At GDC 2017, Sean Murray announced that Hello Games was launching a new funding initiative called “Hello Labs” which would help other game developers who were interested in using procedural generation.
Coffee Stain, another indie game developer, famous for their game “Goat Simulator” just announced they will be revealing their new game “Satisfactory” at GDC 2018 and uploaded a teaser trailer (see below) for it that shows a planet that looks suspiciously like one from No Man’s Sky (not exactly, but it does look like an alien planet that could be made with proc gen).
Could Hello Games have given Coffee Stain the use of their planet-generating engine for making their new game? Or am I way off base here? Check out the info on their websites for yourself and decide.
I think Apparance is the project, Sam Swain lists on linked in that he’s currently working for Hello Games. And he can work on Apparance while doing this.
The more I look into Satisfactory, the less I feel this will be a full PCG game, or being a big part of it, if at all. Then again, Coffee Stain Studios did partner up with Ghost Ship Games to publish Deep Rock Galactic (Unreal 4), which uses PCG for their cave systems. The graphics share a lot of similarity with their previously released Sanctum games (Unreal 3). It looks great and they are obviously inspired by fiction/sci-fi.
Coffee Stain Studios has always worked with Unreal and having a sci-fi theme is not new to them. Sure enough we hardly know anything about the game, as they await GDC for more to share and limited Alpha access likely in May. Best guess would be that this game will be a sci-fi builder/management game, which would meet the promise of a more serious title, in comparison to Goat Simulator.
Will it be Hello Labs assisted? Sorry, but I personally doubt it, even if making use of Sam Swain’s solo project, it wouldn’t quite be Hello Labs. No offence to the team of HG/HL or their abilities to create great content. I just believe these developers have enough experience to do things their own way. So far nothing shows any relation between Hello Labs or Sam Swain, but then again, maybe they have been really good at keeping things quiet? Could they be inspired by games like NMS? Sure, no doubt, this is only natural, you’ll always be influenced by what already exists, whether it be games, books, movies or whatever else. Not to mention game development being a tough industry, where you are more or less forced to look at other ‘co-creators’, to avoid saying ‘competitors’ and possibly hurt some ‘feels’ (ahum).
Anyways, this is just my down-to-earth opinion, the trailer looks intriguing, might be a builder/management game, has a fiction/sci-fi look, with an awkwardly cute looking creature having an itch … all the things needed to get my interest
Well, I’m a real person making a real game (or parts thereof, at least). Trouble is if you don’t put up some money, it’s difficult to get anything actually finished… So unless there’s at least one full-time employee, I don’t generally consider it a real company
