Casual MMO Pets vs. Monsters unveiled by SweetRobot
SweetRobot is a new subsidiary of the Norwegian Funcom company which is famous for its MMORPG games namely The Long Journey series and Age of Conan. The company has now announced that SweetRobot would be bringing its social and casual MMO titles into the gaming market. The company’s premier project is a new MMO game called Pets vs. Monsters which is scheduled to open for public beta testing later this month. The online title targets a younger audience.
“SweetRobot will be focusing on publishing games outside the traditional high-end MMO-segment which Funcom has been focusing on the last years. This will allow us to explore new market opportunities that differ from what we have been doing before while still retaining Funcom’s familiar profile. This definitely marks a new and exciting direction for us,” commented Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas.
Pets vs. Monsters comprises of a team of fifteen people who worked on production of the game for nearly two years. They also formulated a highly flexible game engine which helps with multiple concepts. The developing company is set to indulge in different concepts and ideas, business models and gameplay mechanisms to bring a casual and social game to younger audiences. The public beta that will commence shortly would aid SweetRobot in attaining valuable information that would help them with the development and further creation of the MMO.
Trond Arne Aas further added, “Our passion and dedication for high-end online games remains the same, and ‘Age of Conan’ and ‘The Secret World’ are still our primary focus. But we are also eager to explore new opportunities within the industry, and it felt natural for us to step into the social gaming segment especially considering our outstanding experience with making online worlds and communities. ‘Pets vs. Monsters’ is very much an exciting project for us, our first attempt at creating an online game for a younger target audience with gameplay mechanics and production values that differ from what we have done before. The fact that these productions require significantly lower budgets and smaller teams to develop is very attractive to us, as it allows us to try out several concepts instead of placing all our resources into one single bet.”
The newly announced Pets vs. Monsters game aims at gamers ranging between the ages of eight to twelve years. They can experience a quick download and play thanks to game’s streaming technology. The children can explore different areas and terrains like deserts and jungles while riding their pets into various battles. Players from all around the world can chat and interact with each other through the game. Pets vs. Monsters is packed with standard role-playing mechanics like equipment, statistics and incentive progress.
No word as yet from the company about the release dates of Pets vs. Monsters. Players can look forward to a public beta version that is expected to release later this month.
