{"id":969,"date":"2015-12-30T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T05:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/numa.media\/en\/?p=969"},"modified":"2016-05-05T08:13:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T13:13:41","slug":"chariot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/chariot\/","title":{"rendered":"The magic of synergy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who says video games are asocial and isolating? People who don\u2019t know \u201cChariot,\u201d that\u2019s who. This witty gaming platform requires a good teammate and a comfy couch. Whether you play with your girlfriend, brother or child, there\u2019s only way to go forward in this game \u2013 through cooperation.<\/p>\n

\"ChariotD\"<\/a>The game features a princess and her fianc\u00e9 who must carry the late king\u2019s funeral wagon through various levels and environments while trying to ignore the king\u2019s ghost\u2019s constant bullying. It seems like a tragic situation, but it\u2019s not. Even though he\u2019s dead, the king is very demanding about his final resting place: \u201cIt\u2019s too dark, too cold. I need more gold!\u201d In their search for a suitably royal burial site, the princely couple go deeper and deeper into a network of underground caves that are full of surprises.<\/p>\n

\u201cChariot<\/a>\u201d is the first game developed by Frimagination, an intrapreneurial program in the style of \u201cThe Dragon\u2019s Den\u201d and Google Labs. To foster creativity within its team, Frima<\/a>, a studio based in Quebec City, invited all of its employees to submit game concepts. If a concept was to management\u2019s liking, the employee would be given time off to develop a game prototype. If the prototype proved promising, a team would get to work on it to develop the game. This is what happened to Philippe Dion, the hyper-creative programmer who envisioned and developed \u201cChariot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chariot<\/a>
Chariot (Frima)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike online gaming trends, \u201cChariot\u201d is not played on the web \u2013 it all happens in a single room. In industry jargon, this is known as a couch co-op plateformer. In other words, it\u2019s all about cooperating with a player sitting next to you. \u201cWe wanted to bring back the fun of playing a video game with a friend in the same room. This requires communication, which brings players closer together,\u201d says Jonathan Quan, who managed quality assurance for \u201cChariot.\u201d The game can be played solo, but it really comes into its own when played with a friend. Each player holds a rope on either side of the chariot, that is, the funeral wagon.<\/p>\n

\"Chariot<\/a>
Chariot (Frima)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Certain puzzles are designed to be solved by two brains. Both players must cooperate in pulling, pushing, sliding, and moving the chariot from platform to platform through the game\u2019s 25 levels. \u201cWe wanted to build a game based on communication and personal contact. The players share a broad range of emotions, including pride, annoyance, and frustration, but the experience should culminate in high fives,\u201d states project manager Richard Demers.<\/p>\n

With increasingly difficult challenges and enemies hiding behind every corner, only the most adventurous and strategic players reach their goal.<\/p>\n

\"Chariot<\/a>
Chariot (Frima)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who says video games are asocial and isolating? People who don\u2019t know \u201cChariot,\u201d that\u2019s who. This witty gaming platform requires a good teammate and a comfy couch. Whether you play with your girlfriend, brother or child, there\u2019s only way to go forward in this game \u2013 through cooperation. The game features a princess and her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[45,40],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","tag-games","tag-youth","post-grid"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/numa.media\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Chariotintro.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1098,"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions\/1098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/numa.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}