Project Draco Creator Talks Dragons, Dragoons, and Kinect

Alright people, I’m writing this in a car speeding down the highway, travelling from Minnesota to New York for the next two days. Let’s go.

A post on Joystiq has pointed out some choice bits from a recent interview between Gamasutra and Yukio Futatsugi and Toshiharu Tange, the project lead and producer, respectively, of the highly anticipated upcoming Kinect title Project Draco.

Apparently the title won’t actually be called Project Draco when its released sometime in 2012, but it’s an appropriate codename because of its relationship to the classic Panzer Dragoon series for the Sega Saturn, for which Futasugi was the creator.

When asked if you can use a controller in the new game, he explained the main control scheme of the game, which sounds a lot like Child of Eden, but more, uh, draconic:

“You’re sitting on the dragon, and you control it by shifting your body weight around. It doesn’t have support for that. Basically, it’s a rail shooter. You control the dragon as it goes along the course and fights enemies. In this game, you have one weapon for each hand, along with another that uses both hands, and you switch between them as you go. Your main weapon is on your right hand. That was the homing laser right now, but in total there are about 150 skills, and you’re able to teach your dragon your choice of these and customize him in any way you like.”

Futasugi also explained how the creators are dealing with the Kinect’s by-now trademark “lag” between your movements and the on-screen action, and also discussed the difficulty of developing for the Kinect versus a traditionally buttoned video game:

“We’re helped by the fact that you’re piloting a large dragon in this game, and so in the game world, there’s going to be a little bit of a delay between your commands and his movements. There isn’t going to be the sort of lag that causes stress to the gamer, however […] Previously you could just say ‘Press the A button’ and everyone got that, but trying to catch all the possible ranges of motion can be tough to implement.”

And while this new game seems to be something of a spiritual successor, Futasugi said that it won’t actually be set in the same world as Panzer Dragoon. That’s a bit of a disappointment to me—I have some very fond memories of playing the original series on my Saturn way back in middle school and whatnot. Yeah, we had a Sega Saturn. And that thing was awesome. Well, kind of. Okay, not really.

Be sure to check out the full interview on Gamasutra for the nitty grtitty on designing the game, and be on the lookout for whatever Project Draco will become, since I’m betting that it might actually make the Kinect kind of worth having. Maybe.

Via Joystiq and Gamasutra