Discussion: Paragon Studios Announces City of Sidekicks

With the continued success of City of Heroes and City of Villains, Paragon Studios has unveiled its plans for the future of the franchise with City of Sidekicks. No longer are you relegated to the role of "Saving the Day" as a super-powered hero, as a sidekick you get to participate in exciting, new ways to play the game.

"City of Sidekicks brings a whole new way to experience Paragon City," said Lead Designer Melissa Bianco. "Instead of taking down the criminals, you get to be captured by them!" A key element of many sidekick storylines is your ineptitude interfering with the actions of the real heroes, and nearly doing the villain's job for them.

"Your character levels up by screwing up," Bianco added. The goal as a sidekick is to mess things up just to the point of utter failure for the task at hand, but having the hero pull out a win in the end. The closer you get to failing, the better the end reward.

Gameplay for City of Sidekicks will involve a new dodge mechanic as you scramble to get out of the way of attacks that might wound or kill your character. "It was quite a challenge for us to implement," said Lead Programmer Matt Stults. "It took us a long time to find the fun in running around and not getting hit." There are bonus points for quipping during dodging, so if your character can blurt out things like "Not the face!" at the right time, you get a bonus to your dodge for a split second. Timing is everything.

Failure to dodge enemy attacks carries some pretty hefty consequences. "At the low levels it's simply cosmetic changes to the character, like a bandage on your head or your arm in a sling," said Lead Artist David Nakayama. "But as you face tougher foes, your injuries become more grievous, like a broken leg that has you hobbling on crutches. Eventually you're dodging attacks that can vaporize your character in one hit."

That's right; there is the possibility of permanent death for characters in City of Sidekicks. "It's not something we're doing lightly," said Producer Jesse Caceres. "We're taking a cue from the world of comic books. If a sidekick finds himself in a situation where they might be killed in a villain's Deathtrap, we will poll all the online players asking if said character should live or die."

"Since we have most of the assets already, we are looking at a short development cycle for City of Sidekicks," said Art Min, the studio's Development Director. "Our schedule has us releasing in exactly one year, on April 1st, 2011, with the expandalone title City of Henchmen coming six months after that."

City of Sidekicks will be available for the PC and Mac.

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Hey I was going to ask that!

Nah, their original idea was going to announce they had hired me as a community rep, but Posi put the kibosh on that since he wanted a player base around for when Going Rogue launched.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk