The Fake Game In Game Grumps eSports Show Good Game Is Actually Real Sort Of

Good Game, the Youtube original show series about an aspiring eSports team, has premiered, featuring Dan Avidan and Arin “egoraptor” Hanson of Game Grumps fame. The show features an impressively fake game, called Killcore, which surprisingly has roots as an existing game. Show creators, writers and producers Jesse Cox and Michele Morrow sat down to discuss how Killcore was produced to look exactly like a real arena game, stating in their Q&A:

 

“For every character we have a set of abilities, we have an ultimate, we have animations.”

“It’s a fully fleshed out game.”

 

 

Mark Gibbons, concept artist for companies like Blizzard and Games Workshop, was brought on to create the fake title’s art. The Odd Gentlemen, the studio behind the reboot of King’s Quest, oversaw the production direction and handled animations. The whole thing was made in the Starcraft 2 toolset, with permission of Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce. Morrow, a person so entrenched in gaming that they are represented as two separate characters in World of Warcraft, wanted to ensure that Killcore looked like the real deal, saying:

 

“We didn’t want to animate it in Maya, because we thought: ‘Well, that’s just going to look like an animation and gamers aren’t going to buy that.’”

 

On top of that, the creators also looked within the Starcraft community itself, to contract four of the best modders. As a result, Killcore is an actual, functioning game that technically exists, though it’s to be expected that the build isn’t exactly made with balance in mind. For instance, the creators discuss one character whose ability had to be changed, because incorporating it would mean a lot of additional development time, which is beside the point as the arena game is used as a visual.

 

 

Good Game has its first episode available for free on the Game Grumps Youtube channel. Additional episodes can be seen through the site’s Youtube Red subscription service. Alternatively, episodes can be bought separately through Google Play, in areas where Youtube Red is not available. Dan Harmon, of Community or Rick and Morty, is a producer on the show and may or may not appear briefly on the show.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed (@Daavpuke)