Frozen Codebase Chooses Vicious Engine For XBLA Title

D3 Publisher subsidiary Vicious Cycle Software has announced that its Vicious Engine middleware has been chosen by Frozen Codebase to bring the latter's Elements of Destruction to Xbox Live Arcade. First formed in November of 2006, Frozen Codebase is made up of a number of former developers from Raven Software, Radical Entertainment, GarageGames, and Astral Entertainment. The studio released its first Xbox Live Arcade title a year later with Screwjumper, later brought to web-game service InstantAction. Few details of the new title were announced, other than to say Elements of Destruction was an "engaging, frenetic game where players use the spectacularly destructive powers of nature to raze and blaze as they desire." Vicious Cycle announced the latest version of its engine in February of 2008, with new features for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, including an updated toolset that includes an updated lighting engine, an animation blending component, and pixel shader technology that the company says is optimized for next-gen platforms. Said Frozen Codebase programmer and co-producer Ben Geisler, “Our experience with the Vicious Engine allowed us to bring Elements of Destruction to our audience far faster than we had thought possible. Using the same middleware for an Xbox Live Arcade title as one might use for a full retail release helped our team adapt to the process quickly and easily.”