Totems world premiere at Games Concention 2007
by Némoté & Messiah, September 8th 2007

23rd August 2007 – 08:45 CET – Leipzig, fair ground

Some young people are sitting beside a big pool with fountains in front of a modern set of exhibition halls reflecting the morning sun. Some service employees are preparing the artificial beach lounge at the pool, opposite of the entrance hall. There’s some kind of calm before the storm. Near the cash desks two guys are talking about a mysterious game called ‘Totems’. – zoom in – It’s Messiah and Némoté of ‘PlanetAdelpha’ !

Part I: Attempts of communication
After we’ve easily found each other, the more complicated part was still ahead of us. We had to contact Yves Grolet (of 10tacle Belgium) and we needed to find the 10tacle booth. Luckily, Messiah had the number of Yves Grolet’s mobile phone and he should call Yves about 10 o’clock. So first we had some time to get an impression of the world’s biggest fair for games.

Besides the compulsory ”babes” (we did this photo only to caricature the cliché), we came across much cooler ‘characters’, like ‘Sam&Max’ for example, and of course we searched for the 10tacle booth.

When the time came Messiah tried to contact Yves. A call, a voice mail and a text message later, we waited for an answer. But nothing happened and after an hour Messiah tried to call Yves a second time. But strangely he always got to a Dutch woman and her boyfriend. Obviously the mobile phone network had problems with the different countries and operators involved. Messiah’s Austrian phone had to roam his call from Germany to a Belgian phone, which was located in Germany as well at the moment.
Consequently we decided to use my German phone to reduce the complexity. So finally we succeeded in contacting Yves. And another hour later we met Yves, who wore a ‘Totems’ t-shirt.

But unfortunately he had only one business badge. So Messiah went with him and I was left behind. Consequently the logical step for me was to defect to the enemy. ;-)

But luckily I was allowed to come with Yves, too, after they had returned. And after some steps towards the end of the exhibition hall, we entered the holy hall of business.

Part II: The game
An almost frightening silence predominated the ‘business center’. Only some chattering could be heard out of the companies’ lounges. And then, at the 10tacle lounge, I had the honour to witness a short presentation of Totems.
So now comes the part you are all waiting for since the beginning of this article: information on the game itself.

The core technology of Totems is the SESS (Semantic Environment Sensing System). This technology makes it possible for the player to use the environment of the game in numerous ways. And it is also creating the fitting animations for the player’s actions in real time, as well as delivering information to the camera, which is then able to adjust in the right way. Consequently this technology is mainly a big package of information on the spatial environment. Some kind of ‘knowledge’, which can be used by different parts of the game: animations, camera, player action, controls, AI.
So the AI and through it the NPCs are also able to use their environment in an extensive way. For example the hostile NPCs, we saw during the presentation, could move to everywhere the player moved to. Consequently they started to chase him through the entire level. So in the final games there will be no illogical stop of a fight, because you moved out of sight or out of technical reach of your foes.
These options of movement and action shall be accessible through context sensitive controls, which shall be intuitive and easy to learn. And in addition, these basics shall be accompanied by a general freedom in action, exploration and storyline throughout the whole game.

In general the gameplay is comparable to the modern ‘Prince of Persia’ series. But in contrast to that there shall be no unbalance in favour of frustration (concerning endless loops of falling and dying).
Totems is going to be released for XBOX and PC, sometime in 2008 (probably during the last quarter).

Part III: The presentation of Totems

A short demo level of Totems was shown to us (we were lucky enough to get access to 10tacle’s press portal). In the demo we saw Gia, the female main character of Totems in a city of antique ruins. We were informed that this level is one fourth of the bear region in Totems. There will be ten regions in Totems dedicated to different animals from the shaman culture. Each region will be very different from each other. From the highly industrialized inner city to the ruins of antique settlements we will find unique architecture and level design everywhere. We didn’t get to know much about the story of Totems, but we know that the main character Gia will discover that she is a decendent of shamans and will therefore learn some of their spiritual animal powers. Each power will be controlled with only one button. Therefore gameplay will be easy, but still offer a great variety how to play the game, because it will fit your playing style. It’s up to the player how he uses these powers. The demo showed us how agile Gia is and that she can use nearly every object to climb on it or jump on it. We also saw a first combat with a bunch of tiger soldiers. They moved as agile as Gia and were very clever in using their enviroment for their combat and movement. We were told that the gameplay will have a lot of freedom and non-linear elements. It will be up to you where you go when. The island where Totems takes place will not be fully populated by friendly NPCs like in Outcast, but there will be some NPCs that will be very important for the story and will create a unique story experience. The demo was short, but convinced us that the high goals 10tacle Studios Belgium set for themselves (with this title) are possible to realize.

Part IV: Meeting the developers

After the presentaion we had some short time to talk to some of the developers. Fabian met Stephane Bura and some other developers. They were very pleased to meet us and were very kind. We talked a bit about Totems and shared some ideas. It was a great feeling being there and talking with the ones responsible for Totems. We would like to say 'thank you' to the whole team for all their kindness and their effort to make this game as good as it possibly could be!

Part V: Conclusion
What we’ve seen so far gives a good impression of the game. The ‘parcour’ inspired gameplay is really cool and will surely be fun combined with the clever AI. And as many of 10tacle Belgium’s team members worked on Outcast, we’re optimistic that the game’s story and atmosphere will be fascinating as well.