Kung Fu Superstar game turns you into a martial arts stuntman - teaches real Kung Fu!

[DannyCheng]

Hey all,

 

I am one of the lead developers over at Kinesthetic Games and I am happy to just have joined this great forum.

 

Our studio recently announced our upcoming game, which I thought members of this forum will find very interesting.

 

The game is called Kung Fu Superstar and it's about a young aspiring martial artists who sets off on a journey to become Hollywood's most loved and respected action hero. He does this by training in martial arts an endavour that players themselves will experience through the course of the game. As this game has a motion control element however (Kinect, Move etc) the players themselves actually learn real martial arts through playing this game.

 

Check out the launch trailer at:

 

www.kungfusuperstar.com

 

 

We think it's a very innovative and cool concept and we're very excited to finally be able to share our hard work with the world. The support of martial arts and action cinema lovers is obviously of paramount importance to us and this is why we're here promoting the project as we'd love to hear from you and hear what you think about the game. If you want to connect with us join us on facebook at www.kungfusuperstar.com/facebook or reply to this thread with your comments and feedback.

 

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy our announcement trailer!

[Keung]

I foresee broken TV's, everywhere...

[TheGrimReaper]

Interesting...Quite interesting concept - I still remember my first steps into motion driven games - Eye Toy anyone, where my favorite level was when I smashed oponents jumping off pagodas and pandas with clubs trying to bash me

I was losing a large amount of water through this game and at the end had to hit the showers

At that point I was wondering about the improvement over such sub-genre and here it is - to become the martial arts master you want, despite the screen - I hope that you'll get praise and fans all over the world, and I see lots of people getting slim body fogure through this experience.

Along with the broken TV sets I forsee some furniture going to be repaired

Best of luck!

[ShaOW!linDude]

Hey! You guys stole my idea! I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

I knew something like this would eventually come about. That's pretty cool. Looks like it would be fun to try. My only qualm would be how well the system registers a player's movement. Would there be a delay? Would you keep "dying" because your punch or kick didn't properly come across? Stuff like that.

Yes, I, too, foresee broken tv sets, broken furniture, and trips to the emergency room.

[Omni Dragon]

Personally I don't think Martial Arts has ever gone well with motion control so far.

[waywardsage]

As a Wing Chun practitioner, it was a cool surprise to see the nod to it in the trailer! Wing Chun embodies a economy of motion that trains us not to "chase" our opponents. Let them expend more energy than us and exhaust themselves. As a practitioner I can see how it could actually lend itself to a Kinect game. Our movements don't require us to leap around or run around. As with the Wooden Dummy form, it emphasizes short, devastating strikes with a minimum of movement. It resembles the fighting in the new Sherlock Holmes films because RDJ is a Wing Chun practitioner and his Sifu helped choreograph some of the fights in the films.

I'm curious if the developers took a conscious decision to adapt WC into the game. Is it throughout the entirety of the game?

Also on a whole, I think the Kinect is brilliant! Getting kids physically engaged in games is an improvement in anyway. A Wing Chun game would be even more awesome!

[DannyCheng]

Thanks all It's great to read all this positive feedback!

To answer some of the questions, indeed Wing Chun is one of the primary systems used in the game but it is not the only one.

The reasons stated by waywardsage are pretty much why we went with Wing Chun as one of the main systems.

Once again a bit of shameless self promotion: If you like what we're doing join us on facebook at

www.facebook.com/kungfusuperstar

and follow us on twitter (@KungFuSuperstar)

and most importantly...spread the word!

Thanks again everyone!

[DarthKato]

My only qualm would be how well the system registers a player's movement. Would there be a delay? Would you keep "dying" because your punch or kick didn't properly come across? Stuff like that.Yes, I, too, foresee broken tv sets, broken furniture, and trips to the emergency room.

Pretty much my only worry about this game. Other than that,looks really cool. This may the game that finally gets me to buy the Kinect.

[Guest Yi-Long]

My apologies in advance, but I'm very skeptical about the whole Kinect/Move/Wii-mote 'craze' that's been going on these last couple of years, and although it seems to be a commercial succes (mostly Wii and Kinect, Move not so much), there haven't really been (m)any motion-games that have scored great ratings critically.

I think the idea is nice, but I'm not sure the hardware/tech is really there yet in a way that it can deliver the game-experience that we WANT, meaning a non-laggy experience and EXACT mimicry of your own movements on the screen, instead of recognising the intention and showing the pre-programmed animation for that intended move.

Also, the other problem is obviously that even though you can kinda move in 3D, you're still staring at the screen straight in front of you, and thus movement will be limited...

...plus there's a lack of proper feedback, in the sense that you wouldn't FEEL a punch or block. This last problem could be 'solved' with shin/arm 'pads' which could be in contact with the software to provide a rumble-feature to simulate contact, but that would be expensive. And obviously even with such pads, it would still be very limited to those areas covered.

In short, I would rather play Jade Empire 2 instead of a Kinect game.

[So High]

Heck yeah Yi Long Jade Empire 2. Awesome game though it played just like KOTOR or so I been told. Game was made for us Kung Fu fans. I to am skeptical of this Kung Fu star. I am also skeptical of that WOW esque game Age of Wushu though the idea and everything looks like a kung fu fans dream I just don't know.

[DarthKato]

Heck yeah Yi Long Jade Empire 2. Awesome game though it played just like KOTOR or so I been told. Game was made for us Kung Fu fans. I to am skeptical of this Kung Fu star. I am also skeptical of that WOW esque game Age of Wushu though the idea and everything looks like a kung fu fans dream I just don't know.

Actually, Jade Empire and KOTOR controled completely different. Jade Empire was more of an action/RPG, while KOTOR was pretty much a straight turn-based system with the ability to move around the battlefield and had more RPG elements. Both games were awsome though and I wish sequels to both would come out.

[ShaOW!linDude]

Yi-Long brings up a good point. It almost seems like this would be more feasible if you were wearing a suit laced with sensors and a virtual reality helmet.

[DannyCheng]

We love the Bioware games here at Kinesthetic!

We don't really feel like we're directly competing with them to be honest though with Kung Fu Superstar. We think someone who enjoys Kung Fu and the Martial Arts culture would enjoy both Kung Fu Superstar and something like Jade Empire albeit for different reasons.

While you'd want to play a Jade Empire-esque game for that traditional, old school-RPG kind of entertainment Kung Fu Superstar focuses purely on the fighting and puts you right in the middle of it (whilst giving you the opportunity to break a bit of a sweat if you want to).

So while in something like Jade Empire you go up to NPCs to unlock an imaginary Kung Fu ability provided your character fulfils the requirements for that ability, in Kung Fu Superstar it is *you* the player that "unlocks" a Kung Fu ability through actual training. Then when you go to fight, while in Jade Empire you'd be thinking about how to tactically cast your spells and press different buttons to strategically activate your abilities, in Kung Fu Superstar you have to think back to your training and decide which Kung Fu technique you have to *physically* perform (if you are playing the game on a motion control platform) to most efficiently approach the situation.

Both approaches are super fun we think but each approach provides for a different type of entertainment.

With regards to the VR gear, that indeed would be awesome! However the widely available technology is not quite there just yet so in the meantime we are making do with what *is* there Thankfully what is there is still more than good enough to provide you with a super fun, responsive and exciting experience and we're certain that once you try our demos you will agree

Our studio head recently gave an interview to this wing chun blog so check it out if you're curious to find out more about this and other information on the game

[DarthKato]

@DannyCheng

I don't think you are going to have to worry about a Jade Empire 2 any time soon. Bioware is too busy creating other crap to notice that they would have a big hit if they would just make the game already. The problem is that gamers have been burned so much by sorry Motion-controled games, that they have pretty much given up hope in ever getting a descent one. Other people have made the same claims has you and their games have all been pretty much garbage. I am not saying this is the case with yours, it is just the frame of mind that you will have to deal with. All I can say is just make the game work the way it was intened and try to restore our faith in motion controled games. Because, as it stands, most people will be more willing to play a game with a controller that they think will have a better chance of working right, than to buy a game like yours which is a huge risk. At the end of the day, it is our hard earned money we are risking.