Monthly Archive for March, 2008

INTERVIEW: ‘Age of Decadence’ Developer Says Choice Defines RPGs

Published
on March 31, 2008
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Iron Tower Studio’s lead developer Vince D. Weller was kind enough to answer some questions about his upcoming tradition-minded RPG “Age of Decadence” in an email interview.

He talks about his own game, the importance of choice and story, and how his studio’s approach to storytelling contrasts with that of big name developers like Bethesda and Oblivion.

Down the Wall: First, could you introduce yourself and your team?

Vince: 5-people team: designer, programmer, artist, modeler, animator. My name is Vince, I’m the designer.

DtW: “Age of Decadence” has a very interesting setting. How did you decide on that?

Vince: We wanted to make something different. High and generic “medieval” fantasy has been done to death and then some. We also wanted to go with a “fall of an empire” scenario for storytelling reasons and the Roman Empire is an obvious choice there, both as an inspiration and as a reference. The rest was influenced by some Michael Moorcock’s works (city of Quarzhasaat) and Lovecraft’s stories.

DtW: What games exemplify the non-linear story that you are going for with “Age of Decadence”? What’s your inspiration?

Vince: Prelude to Darkness, a great indie RPG that nobody’s heard of, and Arcanum, a Troika RPG masterpiece.

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‘50 Cent’ Sequel Has a Terrible Story

Published
on March 28, 2008
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Upcoming rap action game “50 Cent: Blood on the Sand,” sequel to 2005’s massive flop “Bulletproof,” features a story that can be worst described as good. Producer Aaron Blean summarized the story in an interview with IGN Australia:

50 and G-Unit are putting on a sold-out performance somewhere in a fictional Middle Eastern setting. This is where the ‘blood on the sand’ comes in. They put on the performance; the people are pleased, but the concert promoter stiffs them and doesn’t give 50 and G-Unit their payment.

So, of course, 50 isn’t going to leave until he gets paid, so he hassles the concert promoter, [saying] if he doesn’t come up with the money now, there will be consequences. And instead, the promoter offers him a very valuable gift – something that’s valuable to this particular country – a diamond encrusted skull.

So 50 gets the skull, and as he’s about to leave this war-torn country, when they’re ambushed and the skull is taken. They escape the ambush, but they’re without the skull. So 50’s motivated to get what belongs to him. So basically, throughout the game, he’s trying to track these people down and find out who they are and why he was ambushed.

Ignoring the fact that the entire story is about Fiddy and G Unit trying to get paid, it’s also totally insane. But it raises an interesting question. Would a corny, Indiana-Jones-with-gangsters story like this one be worth suffering through if the gameplay was good? What’s more important: gameplay and presentation or narrative?

PREVIEW: ‘Age of Decadence’ Harkens Back to RPG Classics

Published
on March 24, 2008
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I think back to games like “Baldur’s Gate II” and “Planescape: Torment” as the epitome of gaming narratives. The lack of photorealistic graphics and voice acting allowed developers to create non-linear experiences with literary exposition and protagonists born entirely out of the imagination of the player.

“Age of Decadence,” an intriguing offering from the small and independent staff at Iron Tower Studio, promises to be an RPG in that traditional sense.

“Age of Decadence” art from irontowerstudio.com

“Age of Decadence” is turn-based and isometric with a well-developed character creation system and an emphasis on player-driven plot. The game immediately brings to mind classics like “Temple of Elemental Evil” and the “Baldur’s Gate” series, and is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world torn apart by magic.The game boasts around 100 total quests, including no MMORPG-like delivery or hitlist missions, and over 20 large areas.

“Overall, dialogues and choices are the main aspect of the game and the main attraction,” said lead designer and writer Vince D. Weller in an interview at Gnome’s Lair.

“We have seven different endings and only two involve mortal combat,” Weller continued. “You’ll be able to talk your way in and out of trouble, make allies and enemies (there are no default good and bad guys), and handle quests in non-combat ways using dialogues and text adventure elements.”

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Designer Adam Maxwell Sees ‘No Places For Writers In Our Industry’

Published
on March 20, 2008
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“Auto Assault” creator Adam Maxwell said that game writers are irrelevant next to designers in an editorial on Gamasutra.

“Writers do not dictate the way players interact with the world, nor do they dictate the way the player experiences the content that they themselves may create. These are the responsibilities of the game designer,” he wrote.

“Even when the writer has written the dialogue, decided the plot, created every character and conceptualized every setting,” it’s the designer who puts the world together, said Maxwell. “When it comes to playing the game, to interacting with the world presented within, a writer has no real power.”

This is in stark contrast to Denis Dyack’s opinions. Dyack devotes a while section of his “Too Human” team to content. Rather than releasing writers after the plot is set, as Maxwell proposes, Dyack has them work closely with the designers to ensure that their concept of the world is implemented and that art and gameplay supplement the plot.

Maxwell is ignoring the spirit of cooperative enterprise that makes games great.

He compares games to Hollywood, and agrees with Roger Ebert that “authorial control is not something native to video games.” Do directors have absolute authorial control? Absolutely not. Films are a team effort, produced with the work of hundreds of people on and off the screen. The director doesn’t turn actors and lighting engineers into puppets, but allows their creative input to become a part of the final piece.

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Story Essential to Denis Dyack’s ‘Too Human’

Published
on March 16, 2008
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Silicon Knights’ Denis Dyack discussed the importance of story in making games in part one of an interview with 1UP’s wunderkind Philip Kollar.

Dyack founded Silicon Knights and is currently working on “Too Human.” He participated in a “Future of Story in Game Design” panel at the Game Developer’s Conference last month.

In the 1UP interview, Dyack adds to the issues raised at the panel, commenting on the future of story in specific genres of games, but the most interesting part of the discussion has to do with Dyack’s own studio.

Silicon Knights has a dedicated story, or content, department rather than a few writers. “It’s all based around this thing we call engagement theory, which is written like a formula: ‘engagement = story + technology + gameplay + artwork + audio.’” Each of those five components has its own director and department.

“We’re always evolving the content. Don’t think the content department does just story, either,” said Dyack, adding that the content team also works on in-game cinematography and on building tension through level design. “Whatever it takes to tell the story in the game, that group concentrates on, and they are busy from beginning to end just like all the other departments.”

Dyack is involving story in every aspect of game design for “Too Human.” I can’t wait to see what this approach yields when the game is finally released (still TBA).

Edit, March 18, 2008: Part two of the 1UP interview with Dyack is up. Dyack and Kollar talk about how games compare to other mediums. “When it comes to our fiction and the types of content we create, there’s no reason we can’t aspire to Shakespeare,” said Dyack.

Mad Max-creator George Miller Turns to Gaming

Published
on March 14, 2008
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When I first heard that George Miller is working on a fourth Mad Max film, titled “Fury Road,” my first thought was, “Awesome.” When I learned that Miller was teaming up with God of War II director Cory Barlog to produce a Mad Max game for concurrent release with the film, I thought, “Even better.”

Prominent filmmakers, including Miller and Steven Spielberg, are flocking to the game industry, where cinematic products are becoming increasingly viable.

In a two part interview with Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal, Miller talked about his attraction to games.

“I realized that the kind of filmmaker that I am, I unconsciously try to make films that are as immersive as possible,” said Miller. “My cutting patterns and compositions try to exaggerate–well, not exaggerate, but try to enhance a kind of three-dimensionality and an immersive quality to my storytelling. That of course is what games do so well.”

Miller sees games as a more open way to explore a narrative. “Film is a pretty closed narrative–it moves along at 24 frames a second, it’s extremely linear, and in that sense rigid, whereas games bust that open. So in a way, with games being more exploratory, it’s closer to what a novelist can do in many way,” he said.

“It’s just another way to tell stories,” added Miller. “If you’re much more interested in games than movies, then you might enter the story through the game. Or you might enter the story through the film and move towards the game. It’s still the same story. It’s still the same characters. It’s still the same world. It’s just that you can approach the characters and the world from different angles.”

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“BioShock 2″ in 2009, Announces Take-Two

Published
on March 11, 2008
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Take-Two announced today that “BioShock 2″ will rise from the depths late next year. What remains unclear is who will be developing the game and how it will fit into the “BioShock” plot.

It’s been rumored that the game will be a prequel to “BioShock,” as the ending of that game left little room for a follow-up. The game began after the downfall of objectivist-dystopia Rapture, and seeing how this downfall came about would be a good direction to go.

Another possibility (baseless outside of my own opinion) is a “BioShock” sequel reminiscent of those Half-Life games “Opposing Force” and “Blue Shift.” Both those were set in the same place and time as the original “Half-Life” but followed different characters around Black Mesa. A similarly approached “BioShock” game might follow a survivor as he fights his way through another part of Rapture.

“BioShock 2″ will be developed by the newly formed 2k Marin, a studio that includes members from the original “BioShock” team. Most notably absent is Ken Levine, who led the 2k Boston/2k Australia team that developed the original. The development team, headed by Ken Levine, was formed from Irrational Games, makers of the “System Shock” series.

My greatest fear on hearing these rumors was that another team would take up the reigns for the sequel, leaving us with something akin to “Knights of the Old Republic 2,” also developed by a different studio than the original release. With the talent behind the original “BioShock” split, it will be interesting to see how 2k Marin does and what Ken Levine comes up with next.

EDIT: Added information on 2k Marin, composed of members from the “BioShock” team, thank God.

EDIT2: Ken Levine will also be involved in “BioShock 2,” although his level of involvement is unknown. Will it just end up being the same team under a different name?

REVIEW: “Audiosurf” is a Great Arcade Experience

Published
on March 7, 2008
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“Audiosurf,” released Feb. 15 on Steam, is a fantastic arcade-type game with infinite possibilities. Just pick a song and it generates a track on which to play its color-matching game.

The faster the song, the faster your track will go. Strong beats yield humps and intense guitar solos create more colored blocks for you to pick up and put together. The tracks fit their songs astoundingly well and are generated really quickly.

Here’s an example of one of the tracks, generated from a Daft Punk song, so you can get a better idea of how things work:

There are multiple game types and difficulties. Most use multi-colored blocks, but the simpler Mono type has you avoid obstacles and pick up blocks of a single color. There’s also a two-player mode where each player gets a side of the track.

“Audiosurf” comes with a scoreboard mechanic, so you can compare your top scores with local and worldwide players.

The game is a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy music, and it’s a great single-player alternative to games like “Guitar Hero.” Plus, it’s only $10. Highly recommended.

A Great Year for Role-Playing Games in 2008

Published
on March 6, 2008
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A feature in Australia’s Gameplayer looks at the state of the Role-Playing Game for 2008. The article includes interviews with many of the genre’s top players and highlights the most promising RPGs of 2008, including Last Remnant, Fallout 3, and Fable 2.

“I would like to insist about the difference between the RPGs of the East, the J-RPGs, and those of the West, such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” says Takeahiro Kaminagayoshi, director of Mistwalker’s Lost Odyssey. “In J-RPGs, especially under Sakaguchi-san, emotion is a fundamental part of the game, as well as certain narratives, which are also extremely important to the storyline.”

Todd Howard, executive producer of the proudly Western Fallout 3 at Bethesda, puts it more simply. “We stay away from all the big cut-scene/story-telling stuff, to be honest,” he says. “We’re more fans of the ‘make your own story’ idea.” . . .

But different as they are, both types of RPG are recognizably the same species. They’re big, involved, complicated worlds that support big, complicated storylines — and they are extremely expensive to create. Really, really mind-bogglingly expensive and that’s not just expense in terms of money, but in terms of time, resources and, occasionally, sanity.

The article goes on to discuss differing treatment of story in Western and Japanese RPGs, namely that Japanese games have stories defined by the game makers while Western RPGs allow the player to create his own story. And games from both sides of the world inevitably focus on a hero achieving great heights from humble origins.

Not much to comment on here. Whether you’re into linear games or open worlds, this year promises to be a excellent one for RPG fans, especially on the Xbox 360.

Reflecting on ‘Morrowind’

Published
on March 3, 2008
in Review
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I stumbled on a fantastic piece of “The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind” fan-art whilst browsing the ever-time-consuming DeviantArt and it got me all nostalgic. The picture is titled “Morrowind Days” and drawn by DA user SnowSkadi.

Morrowind Days by SnowSkadi. Click for full-size.

And that about sums the game up. Everything that made “Morrowind” (and “Tribunal”) so utterly fantastic. Sure there were technical problems, things that could have been done better, unbalanced gameplay. But whatever, that’s life. And for every flaw, every inconvenience, there was something so real and lifelike about that world where you would get destroyed if you set one unprepared foot out of Seyda Neen and into that memorable cave of slavers.

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