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The Tone Rebellion Preview

The makers of Ascendancy return with a real-time strategy game that emphasizes cooperation over annihilation

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The Tone Rebellion is a new take on the real-time strategy genre, looking and sounding dramatically different from the standard bearers, Warcraft and Command & Conquer. Plus, the emphasis on cooperative play, along with some adventure game-style puzzles, may put The Tone Rebellion in a class by itself.

The Tone Rebellion is the second game from the Logic Factory, the six-person development team behind Ascendancy, a game which, despite some criticism, has sold a quarter-million copies worldwide. Most of the team are Origin alums, having worked on Strike Commander and Wing Commander. When they finished Ascendancy late in 1995, they had only an inkling about what they'd do next. One inspiration came during multiplayer Warcraft games. "We discovered we had the most fun when we teamed up against the computer," says Tone Rebellion's lead designer, Jason Templeman. "It's very satisfying to help your buddy when he gets in trouble." That led to the cooperative approach found in Tone Rebellion.

But the inspiration for the back story is more esoteric, perhaps a result of their many late-night, star gazing gatherings. "Mythology, alchemy, Karl Jung, and Buddhism all played a part," says Templeman. "We've created a fanciful world, not Tolkien with dwarves and elves, but surreal." You begin play on one of 15 islands suspended in "an ethereal void, connected by shimmering bridges of Tone energy." You manage one of four tribes of "floaters," supersets of a once populous and peaceful species torn asunder and nearly wiped out by heretofore hidden leviathans. Those leviathans now control all the islands and are managed by one, all-powerful leader. Your task is to manage your tribe, using the tribesmen's skills to overcome your island's leviathans, then work cooperatively with other floater tribes to eventually conquer the master leviathan.

Each of the four tribes - the Protectors, Speakers, Mystics, and Life Givers - has three professions and multiple skills and weapons. Like other real-time strategy games, you build villages and factories where troops are trained and outfitted with magical combat powers. Meanwhile, you scout the islands looking for other beings, more life-supporting Tone, ancient ruins, and solutions to each island's puzzles and mysteries.

Tone Rebellion departs from the standard real-time strategy genre fare in its battles. "There is no blood and guts," says Templeman. "You don't have a bunch of bazookas and machine guns blowing other creatures to bits." Instead the floaters wield lightning bolts, fireballs, and sorcerer's spells. "What you will see is a lot of interesting-looking creatures erupting in what look like clouds of a magical substance."

Your tribe's members will not be simple-minded souls, individually awaiting orders. Micromanagement is out. Rather, you give larger orders: Build a factory here, scout there, attack over here. Your tribe's floaters will have enough sense to work out the specifics on their own. "You don't have to worry about floaters getting their butts kicked because they're stupid," says Todd Templeman, Jason's brother and The Logic Factory's marketing manager.

Strategic elements include encountering stronger leviathans, sharing and sometimes competing for limited resources with other tribes, and working with those tribes to overcome your and their weaknesses. "It's kind of a four-way rock, scissors, paper relationship, plus the leviathans have different characteristics that effect strategic decisions," says Jason Decker, one of the game's graphic artists.

Decker and the other artists have given each island setting a hand-painted, wide-screen, 3-D "diorama" look. The buildings constantly animate as floaters create them and as they produce material. The floaters and leviathans are richly detailed and their appearance reflects their powers and characteristics.

The game will offer challenges on multiple skill levels and will likely give newer players the option to work within a smaller number of islands. At its highest level the game will be very difficult to win. "Players will appreciate finally having a real-time strategy game challenging enough to exercise their brains while compelling enough to immerse them in a wholly different realm," says Todd Templeman. It will support both single-player and multiplayer modes with up to four gamers connecting over IPX or the Internet.

As a real-time, multiplayer strategy game, Tone Rebellion has many familiar characteristics. But the fictional world and its inhabitants are far removed from mainstream gaming. To quote an unpublished news release: "The Tone Rebellion takes the player into a world crafted from a perspective of mythology, fantasy, dreams born of unconscious spirit, and that concept which permeates all cultures, their sacred beliefs and our own collective unconscious - the hero's journey." Here's to wondering if they can pull off such a lofty goal.

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