Liithos, a transmedia and recreation firm led by former Sony recreation developer Michael Mumbauer, is launching a satirical recreation referred to as Clickbait as a part of its No One Is Protected franchise.
The sport revolves round mischievous chatbot referred to as RantCPU, and it focuses on the nervousness round AI and a world the place humanity has destroyed itself. It’s a brand new transmedia property set to launch as a recreation on Steam, a comic book ebook collection from Scout, and buying and selling playing cards.
It’s a far totally different plan than the unique plan that Michael Mumbauer and Days Gone inventive director John Garvin needed to make Ashfall, a narrative-driven open world recreation for the PC based mostly on Web3 tech. Mumbauer mentioned the fact of the funding atmosphere and altering market circumstances pressure the corporate to pivot towards a recreation they may extra simply ship. And so Liithos selected humor and satire.
“We’re launching our first interactive experience with this story featuring RantCPU,” Mumbauer mentioned in an interview with GamesBeat. “We’ve been working on the IP, No One Is Safe, and RantCPU was birthed at almost the exact same time.”
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He added, “We were working on another big triple-A game, while the entire gaming market was kind of collapsing. And with the markets collapsing, we clearly needed to pivot into something a little bit more manageable. That was a little smaller title that we could get out to market. It was resonating and we thought it made more sense within the crazy market. AI just showed up and rocked everybody’s world. And this idea kind of hit me.”
The corporate is unveiling the Clilckbait title at San Diego Comedian-Con to focus on its pivot from critical triple-A narratives to the Bananas model satirical view for No One Is Protected.
“We’re trying to take these two worlds where one is very scary, kind of apocalyptic. And the other one is just a very fun video game,” Mumbauer mentioned.
Liithos was based by recreation developer Mumbauer (The Final of Us, Uncharted) and his eclectic crew of leisure misfits together with business veterans and inventive minds Adam Clegg (H1Z1), comic Joe Machi (Final Comedian Standing), former TMZ information persona Gary Trock, AI influencer Elliot Quartz, cartoonist and painter Courtroom Jones, and author Ken Kristensen (Echo, Todd the Ugliest Child on Earth).
The chaos kicks off at this time with the launch of Clickbait, the world’s quirkiest clicking recreation, obtainable on Steam. Clickbait, which pokes enjoyable at related viral video games like Banana, a Steam recreation the place you click on on a banana.
“Clickbait is going to be a great way for people to see his humor and laugh and then be entertained by just watching a banana,” Mumbauer added. “And that’s why it’s so ridiculous. But now change the banana out with this character that has all this personality and makes you laugh.”
Clickbait recreation
On the middle of Mumbauer’s satirical battle on all the things is RantCPU, a mischievous chatbot and the world’s first AI online game mascot. Via Rant’s childlike perspective, the Liithos crew shifts the AI narrative from a menacing determine to a lovable, humorous character. It jogs my memory of ClapTrap, the quirky companion in Borderlands.
With Clickbait, the resemblance to Bananas is obvious. You allow it up and also you get a drop of belongings in a sure time frame.
“Our game is based on community clicking. And so we have timers at the top. There’s one that’s a trillion. When that trillion number goes to zero, we’re going to get some special drop. But we also have another timer that’s more like in the millions. And so every six hours or so, every 18 hours, you get a drop,” he mentioned. “Then maybe I go back to playing Hearthstone. It’s a second monitor game. It’s not anybody’s main game.”
Throughout that point, playres can be uncovered to RantCPU and hopefully fall in love with the character, he mentioned.
As for the setting, it’s like after the Terminator has visited Earth, however extra just like the Jetsons model of the Terminator. RantCPU will possible have monumental energy and a childlike view of utilizing it.
“Rant is so kind of innocent and fun because he’s really just along for the ride. He doesn’t really understand all the things that are that are going on and makes mistakes by accident. So the perfect theory where you tasked the robot to make paperclips and he could accidentally destroy the world,” Mumbauer mentioned. “If AI ends up replacing humans or blows up the world, I don’t know that it would be intentional. I think that we made it in our image, and we’re all flawed creatures.”
A mirrored image of its personal restricted understanding of the world, a world that it has by no means skilled firsthand, Rant will get plenty of issues flawed. However, whether or not proper or flawed, Rant is a pressure to be reckoned with. Nevertheless it’s not synthetic intelligence. It’s based mostly on “artificial incompetence.”
“RantCPU embodies a blend of Clippy, Bart Simpson, and Mario—a wise-cracking, imaginative internet troll,” mentioned Mumbauer. “With a focus on adaptability, we will leverage our expertise in AI, Web 3, and rapid content creation to stay ahead of trends. We firmly believe that humor, memes, and laughter are vital to engaging today’s gamers and creating a conversation around the gaming experience. When all is said and done, we hope to make RantCPU a cultural icon through humor and satire, offering a unique perspective on AI and gaming in an uncertain world.”
Devoted to constructing a thriving neighborhood and seamlessly integrating standard gaming and social media platforms to ship participating interactive experiences, Liithos is launching the No One Is Protected franchise via a dynamic vary of media, from retro video games and viral TikTok movies to digital and bodily buying and selling playing cards, and comics. All these parts are interwoven via a meta-narrative crafted to deliver humor to the AI-driven apocalypse.
The crew may even see how effectively it might probably proceed with AI characters.
“One of the reasons we also put this game out was because it’s so important to understand how AI works within these pipelines to expedite the pipeline to get lower-cost games and get into market to see what’s working, what’s not working,” Mumbauer mentioned. “This allows us to have AI characters.”
Clickbait is geared toward advertising and marketing and neighborhood constructing, whereas additionally that includes a singular set of No One Is Protected buying and selling playing cards with parody variations of iconic celebrities, athletes, and politicians.
Individually, the favored RantCPU buying and selling playing cards, which have already featured iconic athletes like Lionel Messi, Conor McGregor, and Mike Tyson, are presently distributed by sports activities card business chief Leaf, whereas digital collectibles of the No One Is Protected playing cards initially launched on the extremely environment friendly, low price and sustainable Hedera Community and are additionally presently obtainable on the Quidd market.
Later this 12 months, the RantCPU comedian ebook, from writer Scout Comics, can be anticipated to hit the cabinets.
“Clickbait showcases Liithos’ nimbleness and commitment to delivering fresh, engaging content as well as its willingness to experiment as the gaming landscape evolves – all in an effort to create memorable experiences that resonate with today’s audience,” mentioned Mumbauer.
Developing with a story
The concepts revolved across the uncertainty with all of the political change, the place the roles had been going.
“I had this kind of strange epiphany. It felt a lot like growing up in the 90s in the Mad Magazine era. And, you know, No One Is Safe was birthed with this AI. But when we talk about AI, it’s not AI in the same sense. It’s ‘artificial incompetence,’” Mumbauer mentioned.
Mumbauer mentioned, “There’s this fascinating imagination that AI currently has right now. That’s very Monty Python. And so it felt like the world doesn’t feel real right now. And I think we need a little bit of absurdity. And so we’ve been building the IP for the last year, building a game called No One Is Safe and then trying to find the main character, which became RantCPU.”
He added, “By fate, I was introduced to Joe Machi on Netflix, the show called Bumping Mics, and when I saw Joe, when I heard him, I’m like, ‘This is unbelievable, like there’s just magic in that reminded me of [comedian] Paul Reubens. And that was kind of what I envisioned for this character. This kind of modern day Dennis the Menace.”
Ashfall on ice
In the meantime, the Ashfall venture moved into dormancy as IP growth. It’s being created first as a comic book ebook. That’s as a result of the concept of constructing $100 million or $200 million triple-A video games is extraordinarily laborious to deliver to the market now, Mumbauer mentioned.
“Whether it’s in Web3, whether it’s traditional triple-A, it’s extremely hard to to bring a new game to market. And so that was part of the pivot,” he mentioned. “This is not the time that we could bring it to market in the current climate. And so it we completed the story of the first arc of that game, and that’s pushed into comic books because we’ve always been very focused on transmedia. So those comics will arrive early next year so that we can still keep that IP moving. It has been renamed as Trace War.”
Adapting to Bananas
Garvin is concerned in that and can be again on board when that comes again. For now, the corporate is targeted solely on No One Is Protected and RantCPU.
“The main thing for us is also just seeing the winds of change. I was completely shocked to hear this game Banana, which showed up on Steam [in April]. It’s still in the top three or four every single day. One of the biggest challenges we have is getting eyeballs on new IP. One of the key things that we’ve been doing with Joe was focusing on figuring out the character. Who is RantCPU. It’s a comedy-based IP, which is tricky enough. But also we wanted to do transmedia. We knew that from the start we wanted to build a world that has a deep story.”
He added, “So we started with comics and trading cards. And so the comics and trading cards connected. We had all these assets. And then this Banana thing showed up. It was part community building and part comedy building. What if we took that wave and jumped on it with a more sophisticated IP?”
Inside three weeks, the crew of a few dozen folks — together with various comedy writers — got here up with Clickbait as a method to assist us draw consideration for the next video games which might be coming in later.
“We’re doing something very different in the market,” Mumbauer mentioned. “The bigger game No One Is Safe is going to be more like a live service comedy for player parties. Comedy is difficult. It’s a political season. You can say the wrong thing. So this is a pretty ballsy affair.”
The sport is focused at Steam on the PC, and it might transfer to different platforms later.
“All of the games that we’re making are very focused on being able to allow the comedy to have to breathe a little bit. Joe is the center of this entire universe, as RantCPU is” the central character.
“It’s a tough time for comedy,” Machi mentioned in an interview. “When you’re doing comedy, there’s a lot of unwritten rules that you have to be aware of, if you want to be good at it. One is tragedy plus time equals comedy. Days after an assassination attempt on the president — not a great time to joke about it. You have to be thoughtful about it.”
Taking humor to a brand new stage
Mumbauer spent plenty of time previously attempting to get video games on the identical stage of leisure as movie, and that succeeded with video games like The Final of Us.
“No pun intended. There’s an uncharted territory in the comedy area where I see this opportunity,” mentioned Mumbauer. “We have yet to see The Simpsons” in video games. And it’s laborious to search out profitable Web3 video games.
“I think the next the crazy movement in that in that genre will come from video games. And I think even more exciting is that it’s a live service game, something that can react, like South Park does, in a week to a topic, and then being extremely connected into pop culture,” Mumbauer mentioned.
He needs the IP to be edgy like Mad journal when he was rising up.
“I think that gamers honestly being are getting a little bored. When you see the same games coming out the same genres, the new gamers aren’t responding to them the way that they used to,” Mumbauer mentioned.
Clegg, who was the sport director of H1Z1, is on Mumbauer’s crew and he believes Bananas is a hit as a result of it’s simply an idle clicker recreation that’s permitting players to get drops of digital gadgets that they’ll commerce and monetize within the background, whereas nonetheless enjoying Dota. If gamers might earn one thing from the time they’re placing into such video games, Mumbauer thinks that might resonate as effectively.
“What perfect opportunity to take these communities, Web3 ideology, things that we’ve learned over the past few years. And speak more to the mainstream and all the work that we’ve done, and see if we can do something that makes them laugh,” he mentioned.