The Design of The Five
Jared Sorensen is an instigator. Last year, he challenged would-be game publishers to form companies, make games, and publish them for a price of exactly $1 apiece.
On February 3rd, Sorensen named his winner: The Five. I haven’t played it, I don’t know if it’s innovative or authentic or gamist or whatever the coveted indie adjective is right now, but I know that it is, visually, one of the best-designed RPGs I’ve seen in a year. And I’ve seen Mouse Guard.
The game’s site (which kicks lots of big company sites in the nuts, by the way) describes the game like this:
In The Five you play a crew of soldiers slanging, banging and battling their way across the gang-ridden streets of The Five.
Feel the heat of the street with rapid-fire game play using dominoes, a NYC subway map and a slammin’ East Coast Hip Hop soundtrack.
Is it… fun? Don’t know yet. But, The Five — I’m watching you.
Yeah, when a friend told me about this one, I had to go buy it. Looks like it could be a lot of fun.
One of the most interesting things to me, in looking over the game’s website, is the appropriation of the term “mixtape” to mean something like “beta,” but to mean it more stylishly, and to mean it in a genre-relevant (to this game) way.