Kung Fu Superstar - First ever video game where you train and fight in real Wing Chun

[DannyCheng]

Hey all,

I am one of the lead developers over at Kinesthetic Games and I am happy to just have joined this great forum.

Our studio recently announced our upcoming game, which I thought members of this forum will find very interesting, especially since a lot of it is based on Wing Chun.

The game is called Kung Fu Superstar and it's about a young aspiring martial artist who sets off on a journey to become Hollywood and Hong Kong's most loved and respected action hero. He does this by training in martial arts an endeavor that players themselves will experience through the course of the game. As this game has a motion control element however (Kinect, Move etc) the players themselves actually learn real martial arts through playing this game.

Check out the launch trailer at:

www.kungfusuperstar.com

We think it's a very innovative and cool concept and we're very excited to finally be able to share our hard work with the world.

The support of the martial arts and Wing Chun community is obviously of paramount importance to us as we really want to authentically capture the spirit and culture of Kung Fu and other martial arts and promote it to a wide audience through the fun and family friendly context of our game. This is why we're here promoting the project as we'd love to hear from you and hear what you think about the game. If you want to connect with us join us on facebook at www.facebook.com/kungfusuperstar or reply to this thread with your comments and feedback.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy our announcement trailer!

[Treznor]

Good luck dude...

Stands back and covers head

TBH, it sounds like it'd be fun to play... but will 'teach real martial arts' in the same way that Guitar Hero teaches you to play the guitar.

[DannyCheng]

Thanks Treznor

About your point: It's a fair criticism. I think you'll be surprised to see how authentically we're approaching the subject matter. To give you a better idea by working with your Guitar Hero paradigm, I suppose a better paradigm would be the game Rocksmith by Ubisoft.

Still though, even that doesn't teach "real" guitar either (although arguably it does it more than how much Guitar Hero does it). To fully learn how to play the instrument you need to be educated by an expert (the equivalent of training at a martial arts dojo) and apply it in real life scenarios like recitals and playing in bands (the equivalent to sparring).

However this is really missing the point... I should really point out (especially to any Wing Chun and other Martial Arts instructors potentially reading all this), that we've not set out to steal your jobs. That's not what our mission is.

Quite the contrary. We want to promote martial arts and *supplement* the practice and learning of martial arts in the home through a fun context. If anything this should mean that more people will be flooding into your schools because of their new found love for martial arts that they've developed through playing our game.

This is why we're looking forward to working with you towards achieving this

I hope this clarifies our intentions a bit

[Wayfaring]

Looks pretty sweet. Glad to see someone pushing the envelope of the Kinect hardware. That's awesome.

[Treznor]

Hey Danny,

Don't get me wrong... If the control system / sensitivity works as well as I hope it will, I can't wait..... I'll definitely be keeping track of progress and keeping an eye out for the demo on Xbox Marketplace.

Mat

[desertwingchun2]

I think this could be a really fun game to play with our kids and our buddies. Any MP and or achievements for 360??

[DannyCheng]

Thanks for the kind words all!

desertwingchun2 officially we haven't announced anything on multiplayer modes yet but I can tell you we're playing around with some very exciting ideas. Hopefully we'll be able to share more on that in the near future. And yes, the 360 version will definitely have some cool achievements for people to unlock

In fact do let us know of your ideas with regards to achievements or anything else at www.facebook.com/kungfusuperstar which is the official channel we are currently using to connect with the community.

[nasmedicine]

Very nice product. I've often wondered if someone would actually make something like this. The game looks promising and it looks as though some of your inspiration might have been the Sherlock Holmes fight sequences with the slow motion captions about the opponents weaknesses and target areas. I have a few questions:

what lineages did you use in your research for the "authenticity" of the WC in the game or did you stick to a very basic over Wing Chun model?

Also, will the game adapt the the individual? Perhaps by storing data on the various way different players move?

Lastly, is there a versus mode where one can fight another live player in some type of battle mode?

[DannyCheng]

Glad you liked it nasmedicine

Yes, *that* Sherlock Holmes scene was a big inspiration to us. First of all it looks really cool, but more than that we thought we could really expand on it and create some fantastic gameplay opportunities based on it. I can't really go into a lot of detail here but expect some really cool stuff to come out of this. We can't wait to show you!

About the WC lineage question: The Lead Designer on the project has trained in the William Cheung lineage. However we appreciate that opinions on the "correct" practice and application of any martial art, not just Wing Chun, are almost as many as there are sifus and practitioners. For that reason we mostly focus on core ideas which are more or less common between all approaches (for instance in the case of Wing Chun I am talking about things like protecting your central line, being economical when it comes to movement etc). So really we mostly want to teach people the core and widely accepted values behind each system and then leave it down to the player to proceed from there. Like I have saud in the past our game does not aim to substitute real martial arts training. It aims to supplement it or offer a fun and accessible intro to it.

With regards to your question on whether the game will adapt to the player: Yes! This is where we think the real opportunity with motion control platform lies: create a truly interactive and personalized experience for players. The game will adapt to how quickly or slowly you learn and dynamically adjust to that. It will also provide you with personalized feedback on your performance.

With regards to multiplayer I will refer you to my previous post which was a response to a similar question from desertwingchun2

These are great questions so keep them coming! We keep trying to monitor different places where people interested in our game are asking us questions about it, which is getting increasingly difficult so if you could post them on our facebook page (www.facebook.com/kungfusuperstar) that would be great. That way all the other fans of the game can also benefit from the answers. We will keep trying to monitor this thread too though as much as we can.

Thank you!

[sanjuro_ronin]

When do you project release to the public?
Are you gonna release a prototype to a limited market to get some R&D feedback?

[DannyCheng]

Hey sanjuro_ronin

There is no release date on the project yet.

Yes, we will definitely be running betas for testing and feedback. Announcements on this will be happening via our Facebook page so keep an eye out for that if you're interested!

[nasmedicine]

Hey Danny,

Let me know if you need a beta tester. :-)