Ex-Cryptic folks open Mob Rules, let fans decide first game

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Conventional wisdom says the customer's always right. (Conventional wisdom also says that carrots give you night vision super powers and Mr. Rogers had a Call of Duty-sized killstreak in Vietnam, but who's counting?)

Ex-Cryptic Studios staffers Rick Dakan, Jonathan Willis, and Austin McKinley are giving that old adage a pretty stern test. Their new venture, Mob Rules, is asking potential players to help fund its first project - but with a twist: they also get to vote on what exactly that project will be. It's an ambitious plan in crowdsourcing, and here's how it'll work:

Mob Rules' Kickstarter page lays down each possible path on the developer's roadmap to success. During a week-long voting session that kicks off on November 24, fans will get to pick between the following:

  • Guerrilla Gorilla: A turn-based strategy game about ape revolutionaries fighting The Man. You must plan carefully and use ambush and tricky maneuvers to overcome The Man's enthralled legions with your small but zealous band of simian guerrillas.
  • Haunts: A head to head haunted house game, where one side plays the brave explorers and the other side plays the supernatural entities that want them gone. Light and shadow, bravery and brains all come into play in this deadly game of hide and seek.
  • The Last Second: You play Zeta Cervantez, a pulp-era super-scientist whose latest invention can freeze time. In a city beset by criminal madmen, she must use her few stolen seconds to alter the scene of the crime that's about to happen, turning the bad guys against themselves and pulling the innocents out of harm's way.

All of which sound fairly interesting - not to mention incredibly far-removed from a city full of hyper muscular, tights-loving crimefighters or that other sci-fi multimedia behemoth turned MMO of middling popularity. Even so, what if I want to be a Ghost Ape Super-Scientist? What about my needs?