DarkEnergy has 5 chronicles

1. GoG Member Spotlight
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Jul 12 2010

   What a treat is was to discover we have been selected as this weeks GoG Member Spotlight! GoG is a fantastic website, what a brilliant idea to build a proper community website for gamers.
   
   Gamers are the most knowledgeable and switched on fans out there, with that in mind we thought what better way to celebrate being this weeks GoG Member Spotlight than to spill some intricate details on the background story for Hydrophobia. So here it is:
   
   With Hydrophobia we wanted to create a wholly original storyline, but we also set ourselves a remit of making what we call a ‘tangible future’. We wanted to completely avoid the clichés of space marines or nazi zombies and create something grounded in reality, but still set in the near future to provide some elbow room for creativity.
   
   There’s a huge elephant in the room in world politics at the moment; the UN itself is projecting well over 9 billion people on the planet by the middle of this century, and we’re already running out of resources. We’re headed for some serious problems; mass poverty and global conflict over the earth’s precious resources – in particular water. Climate change only intensifies the issue; rising sea levels will reduce fertile land and desserts around the equator will expand massively.
   
   There are two political factions which exist today (try Googling it) which will rise to the fore in this scenario; the Malthusians and the Cornucopians.
   
   Malthusians follow the theories of Thomas Malthus, a very famous political economist who wrote an infamous paper in 1798, which was very influential in the thinking of people like Darwin and Marx. His central argument was that human population always rises above the resource capacity, and controlling or limiting population growth is the only way to prevent what he called a population crash.
   
   A Cornucopian would argue that continued technological and scientific progress allows mankind to raise the resource level to feed the population. Since Malthus death they have been winning the argument; pesticides and other modern agricultural methods have massively increased food supply and world population has exploded as a result. However the pendulum in beginning to swing back to the Malthusians, and they would argue that the problem has merely been delayed and the explosion in the population means the crash will be far worse when it finally does hit.
   
   Hydrophobia is set on board the Queen of the World, the largest ship ever built, a city at sea where the wealthy elite live in exile from the chaos of the outside world. It is a cornucopian society created by the Five Founding Fathers – mega corporations dedicated to research and progress who can carry out their work free from regulation on this stateless vessel.
   
   The contempt of the outside world for the Queen of the World is counter balanced by NanoCell; one of the Five Founding Fathers. NanoCell is a nanotechnology company dedicated to purifying water at the molecular level (again if you look into nanotechnology this is a genuine area of research which is expected to be targeted in future). The promise of NanoCell is to ‘make the desserts bloom with the food of the world’.
   
   On the 10th anniversary of the Queen of the World the whole world is watching the so called ‘party of the century’ because NanoCell is expected to make a breakthrough announcement.
   
   A group of Neo Malthusian fanatic choose this time to attack, they see Malthus as a prophet and have a rather chilling creed; Save the World, Kill Yourself.
   
   Hopefully that should provide a little more depth to the Hydrophobia universe we are building, which you will be able to dive into very soon!

   
   

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DarkEnergy has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. Im Marksman
   Posted On Jul 12 2010

   Very cool, When I played this at E3, Rob gave me some of the plot so I understood where the game was coming from. Having it all written down helps me to visualize what I was playing. Especially since while I was playing I saw the slogan, "Save the World, Kill Yourself" plastered on the TV screens of the ship.
   
   I can't wait to see more video footage of the water abilities that were described to me, definitely keeping an eye out for this arcade release.

2. BEN
   Posted On Jul 12 2010

   I'm loving the new details and it's so neat to be involved with a game AS it's being developed. The information leak here is much appreciated and I made sure to share this acceptance speech within numerous social media outlets
   
   Congratulations again and it's great to have you be a part of this unique video game community. Let's continue pushing the GoG to European gamers and I'd love to see some banners for Hydrophobia go online soon as well.
   
   I'm not clear on the multiplayer elements in this game, but even if there are none, we could party up and play through the game during a GoG/Dark Energy Digital Game Night