Epic Games announced that it has recently acquired Chair Entertainment, the dev studio behind the Xbox Live Arcade title Undertow.

Chair's also working on a game series based on the "Ender's Game" novels, so it'll be interesting to see how this new arrangement will affect that project. More details on the acquisition are available in the full article.

Apparently, Orson Scott Card has given the Ender's Game as a video game idea some very thorough thinking. Chair Entertainment has announced a partnership with Card that will allow them to release a game series based on the novel's Battle Room. Details regarding this matter are available in the full article.

Independent video game developer Chair Entertainment has announced that it has signed an exclusive deal with Epic Games to use the Unreal Engine 3 for all its present and upcoming projects. The deal will cover all games Chair Entertainment develops for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 gaming platforms.

The first game to be released under the new agreement will be Undertow, an Xbox Live Arcade title slated to go live all over the world this summer. Undertow features a 15-level campaign for single player or co-op. The game also supports multiplayer for up to 16 players. Pretty impressive considering Undertow is reportedly just 50MB.

Here's what Epic Games vice president Mark Rein said about the deal:

We love working with cool independent studios like Chair that are truly focused on delivering value to gamers and creating experiences that break new boundaries in gameplay and creativity.

Sure, we love working with the big developers and publishers too, but there’s something really satisfying about seeing a young company with great talent doing some awesome stuff with our technology. Undertow is just the first great game you’ll see from these guys – prepare to be wowed some more.

It must have felt this way during the Civil War. How should you feel when you've been asked to point your gun at a fellow countryman? That's the subject of acclaimed science fiction writer Orson Scott Card's Empire - and the eponymous shooter video game from Chair Entertainment appearing in whatever platform will handle Unreal Engine 3.0 (hence PS3, Xbox 360, PC posting).

Card sets Empire, book, game, and whatever else may come out of it, in a near-future America ripped apart by blue state/red state politics. But the center of the book and the game is not the politics, but "the desire to tell a story about living, breathing people," he tells Wired News. And to him, the books-video games-movie connection tend to fall relatively flat on their face because, for most games, they tend to ignore that need of characterization.

Video games are a viable storytelling medium, but the trouble is that video games always have the same protagonist, which is the player. And he always has the same set of motivations, which is to kill and don't die. That's not conducive to great novels.

So enter Ender's Game the Empire game and novel. Card explains the characterization in the game best.

The experience from beginning to end in this game is that characters have their own agendas, which is not necessarily the players' agenda, but is fully understandable to them. Gamers will sympathize with what the characters are trying to do. They will want them to win. So it will not be a matter of just killing mindlessly. It will be about achieving really important objectives.

It's not that the entire industry is guilty of, in Card's view, falling flat on their faces. Card really blames the "mindless" video games publishing industry for pushing deadlines and agendas onto video game creators that, frankly, do not need the pressure and the dictation. There could be some "really great games" in Card's view, if devs didn't have to be pressured by publishers' requirements. Part of the reason why Card teamed up with indie developer Chair Entertainment.

Then again, it's not that we haven't seen interesting characterization that Card seeks from the industry - think Hideo Kojima's Solid Snake, for example. On the other hand, Kojima himself tends to have quite a (relatively) free hand from Konami, so there's Card's thesis confirmed somewhat. Then there's Japanese RPGs, and... catch our drift? Perhaps it should be considered a challenge directed to next-gen gaming, a challenge Card knows that the developers can meet if they weren't burdened with publishing dictates.

Apart from graphics or gameplay, can you create a game that's humanly compelling? When more details on Empire come out, we'll see if the game meets Card's own expectations.