd you figure out?

Cory: Oh my hat vanishes when I cross sim lines. Neo figured out a quick cam swing around your av forces it to load.

SLI: Nice!

Cory: The human hideout! You can really get your sniper on up here. Chinatown was designed as a human base, like Coney Island was designed as a Darkseeker base.

SLI: And CP is in the middle.

Cory: Yep!

SLI: Are there more body bags there?

Cory: Yep all the sims spawn body bags. And we can control what kinds of items show up in each sim.

SLI: But not more so in any one than in any other?

Cory: Neo?

Neo: I think the CP has a better spawn because it's always contested.

SLI: How long did it take you to hash out the gameplay mechanics?

Neo: I already had a good grasp of them, perfecting them is what took all the time. :) Key issues were performance, fun, and balance. It's hard to make LSL do things it doesn't want to do, and it's way more hard to make sure teams have fair abilities, and strengths. This thing's had a LOT of closed beta time.

Cory: On to Coney! Coney Island is my favorite because its creepy as hell. This sim is probably the one we pulled the most from RL. We have the Coney Island subway station, the freak show, the wonder wheel ... there's the Boardwalk and the beach, and that's the Grand Tour!

Cory: So creepy no one really comes over here yet, except the brave Darkseekers.

SLI: Why is that, do you think?

Neo: Humans are cowards. :) This is a great place for darkseekers to buff up when CP is full of people looting bags.

Cory: Probably because everyone empties out into CP and so people go there to jump them, and they just never move out. Hopefully in the next few days with more traffic.

SLI: Will you guys have leaderboards?

Cory: Not at this point, no. We're concerned about people looking at it like it's a goal, to get on the leaderboard, and start cheating.

SLI: Is there anything you want known about this for the article?

Cory: Oh, man ... just that we really want people to come and have fun! We saw a good opportunity to make a corporate project in SL that was really fun for the community, and we had a great time making it, and we hope people have a great time playing it!

SLI: Is there a place for people to leave feedback? Maybe something that will show Warner that this was a good investment?

Cory: Well, the Warner Bros. client in SL that we worked with is Johnnyid Orbit -- they can ping him directly, or they can fill out the web form on the website and shoot us an email and we'll make sure Warner Bros. gets them. That would be fantastic, honestly!