King of Meat is all about throwing yourselves into the televised fantasy dungeon challenges that are all the rage in the world of Loregok. Hacking, slashing and bashing your way through dragons, skeletons, puzzles and anything else that stands in your way, it’s a race to the finish line of this quirky gameshow… but it can also be a finish line that you yourself have designed.
That’s because King of Meat is another game that wholeheartedly embraces user-generated content, putting a fully-fledged Dungeon Create Mode into the hands of the players, and letting those community creations shine through with curation.
Thankfully, the team at Glowmade have a bit about them when it comes to making UGC-led games. Based in Guildford, Glowmade was founded by former Lionhead and MediaMolecule developers, able to draw upon the rich creativity and talent that this part of the UK is so well known for to put another spin on these community-led concepts.
But let’s get back to the basics. King of Meat is a survival dungeon game show for up to four players to take on together, running through room after room, each of which poses some kind of problem for you to overcome. That could be a horde of enemies to battle through, it could be some environmental puzzles to trip switches and open up doors, or potentially even a co-op oriented puzzle that requires coordination or combined smarts… or just a brutal obstacle course of spinning blades, arrow launchers and more.
There’s a madcap tone to it with the clash of themes and art styles – it feels pitched perfectly for an 8-10 year old audience – but at its core, this needs to be a solid 3D action game. For the platforming, there’s a healthy jump, Yoshi-like flutter jump and dive combo to help you cross wider gaps or avoid dangers, while getting stuck into combat is a flurry of ranged shots – which are also handy for hitting triggers from a distance – melee combos, and some ostentatious special attacks on top of that, from shockwaves, to black holes, or giant hoofed feet stomping from the sky!
100 official dungeons have been created by Glowmade for the game’s upcoming launch… but there’s also already a bunch of community-made levels that have been constructed through private testing phases. Just as with LittleBigPlanet and Dreams, all of this has been created using the exact same tools and capabilities as are presented to players with the Dungeon Create Mode.
There’s an interesting set-up for this, giving you an overarching blueprint view to let you lay out a mix of small, medium and large rooms of different shapes, blocking out your stage before you dive into the details. Once you do shift to the 3D view, the level areas are broken down into a grid for vertical adjustments, making any platforming sections you create nice and predictable in a fashion not too dissimilar to Super Mario Maker.
And then come all of the enemies and traps, all of the switches, all of the logic, and all the behind-the-scenes gubbins that will invariably be the barrier between a pure player and a creator. There’s simplistic adjustments to link up a switch to a door, a trigger zone to an enemy spawn, and other fundamental elements, but these are the gateway to complexities that would make the eyes of creative mortals glaze over. Already, there’s examples that Glowmade can point to of the community creating a working Simons Says machine, a game of pinball, and plenty of other ambitious stages and concepts.
Naturally you can then lose just as much time again sprucing up each room with custom decorations and decals, giving a world you’ve made a specific tone. Regardless of if your creation is a short jaunt or a devious challenge, once you’ve completed it to prove it’s possible and uploaded,
King of Meat, as with any UGC-led game, is a fascinating project to see come together. So much of the game’s charm and longevity will hinge on community creations, and having tools that are just inviting enough that people learn the complexities. What’s immediately clear is that, while hopping across to a rather different genre, the spirit of LittleBigPlanet is still alive.