Say hello to Friction – a new arcade company and a new game UPDATED

Shaggy September 10, 2008 7

AMOA is here and with it plenty new stuff to talk about. But today we don’t have just any news to talk about – it’s not every day we get to introduce to you a new company that is joining the fray of the arcade industry!

The name to remember – Friction Game Studios. Based in Los Angeles California, they have been working for some time on their first game known as Friction and soon you’ll be able to see it for yourself, either as an operator or a player.

Friction itself is a light-gun title where the gameplay looks to fit between Area 51 and F.E.A.R. (one the game’s designers is a fan of the latter). You play through three huge levels where you fight against hordes of robotic foes and on top of that there is plenty of destruction you can wreak on the game environment, with many breakable objects (ok, buzzword time: it has “destructible environments”)  and several types of weapons for you to use. From the official website about the game, here are all the features:

  • Real-time dynamic lighting using programmable pixel shaders
  • Fully destructible level geometry
  • Ultra-realistic physics and motion captured character animations
  • Over 14 different enemies with varied attack behaviors
  • Variety of player weapons and powerups
  • Unique transforming super bosses with special attacks

As you can see from the video and screencaps below the graphics are pretty good (much better in person and on top of that the game upscales it’s resolution depending on the monitor), as in addition to the physics involved it also uses specular lighting effects. It’s more impressive when you think about the fact that this has been put together by a small team (of I believe two people sorry, I misspoke there – the company has two founders) as opposed to a team with hundreds of people.

(Click on the images to expand them)

The game’s configuration for cabinet or kit form is still TBD, their preference is to go with a full cabinet. No word on pricing or exact specifications on the hardware yet (they are not ready to reveal that at the moment) but it is sufficient to say that this should be something great for operators to add to their arsenal.

Here is a video of the game in action. There are a couple more videos on their website:

We can expect to see more from Friction Game Studios in the future, so stay tuned and we welcome them to the fold!

[Friction Game Studios Website] [Discuss on the Forums]

7 Comments »

  1. Paul September 11, 2008 at 4:24 am - Reply

    Shouldn’t they release the cabinet first and then later the kit? I’m no MBA, but…

    Anyway it’s good to see a new developer join the industry.

  2. Shaggy September 12, 2008 at 1:02 pm - Reply

    Well I got some extra details about the game from the show that changes that – at the moment the hardware and how it will be released is up in the air and the preference they have is to release it as a cabinet first, it depends on a few factors (I’ll have the post updated in a moment)

    I did see the game with my own eyes though and I was impressed, it’s very fluid, it looks great and the sound is spectacular. I hope that it can be released very soon 🙂

  3. Pete Rice September 15, 2008 at 5:31 pm - Reply

    Good to see things are progressing a very fast pace. I know one of the software guys, and that dude is amazing. Keep up the great work, and don’t forget to bookmark the page everyone.

  4. Maddison September 16, 2008 at 2:08 am - Reply

    Wow the game looks pretty sweet. Pretty cool that such a small team has put together such an impressive game…

  5. old friend September 26, 2008 at 7:34 am - Reply

    I knew exactly who made this game as soon as I saw this listed as the first example of a “game feature”

    “Real-time dynamic lighting using programmable pixel shaders ”

    LOL

  6. العاب January 3, 2010 at 10:09 am - Reply

    I loved F.E.A.R very much, it was a great game, and this one looks good too, Friction doing great job.

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