In commercial industries, the budget dictates the conditions. It’s not obvious and logical. However, there are segments in a given industry where the golden mean is commitment, passion and weakness for the good of pop culture. Mad Head Games, a developer of Serbian origin, surprised with the original Scars Above. Few believed in the conceptual success of the project. It happened otherwise. The Story of Dr. Kate Ward is a valuable source of inspiration and a solid advertisement for the local gamedev. Only fifteen years ago, Mad Head Games were completely alone in the local backyard. Today we write about their game.
“ The entire region is a relatively new field for game developers. We were the pioneers fifteen years ago and we were starting things completely foreign to everyone. This is nothing new for us. People are still surprised that we develop games in our region. Today, Epic Games and Ubisoft are opening their branches here, ” explains Ivan Zorkić, founder and head of the studio. The case of Scars Above is one of the first major steps towards Serbia becoming an important point on the development map of the world. You don’t need tens of millions of dollars or three hundred employees supported by outsourcing to develop a solid, engaging and modern narrative game. The AAA segment is for people. AA is from players for players .
Fantastic fusion
We reviewed Scars Above for you some time ago. The title should be appreciated for its substantive and visual layer . The story aims at science-fiction climates, which coincides with the creators’ passion. “ In this business, you play a lot of titles, read a lot of books, devour series. As a band, we wholeheartedly belong to the group of sci-fi enthusiasts ” – Zorkić does not hide his inspirations from the classics of the genre. Behind one of the pillars is indicated the painting ” Forbidden Planet ” from 1956. The movie starred the legendary actor Leslie Nielsen, who made us laugh in the Naked Gun days. The script was simple and complicated at the same time – a handful of astronauts stranded on an alien planet. This pillar was used to stabilize the plot in Scars Above. Dr. Kate Ward and the rest of the crew find themselves in extraterrestrial areas, of course full of dangers that have evolved and adapted to local conditions.
The character of Kate is written a bit like Ellen Ripley from Alien . Ivan Zorkić believes that as a ship’s officer, without a military rank, left alone to fight an alien life form, Kate Ward strongly resembles the legendary Lieutenant Ripley (Seagourney Weaver). The director treats history captured in Scars Above as the genre alter-ego of Alice in Wonderland , in which the first violin is played by fantasy, not fairy tales. A game supported by such a set of content requires an equally practical construction . ” We always look at the side of other games. One of the main inspirations in the aspect of survival from the beginning was Resident Evil” – it’s hard to disagree with the developer’s statement. The gameplay system offers us an interesting catalog of moves. Kate dodges, runs, takes aim, shoots, reloads (with a slight nod to Marcus Fenix). The camera was suspended over the right shoulder, although I was constantly accompanied by the feeling of communing with the more functional Tank Control scheme. In this respect, the Capcom series could be used as source material.
“ We took a lot of cues from the Horizon series, which I personally really like. We also borrowed some mechanics from Souls-like games. It’s not Souls-like, but the challenge is to learn the behavior of enemies ” – Zorkić does not hide his inspirations. As the saying goes, if you copy, copy from the best . Scars Above does not look like a copy. The creators skillfully use proven mechanics to give the game an individual cut. It is not enough to prescribe a recipe, you have to add a lot of your own. Mad Head Games used the acquired knowledge and experience. We managed to deliver a definitely above-average product, with a strong, visual standard. Believe me, Scars Above can delight. The title was built on the Unreal technology.
Challenge after challenge
Scars Above was a challenge for the developers. Although the source materials were laid out in the studio on a tray, it takes skill to condense the whole thing into solid content. The game has been adapted to a modern film narrative. During the journey, Kate meets her companions, while the shots and dialogues barely stand out from the “more expensive” competition. And since I compared Scars Above to high-budget, high-end spheres, you can see that it’s worth playing. The world presented by the authors does not impress with its size, but it retains interesting proportions. Sometimes size doesn’t matter. Scenery changes in the game very often. Just like the creatures that the heroine and us will face. A very important factor present in Scars Above is adaptation. Kate gets to know the alien planet, expanding her knowledge of its resources and the monsters that inhabit it. Learns. The game demands the same from us. Mad Head Games, however, did not want to develop the lore to cosmic proportions. According to them, Scars Above is a linear, classic science-fiction story.
At first I saw something from Returnal in this game. The level of difficulty and the pace of the game are not as intensified as in the production of Housemarque. I think it’s more about the protagonists, i.e. women in suits measuring their strength against intentions in a completely strange environment. Kate, however, comes back to life with all her belongings. Praise goes to the armament issue. I should give the floor to Samus Aran here, but she tends to be rather taciturn. One weapon that can be customized with certain elemental-based ammo types. It smells a bit of the functionality of the Power Beam, which is Samus’ mounted weapon in Metroid Prime. Zorkić and co. didn’t want Kate running around with a million guns, so they focused on one specific type of weapon. Is Scars Above worth checking out?Absolutely yes. In a deluge of high-budget casts, it’s a great springboard. We do not require an innovative approach or constant revolution from AA games. Very often these are the works of players with a technical and artistic flair for creating games. Scars Above is one of them. Let’s hope it’s not the last one from Mad Head Games. have you played?