Twisted Lets You Live Out Your Storm-Chasing Dreams
Video game adaptations of popular films usually never amount to anything, and the same can be said vice versa. Sure, there are some notable exceptions to this rule, and while we’re mostly discussing rules rather than exceptions, today’s exception is the exception to the rule (all puns fully intended) because of Twisted, a Roblox experience/adaptation of 1996’s movie called Twister.
Roblox is offering a storm chaser gaming experience developed by two climatologists/atmospheric superfans.
See a preview of the game below.
For those unacquainted with the Hollywood classic, Twister centers around a group of scientists chasing really, really bad weather in an attempt to develop a weather alert system that could potentially predict violent tornados.
Now, as reported by Kotaku, Roblox is offering a similar gaming experience developed by two climatologists/atmospheric superfans. The gaming experience is aptly titled Twisted, and its puts gamers in the role of scientists and thrill-seekers chasing severe weather across the fictional state of Keysota.
The main gist of Twisted is that players start the game by selecting an area of the state map which are of interest as they could spawn a tornado. The players are then dropped into the in-game world, where they should select a vehicle for their storm-chasing adventures, jump behind the wheel, and use the wide array of instruments available to them to track down a tornado and intercept it.
All the instruments used to track tornados in Twisted are based on actual meteorological tools
Sound pretty slim for a game that’s propagated as an exciting Roblox experience, but then again, exciting is a matter of perspective.
If you’re just a casual gamer looking to experience some Roblox, you’ll likely get bored fast, as chasing tornados just for kicks isn’t all that exciting.
However, climatology and meteorology nerds are going to love this gaming experience since all the instruments used to track tornados in Twisted are based on actual meteorological tools like Doppler radar and hodographs to track down a twister and intercept it. So, it actually requires at least some basic knowledge of reading said instruments. Not exactly a simulation, but niche enough to be called one.
Twisted is still in beta right now, but the game has already amassed an active community of fans and the attention of Reed Timmer, a well-known American meteorologist, and storm chaser.
The most recent updates to the title include a revamp of an impressively large map, objects’ reactions to extreme weather, such as bending trees and swaying lamp posts, and more varied tornados. There’s also a lighter version of the game for players whose devices can’t actually handle the standard version of the gaming experience.
Furthermore, the game’s extensive wind and wind damage, as well as its debris system, make Twisted a pretty intense gaming experience, especially in the hardware department, which is why this game won’t actually run well on low-end devices.
After all, making a working weather model isn’t really a walk in the park, and it gets even more complex when the entire premise of your game actually rests upon the said model.
Besides Twisted, other Roblox news includes the company’s recent announcement regarding a massive data leak that compromised the personal information of some 4,000 developers who attended various Roblox conferences in the past few years.
