Phantom EFX CEO Aaron Schurman

Darkest of Days is the project Phantom EFX CEO Aaron Schurman wanted to make when he and a group of investors first started the company ten years ago. The concept was born after Schurman played through the early levels of Medal of Honor, where players reenact the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Despite the technical limitations of the time, the awe of experiencing a fragment of that historic battle in an interactive format was powerful, he said.

The idea of setting more games in history’s “darkest of days” with players facing overwhelming numbers was intriguing to Schurman, but the technology to make it possible was out of reach.

So the idea was put on the back burner and Iowa-based Phantom EFX decided to raise money other ways. It became a world leader in casino, card and slot games with its Reel Deal Casino and Reel Deal Slots series, selling around 600,000 PC games every year, Schurman said.

After building a successful business with these casual casino games, Schurman thought the base was strong enough to support the increased development costs of a more complex game. About three years ago, development on Darkest of Days began in earnest.

Making a game like Darkest of Days requires a sizeable investment and immense risk, Schurman said. And even if you can survive three years of development without seeing a profit, competing for shelf space as an independent publisher is another challenge. Large publishers that release multiple games a year have inroads with major retailers, who stock even their poor products so they have a chance to sell the popular ones too, Schurman said.

Even if you can get your game in the store, competing with the multimillion dollar marketing budgets of large publishers is another obstacle.

“There were times I was worried the game wouldn’t come out,” Schurman said.

As a privately owned company, Phantom EFX had a limited budget. Most first-person shooters cost $40 to $50 million to develop and market. Phantom EFX spent less than $10 million to develop Darkest of Days, Schurman said.

About half of the total production cost went to designing the game’s engine, Marmoset, which is capable of rendering hundreds of enemies on screen in vast, open environments, Schurman said. The technology was necessary to recreate the scope of battles Schurman wanted to have players experience.

The talent needed for a first-person shooter is different then that needed for casual games, so Phantom EFX created 8monnkey Labs to hire new producers and directors to work on Darkest of Days, Schurman said. Finding employees was one of the biggest challenges, Schurman said. Most of the talent is concentrated on the coasts. 8Monkey recruited about half of its team from these hotbeds, while the other half came from all over the Midwest, including Omaha, Schurman said.

“It’s hard to get someone from San Fransico, New York or L.A. to move out here, but once they do, they just love it,” Schurman said.

Many loved the laid back atmosphere and short commute times, he said.

Being located in the Midwest was a major help in reducing costs, Schurman said. The lower cost of business meant cheaper production costs relative to companies on the coast, he said.

Schurman is encouraged  by early interest in Darkest of Days. The game’s PC demo was downloaded 100,000 times in the first week, neck and neck with the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum, Schurman said.

“If you do something unique and think outside the box as a developer, you can definitely be rewarded for it,” Schurman said.

Even Hollywood is interested in the premise of Darkest of Days. Schurman said he has been in contact with producers and screenwriters who see potential for Quantum Leap style television series.

There will be a future for the Darkest of Days franchise, Schurman said. The story for a sequel is already written, and develops further on the question of whether it is right or wrong to alter history, he said.

But one of the most rewarding aspects of completing Darkest of Days is the satisfaction that comes with doing the impossible. Naysayers told him it was impossible for a small studio to compete with the big boys like Activision and Electronic Arts, Schurman said. They said that the Xbox 360’s hardware wouldn’t allow hundreds of enemies at a time.

“We were told that this will not work, that we couldn’t have this many people running on screen,” Schurman said. “But with a small company and a small budget, we made it possible.”

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That is the question at the heart of Darkest of Days, a new game from Phantom EFX of Cedar Falls, Iowa. The game represents Phantom’s first entry in the first-person shooter genre and its first appearance on the Xbox 360.

In Darkest of Days you take the role of a soldier in General Custer’s last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn. You suffer an arrow to the groinal region, but before you succumb to a scalping, a stranger in futuristic body armor appears out of a shimmering blue orb to rescue you. This is your recruitment. As it turns out, your transfer order to Custer’s army was lost and you are listed MIA, making you an ideal candidate as a temporal soldier.

So you are enlisted by a mysterious organization called KronoteK which has unlocked the secrets of time travel. The organization’s credo is that time travel must be used only for observation, and never to alter history.

But simply watching Stonehenge being built wouldn’t make a good game. No, we need some antagonists, provided via a second group of time travelers who are actively manipulating history to ensure the demise certain lineages. The identity of the second group is part of the game’s narrative twist, but you can figure it out if you think about it.

So certain people who were supposed to survive have suddenly found themselves on the front lines of some of history’s bloodiest battles, and you and your assault rifle have to ensure they survive to protect the timeline.

The game’s greatest hook is the possibility of bringing advanced weaponry back in time to unleash unprecedented destruction. It is undoubtedly fun to wield an assault rifle during the Civil War, although it never feels as if you get to use it enough. For a solid chunk of the game you use period weapons and that can be a drag when that means a single-shot black powder musket.

Every level takes place on a gigantic, outdoor map. There are no dark, metallic corridors in this game. These maps are recreations of historic battlefields. The ability to explore is hampered, however, by the inability to hop over wooden fences or climb steep hills.

Even though the game promises participation in various time periods, only four are represented and more than three quarters of the game takes place in either the Civil War or The Great War. WWII is represented only in a couple levels, and the finale amidst the exploding volcano at Pompeii is an excitingly fresh setting, yet woefully underutilized.

These historic locations provide a backdrop for new experiences to gaming and perhaps a more adult approach. Lining up with Union Soldiers in the battle for the cornfield at Antietam and staring down lines of Confederate muzzles is a visceral experience that captures the insanity of the fighting style. Likewise, being marched into a WWII prisoner camp in the rain with hundreds of other captured soldiers creates an emotionally charged atmosphere and a different approach in a genre saturated with WWII games.

Developer 8Monkey Labs developed a new physics engine dubbed Marmoset, which recreates the frantic pace of battles by rendering more enemies than any first-person shooter before. Hundreds of non-playable characters can be on screen at a time, each with its own AI. Modern weapons are needed at times just to even the odds.

Darkest of Days has an interesting premise with philosophical implications and a great hook. However, the implementation is not without problems and the technical necessities to render hundreds of enemies at a time means concessions are made in the graphics department.

Enemies largely look and act the same, and can be difficult to pick out against the background. The textures are dull. Enemy and ally AI can be confusing. During my play thru I encountered a hill where all the trees were floating three feet above the ground. More frantic moments are occasionally plagued by frame rate issues.

Segues between missions take place in a lifeless metallic room where you take orders from someone through a view screen. The pacing is not always frantic, and the slower parts can be tedious as you simply march from one objective to the next.

The major dysfunction to ease of playability is the map system. There is no mini map on the screen and pulling up the main map does not pause the game. The lack of a radar or mini map makes it even harder to identify nearby threats or navigate to the next objective.

Reloading weapons is also a chore, as a mini game determines whether your gun jams. The variety of weapons is also limited and you can only carry two at a time.

But for its faults, Darkest of Days never completely falls apart. It is rough around the edges, but everything that needs to work does work. It is a very bare-bones, raw experience. There is no multiplayer and no collectibles to search for. No flash or frills. The focus is on the delivery of frenzied battles and dedication to the theme.

If you judge a game based on graphics, frame rate and twitch shooting alone, you will not like Darkest of Days. But if you enjoy games that provide an immersive experience and makes you think, Darkest of Days will be a pleasant excursion from the run-of-the-mill shooter and might stay with you longer than you think.
Despite its flaws, Darkest of Days is a great accomplishment when you consider the odds stacked against the small Iowa publisher of casino PC games in this, their first console title. The premise is fresh in an industry too willing to copy competitors. The game represents a great first step for Phantom EFX, and the franchise has potential to be expanded and refined through sequels.

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