Core | Preview, create and play has never been easier

Core | Preview

Creating a video game is something that can hardly be accessible to an average person, unless you follow a course of study or put yourself there with great commitment to learn all the tools necessary to develop your idea. There have been cases over the years where one, two or even three people have been enough to create small independent masterpieces, but even for larger ambitions, teams can require hundreds and hundreds of workers like in triple A production houses. for some years now, numerous tools are being born to create your own video game without knowing absolutely anything. At the time RPG Maker was one of these examples, but the evolution certainly did not stop at the classic JRPG and today we are faced with a new title that allows you to create, share and play in a single package through a universal virtual world: Core .

Creature by Manticore Games, Core is a tool and reproducer in a single form and it is totally free to be used both as a mere conglomeration of video games to try, and as a tool to create your own game from scratch. Each tool, function and system is based on drag & drop and therefore no knowledge of game design is required to place elements or backgrounds, also because being a platform based on content generated by users, the latter share the assets they create and make them available already. within the program itself. This means that if a person who already has knowledge of 3D rendering creates models for the environment for his project, a future user will be able to take them, modify them and adapt them to use them in his idea. Like all things, the more you train within Core, the better you will become at understanding its advanced systems and functions, however it remains undeniable that potentially creating a game is perhaps the easiest in the world.

If you think so, you can create it

We had the opportunity to try Core before its Early Access on the Epic Games Store on April 15th, seeing what is possible with it and discovering the vision of the developers through a small preview event. What struck us right away, even from the practical demonstration carried out in barely five minutes during the event itself, is that it is surprisingly easy to create a finished game to share immediately with all users online. While it took the developer an amazing time to create a Middle Eastern-inspired third-person shooter, we were told that Core's path to Early Access was littered with examples of ordinary people who never dreamed (or could). to create a video game, instead found yourself creating an idea in about an hour or two and breaking through with the game audience so as to also earn cash prizes offered by the development team.

And actually the result is evident, both to us and to anyone of you who wants to download the game client and try it out for free. The launch on the Epic Games Store is not a coincidence: the company has invested a billion dollars in the project and at the base of the engine of the Manticore title is the Unreal Engine that we all know. To add to the palatability dose is the 50% revenue for game creators within Core. In fact, the system has an in-game currency corresponding to real money, however reinvested in the platform both in terms of technical support and of any competitions that - in fact - for all the income obtained in the published games. This has allowed Core to become a space where you can also earn and create your career as a budding video game developer, although this is only a small step and certainly not the end of the game designer journey.

If, on the other hand, you are interested in Core for the infinite possibilities it offers in terms of explorable worlds, you will certainly not be disappointed. Like many User Generated Content platforms, there are similarities here and there due to a common structure needed to make everything work without too many uploads. This allows you to switch from one game to another, even within themselves and not through the central hub, in a few seconds, sacrificing a bit of freedom on the side of graphic and similar assets. That said, the worlds we visited in Core amazed us at how much variety the system can allow. The links that you will find will also allow you to access the game directly, in case you have the client ready on your PC.

We have in fact played two titles based on Attack on Titan and Hero Academia (at the moment they do not seem there are particular licensing issues) and both had mechanics quite similar to what one would expect from video games related to those brands. Even the models, as well as the possibility of creating cities such as those inside the Wall Maria, are fully customizable and able to take on the shapes you want as long as you dedicate the right time to move the geometric shapes according to our wishes. Going beyond simple geometry, just look at the selection of featured games in the catalog to understand how much diversity there is: MOBA, a farm simulator, a title that follows Ghost & Goblin s, an old west shooter where you go hunting for words badly written, sci-fi shooters, Dark Souls titles, puzzle games and space exploration games. Every day there are new games just created just waiting for you to be populated and the embarrassment of choice is evident.

The big bet

Of course, none of them are currently a ' experience that you can consume for hundreds of hours, however the freedom of expression and the possibilities expressed by Core seemed to us an important port not only to stimulate creativity, but also to break down the barriers that still exist between ideas for a video game and skills required to do them. The creators of Manticore believe that their Core will be a bit like what Youtube was for videos and movies. We cannot say whether this will turn out to be true for the general public, but as far as we can judge from our point of view it is very likely that Core is now the ideal tool to play with your friends, or with the world, in projects created in a few hours or days and published without any kind of cost or obstacle. The immediacy with which you can "load" a game on the platform is undoubtedly the winning factor of Core and its greatest selling point, if not the greatest charge in being able to solidify even more an already large community of creators.

What perhaps Core is missing is the inevitable media exposure, that striking case of a title done so well that it will fill the front pages of every social feed, as it did for RPG Maker. It is funny to think how since its first moments Core has brought with it investments, personality and truly remarkable users, but apparently not enough to be on the lips of the average public even among the slice of PC users. This is a stigma, mysterious in some respects, that no project has yet managed to clear through customs, regardless of its degree of authority or quality. Core, however, precisely because it offers an immediate world and very similar stylistically to the products of Epic Games, has all the credentials to be that phenomenon of which in a few years we will be able to remember with nostalgia when we talked about it even before it became mainstream. But don't take our word for it: Core is free, available to everyone and not that heavy on the hardware level, try it yourself and see if it's something that can give life to the idea that has been in your head for a long time. Who knows, maybe it will turn out to be more popular than you could hope for and even bring you monetary gain.

Core is available for free, with cosmetic in-game purchases, on the Epic Game Store.