Response Ready

As you know, I work as a game developer, and while I do take pride in that position the projects often take a long time, and since they're educational games, they're a little dry for taste here in this blog.

But, even dry content is better than no content, right?

In between the other projects at work, Ive been working on refurbishing one of our oldest games, Response Ready. This game won all sorts of awards, got all sorts of attention, and is still in the news today, simply by virtue of still being in the news. I've never been party to old news re-hashes before, but I've seen it now.

Anyways, Response Ready is, at it's core, the child of a hidden object game and a choose your own adventure, with a time limit and a resource management game thrown in. You're given a scene, and are tasked with identifying the dangers in the area. For example, the gas pumps might spill, or the train running nearby might derail, or someone at the furniture shop might knock over a shelf of wood-treating chemicals. Then, you rank them as you find them based on how dangerous they are and how likely they are to happen, and you get a procedure out - for instance 'clean up spill'.

Then, you go into the timed choose your own adventure, and immediately something goes wrong. From the list of procedures based on the dangers you found, you have to respond, and get your people moving to solve the problems. But it's not just that simple, as you're working the emergency continues to worsten, so you have to be both proactive and watchful.

It is a good game, and a brilliant idea, but it's really old. And the art is only a handsbreadth above 80s cartoons (admittedly, it was styled that way on purpose). Really, the game needs a makeover. I'm porting it to a new system, then we're going to add new levels, and if I can find someone we'll redo the art for it. But, that's in the future.