Obbe Vermeij lent his expertise to a suite of Grand Theft Auto games across a Rockstar career that spanned more than 17 years, but now he's making a game that could barely be more different.
Vermeij, who has spent the last year or so outlining development secrets from Grand Theft Auto 3, GTA: Vice City, and San Andreas, recently unveiled his new game, Plentiful. A tranquil god game about collecting rainwater by moving rocks around a map in order to grow plant life and feed your tribe, Vermeij describes Plentiful as "a relaxing game about creating conditions for nature to thrive."
It's a pleasingly simple premise, with an understated art style and an even more understated Steam page. In other words, it could barely be further from the Grand Theft Auto games that Vermeij cut his development teeth on, which are set in sprawling, complex worlds and marketed in such a way that Rockstar and Take-Two can extract every last penny from them.
Vermeij doesn't appear to be in any particular hurry to release Plentiful, which he says will be out "when it's done." Regardless of that long potential wait, I'm actually very into the premise - there's something about the idea of manipulating streams and lakes that harks back to childhood.
I'll be interested to see what Vermeij cooks up, but I'm also pretty interested in what he has to say. The developer has dropped a string of tasty morsels about his time at Rockstar over the last several months, culminating in his recent expectations for GTA 6, which he thinks won't be "wildly different" from GTA 5.
