Amsterdam 1666 - Patrice Desilet's unreleased historical game video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WVEo4yXpho
What looks something like an E3 reveal demo made while Patrice was at THQ.
I love this, a lot. It feels cinematic in a way that games rarely do: with the cinematic feeling being maintained even when hinting at a large gameplay scope.
I don't know what it would look like to simply walk around in this game world, but I have a feeling there would be a lot of effort put into making simply walking along feel like it is part of the world and the character and exudes personality.
This game has a clear identity and voice in a way few do. I hope it or something like it comes out some day, since Patrice just got the rights back.
I wholeheartedly agree. Losing this game to Ubisoft, or at least having it be inert under their control was something I was quite sad about when I first found out about it a few years ago. Since I'm signed up to Panache Digital Games' mailing list, Patrice sent me this e-mail, which I think does reveal an intent to get to working on Amsterdam 1666 once they're done working on Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.
admit it, DAZ. you're just interested so you can play as a cat aren't you. 
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
admit it, DAZ. you're just interested so you can play as a cat aren't you.
That would be the laziest game ever.
That V for Vendetta looking dude with the sick cape is my HOMIE.
Apparently the earliest concept of this game was to, "be worse than the Devil." Which it seems like, yeah, that's what this protagonist seems to be going for. That's a pretty interesting character to play as. How do you successfully frame or pull off a character who seems to most people to be pure Evil? If done right, this could be awesome.
I heard someone say they felt he seemed like he was meant to give off the vibes of a plague personified, or something. It definitely seems like there's some black magic going on, with that ending where he forces those folks to see a vision of fire or something.
It's the kind of story that would fit in with a modern day television period piece thing, or a typical open world video game, which is basically about walking around messing with people in the same way as that character was in this video.
That makes a lot of sense. That kind of story-gameplay integration, or ludonarrative resonance would be much appreciated. I'm a big fan of games that try to justify their game-y elements in-universe. (Not that I don't adore hyper game-y games, I've got room in my heart for both of those.)
I've always though Golden Age Holland is a great setting for an AC game, purely for the historical feeling (I may be a tiny bit biased). For some reason I recently dreamt about a game where it's just levels of playing as different animals (in the present day btw), exploring, trying to find food and survive, escape predators and fight other animals, escaping human hunters. Eventually you can upgrade skills (highlight prey, fly faster, more health etc) in a skill-tree system.
I'm getting off topic, but Amsterdam 1666 looks cool to me. I'm not sure how I feel about switching from human to rat and from crow to human and all that, I'd prefer to just play as a human or just as an animal. I'm looking forward to seeing more about this project.
I think the man was meant to be controlling the animals, though i'm not sure if that's what you meant.
I think the man was meant to be controlling the animals, though i'm not sure if that's what you meant.
Yeah, that's what I meant by 'switching back and forth'. Not sure how I feel about that, but if it's properly explained (that he has some sort of power) I'll be okay with it.