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Fund your own adventure: Axis Game Factory hits Kickstarter

Earnest Cavalli
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Axis Game Factory
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ever since the first video game was played by the first video gamer, people have dreamt of creating their own games. The dedicated among us have a relatively simple route to reach this goal: Attend college, pick up the necessary computer science or design degrees, and hope against hope that some gaming company might choose you over hundreds of other worthy candidates. The rest of us though, the lazy, unwashed masses, what are we to do with our half-formed gaming concepts?

That’s where developer Heavy Water comes in. This morning the company sent out an announcement heralding a new Kickstarter project for a “game” dubbed Axis Game Factory. The parentheses around the word “game” in that last sentence seem applicable, as Axis Game Factory really doesn’t offer the kind of singleplayer or multiplayer action one might expect from a traditional video game. Instead, Axis Game Factory is a user-friendly replica of a professional video game design suite that hypothetically allows users to craft their own titles using tools quite similar to those employed by professional game designers.

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Have a look at the list of features Heavy Water claims will be found in Axis Game Factory:

  • Full GUI scene and gameplay editing tools
  • Extensive art asset libraries for terrain, foliage, structures, props, atmospheres, characters, lights, and more from different art styles
  • Ability to create custom models from separate pieces to use just like any other art asset in your toolbox
  • Every saved file, scene or model, saves the history so even after you’ve closed and opened the file you can undo and redo the entire file and therefore, every file becomes a tutorial and provides step by step instructions for the next user
  • Positional NPC’s that can be configured by altering variables via sliders, attaching animations, voice acting, way points, and sound effects
  • Positional enemies that can be configured with variables via sliders same as NPC’s plus variable for aggressiveness, strength, etc.
  • Scene linking between your different environments to give your game a larger than life feel, linking environments by start and end points
  • Multiple camera choices during gameplay to create different types of games such as FPS platformer, adventure 3rd person, and side-scrollers
  • Multiple playable characters with expansive animations to fit various gameplay genres
  • Press play at any time during design development to play your level in progress to test out and then easily switch back into design mode
  • The ability to play back user inputs from gameplay and choose different camera angles to create compelling Machinima
  • Share your in-development scenes with friends who have the same assets to collaborate on a game design
  • Become a real game designer by sharing your final game to the community to play for free and earn status and reward credits to spend in Axis and within the community
  • Update your warehouse inventory by purchasing new kits, themes and features
  • Anyone will be able to download and play Axis Game Factory in Basic Mode – but if you want all of the bells and whistles, you will need to step up and buy a starter-kit of a theme of your choosing, to unlock the “Deluxe Mode.” From there, you can add any number of kits and features as they are made available
  • You will be able to share your creations with your friends to play and rank you, as well as download other games to play and link your levels to for endless fun!

Assuming text fails to convey what exactly Axis Game Factory is all about, we’ve also embedded the project’s Kickstarter promotional video below this text. It’s much easier to picture Axis Game Factory in action while watching footage of the program.

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With 26 days left before its Kickstarter project ends, Axis Game Factory has managed to raise $13,518 of its stated $400,000 goal. That’s a great start for a project from a relatively unknown video game developer, and we hope Heavy Water is able to attract all of the funding it needs to complete Axis Game Factory. Mind you, we don’t have the patience or dedication to actually make a game ourselves, but knowing the Internet the level of creative freedom promised by Heavy Water should ensure that Axis Game Factory spawns a host of bizarre, quirky games that would never pass muster with a major games publisher. We love that kind of thing.

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Earnest Cavalli
Earnest Cavalli
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Earnest Cavalli has been writing about games, tech and digital culture since 2005 for outlets including Wired, Joystiq…
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