Hydrophobia Prophecy

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Hydrophobia is a survival-adventure video game developed by Dark Energy Digital and published by Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox Live Arcade. The game was released on September 29, 2010 as part of Xbox Live's 'Games Feast' promotion, marking the first of three episodes. PC and PlayStation 3 versions are planned for later release. The game's engine, HydroEngine, provides realistic fluid dynamics technology for flowing water, allowing it to interact with the surroundings. The levels of Hydrophobia were designed using InfiniteWorlds; a game creation system which uses bespoke procedural technology to significantly reduce file sizes, decreasing the overall file size of the game.

Hydrophobia received mixed reception, with an aggregate score of 60/100 on Metacritic and 62.35% at GameRankings. Reviews have been polarized, ranging from a 30% approval to 90%. Reviewers generally praised the game's dynamic water system, but felt the game was too short and repetitive. The game sold over 9,000 units within a week of release. 17,000 units were sold as of October 2010. The developers released a title update on December 21, 2010 addressing the complaints from feedback and reviews

Gameplay involves the player being able to interact with the environment, and the realistic water dynamics. Rob Hewson stated that "player versus environment is certainly a large part of the experience, the wonderful thing about water is that it is constantly affecting every area of the environment, so you get incredible amounts of emergent behaviour. The player constantly has to adapt to the environment and react quickly because doors, walls and windows are going to cave in differently each time according to the distribution of water."[3]

Players can visit previous locations that have been submerged and are able to interact with them in various ways. Hewson stated that players are able to "fight through an area one time and there might be a foot of water flowing around and affecting the environment, another person might play through the same area and blow out walls or windows causing a great deal of water to flow into the scene, meaning perhaps the gameplay switches to floating cover. Another player might shoot fuel barrels which let even more water into the scene but also spawn floating fuel fires which are carried around with the flow and find they need to resort to underwater action

The game is set in the mid 21st century when the world has fallen into the chaos of the "Great Population Flood", and takes place aboard the Queen of the World, a city-sized luxury ocean vessel, built by a group of corporate giants known as the Five Founding Fathers; the group who, due to the Queen, have prospered while the rest of the world suffered.[3] At the beginning of the game, the craft is bombed by a group of fanatical terrorists known as the Malthusians—named after political economist Thomas Malthus who predicted that population growth would one day outpace agricultural production, returning society to a subsistent level of existence.[5] The Malthusians have a plan to murder the vast majority of humans on the planet, so that the survivors wouldn't suffer from the effects of the population explosion. Their slogans, including "Save the World - Kill Yourself", are written on the walls and displayed on computer screens all over the ship.[6] Kate Wilson, the protagonist, is a systems engineer who becomes a reluctant hero when the Malthusians attack and take over the Queen.[7]

Development and marketing

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