<center>[ Page 1 ] - [ Page 2 ] - [ Page 3 ] - [ Page 4 ] - [ Page 5 ] - [ Page 6 ] - [ Page 7 ] - [ Page 8 ]
The bloom leaves the rose</center><blockquote>The first real blow to my love of the company came during an all-hands company meeting. Burger Bill and I stood in the doorway and looked at the mass of people gathered. Interplay was expanding exponentially; so large that after this meeting, they would be held in the outdoor atrium. Bill and I had shipped 10th Anniversary only a few months earlier. Brian Fargo addressed the crowd and told everyone that how well the company was doing. But, he especially wanted to point out that the 10th Anniversary was a huge seller, responsible for 60% of the company’s sales that quarter. Bill and I stood proud. Brian continued by saying that the 10th Anniversary project wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the dedication and hard work of two people. Burger and I grinned in anticipation. Brian continued, thanking two of the marketing ladies who helped to distribute the product. Burger and I stood and gaped. Not to belittle the job of marketing, but after scavenging the code, rewriting executables, creating installers, laboriously digitizing the manuals, for ten whole games, all under a massive crunch – I felt as if I was kicked in the man-bits.
Long before I ever heard the term “Jump the Shark”, I began to see some warning signs of Interplay’s continued success. I sensed a change in the management. There was a shift from a passion for game making, to a desire to make Hollywood-style cinema. We changed from the old adage of “Shoot for the moon. Here’s a nickel.” to “How can we make this experience more like watching a movie.” It began with Stonekeep (which started as a throwback to the old Bard’s Tale, but became a nightmare of “cinematic experience”), and exploded with the Sim-CD series (Interplay’s remakes of SimCity, SimAnt, and SimEarth in CD-ROM format with lots of movies) and the horror show that was “Cyberhood” (an interactive movie that became a black hole of funds.)
I remember one producer summit when we first saw the film footage shot for Sim City CD. The idea was that you could click on buildings and see a movie of the people inside living their lives. They were 30 second clips of people watching TV, or sleeping in bed, or doing aerobics, or eating cereal. And there were dozens of these clips; the most boring and mundane things you can imagine. Immediately after seeing this footage, we learned that it cost over a million dollars to film… and there was more filming to do. Considering that most of the games in production had a sub 100K budget, I (and many of the producers there) about had aneurisms. All it took was for this one game to be a train wreck, and the whole company suffers, or even dies.
During this time, I inherited SimEarth CD-ROM. I was my favorite of the sim games, and I immediately wanted to add features that would enhance the gameplay. For instance, I always wondered what my creatures looked like when they evolved into sapient beings. What would a sapient arthropod look like? What kind of cities would an iron age civilization of sapient amphibians build? I wanted to create small movies that were rewards for evolving your planet. There was a new artist at Interplay who was quite good at 3DStudio, and he did an amazing 3D movie test. (This was before Toy Story, so a movie with high-quality animated 3D characters was bleeding edge.) As the artist built and rendered these movies in his spare time, the programmer, coded furiously to convert the old Sim Earth into a modern vibrant VGA game. When the incredible movies went into the beautiful game, it began to really shine.
Then, the pain. I was told that I was going over budget. Confusing, because I had spent less-than $100k. But my predecessor spent over $200K on other cinematic footage.
Footage that we had no gameplay use for.
No problem, I’ll make it work.
Then, after showing the incredible movies to Steven Spielberg, the artist was pulled from my project to work on “better things”. (Spielberg was in the process of founding Dreamworks, and soon after hired that artist to work on Shrek.) Then another artist was also pulled off. Finally, after months of insane hours to meet the schedule the project was canceled. (Since SimCity was having such budget overruns, our product lineup needed trimming.) After all the time and effort we had spent getting the game ready to ship, this was kick-to-the-bits number two.
In another company wide meeting, we learned that Universal Pictures had purchased a portion of the company. The company was treated to a day at Universal Studios, and we were promised several amazing upcoming movie licenses. My fear of the company ditching games and becoming a movie house was getting stronger.
The first movie license arrived in-house, Flipper, a remake of the 70s TV show. (I recall the designer of that project saying that we should buy the rights to ECO the Dolphin and simply rename it.) The second movie license was Casper the Friendly Ghost. When the first design was shot down by Harvey Comics because “Casper should be able to walk through walls” – we realized that trying to create a game with no way to contain the player’s movement was, in fact, rather impossible.
The third movie license? Oh, it was the granddaddy of them all: Waterworld. After flying the designers out to Hawaii to see one of the multi-million dollar atoll sets (which would later sink), all they were provided with was the original script to create a game (which surprisingly wasn’t bad – the game I mean). However, most of their ideas got thrown out as the movie filming was changing the script on a day to day basis. The game did ship, but it became a Real-Time Strategy game, based in the world, but having nothing to do with the actual movie.
On top of all the craziness, Burger Bill was fired from Interplay. I was told the causes were just and it was a long time coming, but I saw it as one of the last old school non-conformists axed.</blockquote>Still, as all of this was going on, the late night RPGs lived on. More and more dice-throwing geeks joined in, and a new game called Magic: The Gathering began to take over. One night, Tim Cain showed me his GURPS Character Creator he was working on. It was using his own GUI system and parsed all of the data through text files, making it easy to anyone to add new stuff. I showed off my GURPS Vehicle Creator I was programming, with a cool UI and automated math calculations.
From that point on, we kept saying to ourselves, “We really need to make a GURPS game”.
<center>What’s a “GURPS”?</center>
While I struggled with Sim Earth, Tim had proposed the idea to management to make a new RPG based on the GURPS license. Yes, from what I hear, “What’s a GURPS” was actually asked by someone. Tim sold them on the idea that because GURPS is a generic system, once we make one game, we’ll be able to reuse the core mechanics to make any other kind of RPG. Somehow they said “Yes.”
Steve Jackson, a legend in the pencil-and-paper gaming world, created and owned the rights to GURPS. However, Steve had been burned by games before. In the past two of his great IPs were turned into Apple II games: Autoduel and Ogre. Ever since, Steve Jackson games had been inundated with developers wanting to turn their beloved IPs into computer games – and failing miserably.
When Interplay approached Steve Jackson Games for GURPS, they were extremely skeptical. They were told of the long line of great RPGs that Interplay had made. No response. They were told that they would have creative control over the game. Still no response. Then they were told the up-front license money they would be getting. Suddenly, there was a response.
With GURPS given a green light, Tim assembled a team, and (because SimEarth was just canned) chose me as the Lead Designer. It was a bit of a rocky start, as much finagling was needed to secure people for the team from other projects.
Once the contract was signed, Steve Jackson came to the studios for a meet and greet with the team. I remember him being extremely cool with our overall ideas about handling the game. One pointed question was, “What do you think about blood and violence in the game?” With a smirk and a wave of his hand, he answered, “The more the better!”
Words that would eventually come to haunt us.<blockquote>Later that day, several of us played a game of Illuminati with Steve (who created the game.) As the game progressed, Steve made a sweeping move, shuffling cards and resources in a flurry of action. One of the players, Floyd, piped up, “Ah, Steve. You can’t do that.”
Mr. Jackson blinked at him, then replied, “I think I know the rules.”
But, Floyd persisted, “No, really. Check the manual.”
Tension mounted as Steve took the manual and thumbed through it. After a minute, he said, “I guess you’re right.” He dropped the manual and changed his action.
After a few heartbeats, Floyd exhaled and exclaimed, “Oh my god! I just corrected Steve Jackson on a rule!”</blockquote>All was looking good! Now all we needed was a story…
<center>[ Page 1 ] - [ Page 2 ] - [ Page 3 ] - [ Page 4 ] - [ Page 5 ] - [ Page 6 ] - [ Page 7 ] - [ Page 8 ]</center>
The bloom leaves the rose</center><blockquote>The first real blow to my love of the company came during an all-hands company meeting. Burger Bill and I stood in the doorway and looked at the mass of people gathered. Interplay was expanding exponentially; so large that after this meeting, they would be held in the outdoor atrium. Bill and I had shipped 10th Anniversary only a few months earlier. Brian Fargo addressed the crowd and told everyone that how well the company was doing. But, he especially wanted to point out that the 10th Anniversary was a huge seller, responsible for 60% of the company’s sales that quarter. Bill and I stood proud. Brian continued by saying that the 10th Anniversary project wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the dedication and hard work of two people. Burger and I grinned in anticipation. Brian continued, thanking two of the marketing ladies who helped to distribute the product. Burger and I stood and gaped. Not to belittle the job of marketing, but after scavenging the code, rewriting executables, creating installers, laboriously digitizing the manuals, for ten whole games, all under a massive crunch – I felt as if I was kicked in the man-bits.
Long before I ever heard the term “Jump the Shark”, I began to see some warning signs of Interplay’s continued success. I sensed a change in the management. There was a shift from a passion for game making, to a desire to make Hollywood-style cinema. We changed from the old adage of “Shoot for the moon. Here’s a nickel.” to “How can we make this experience more like watching a movie.” It began with Stonekeep (which started as a throwback to the old Bard’s Tale, but became a nightmare of “cinematic experience”), and exploded with the Sim-CD series (Interplay’s remakes of SimCity, SimAnt, and SimEarth in CD-ROM format with lots of movies) and the horror show that was “Cyberhood” (an interactive movie that became a black hole of funds.)
I remember one producer summit when we first saw the film footage shot for Sim City CD. The idea was that you could click on buildings and see a movie of the people inside living their lives. They were 30 second clips of people watching TV, or sleeping in bed, or doing aerobics, or eating cereal. And there were dozens of these clips; the most boring and mundane things you can imagine. Immediately after seeing this footage, we learned that it cost over a million dollars to film… and there was more filming to do. Considering that most of the games in production had a sub 100K budget, I (and many of the producers there) about had aneurisms. All it took was for this one game to be a train wreck, and the whole company suffers, or even dies.
During this time, I inherited SimEarth CD-ROM. I was my favorite of the sim games, and I immediately wanted to add features that would enhance the gameplay. For instance, I always wondered what my creatures looked like when they evolved into sapient beings. What would a sapient arthropod look like? What kind of cities would an iron age civilization of sapient amphibians build? I wanted to create small movies that were rewards for evolving your planet. There was a new artist at Interplay who was quite good at 3DStudio, and he did an amazing 3D movie test. (This was before Toy Story, so a movie with high-quality animated 3D characters was bleeding edge.) As the artist built and rendered these movies in his spare time, the programmer, coded furiously to convert the old Sim Earth into a modern vibrant VGA game. When the incredible movies went into the beautiful game, it began to really shine.
Then, the pain. I was told that I was going over budget. Confusing, because I had spent less-than $100k. But my predecessor spent over $200K on other cinematic footage.
Footage that we had no gameplay use for.
No problem, I’ll make it work.
Then, after showing the incredible movies to Steven Spielberg, the artist was pulled from my project to work on “better things”. (Spielberg was in the process of founding Dreamworks, and soon after hired that artist to work on Shrek.) Then another artist was also pulled off. Finally, after months of insane hours to meet the schedule the project was canceled. (Since SimCity was having such budget overruns, our product lineup needed trimming.) After all the time and effort we had spent getting the game ready to ship, this was kick-to-the-bits number two.
In another company wide meeting, we learned that Universal Pictures had purchased a portion of the company. The company was treated to a day at Universal Studios, and we were promised several amazing upcoming movie licenses. My fear of the company ditching games and becoming a movie house was getting stronger.The first movie license arrived in-house, Flipper, a remake of the 70s TV show. (I recall the designer of that project saying that we should buy the rights to ECO the Dolphin and simply rename it.) The second movie license was Casper the Friendly Ghost. When the first design was shot down by Harvey Comics because “Casper should be able to walk through walls” – we realized that trying to create a game with no way to contain the player’s movement was, in fact, rather impossible.
The third movie license? Oh, it was the granddaddy of them all: Waterworld. After flying the designers out to Hawaii to see one of the multi-million dollar atoll sets (which would later sink), all they were provided with was the original script to create a game (which surprisingly wasn’t bad – the game I mean). However, most of their ideas got thrown out as the movie filming was changing the script on a day to day basis. The game did ship, but it became a Real-Time Strategy game, based in the world, but having nothing to do with the actual movie.
On top of all the craziness, Burger Bill was fired from Interplay. I was told the causes were just and it was a long time coming, but I saw it as one of the last old school non-conformists axed.</blockquote>Still, as all of this was going on, the late night RPGs lived on. More and more dice-throwing geeks joined in, and a new game called Magic: The Gathering began to take over. One night, Tim Cain showed me his GURPS Character Creator he was working on. It was using his own GUI system and parsed all of the data through text files, making it easy to anyone to add new stuff. I showed off my GURPS Vehicle Creator I was programming, with a cool UI and automated math calculations.
From that point on, we kept saying to ourselves, “We really need to make a GURPS game”.
<center>What’s a “GURPS”?</center>
While I struggled with Sim Earth, Tim had proposed the idea to management to make a new RPG based on the GURPS license. Yes, from what I hear, “What’s a GURPS” was actually asked by someone. Tim sold them on the idea that because GURPS is a generic system, once we make one game, we’ll be able to reuse the core mechanics to make any other kind of RPG. Somehow they said “Yes.”Steve Jackson, a legend in the pencil-and-paper gaming world, created and owned the rights to GURPS. However, Steve had been burned by games before. In the past two of his great IPs were turned into Apple II games: Autoduel and Ogre. Ever since, Steve Jackson games had been inundated with developers wanting to turn their beloved IPs into computer games – and failing miserably.
When Interplay approached Steve Jackson Games for GURPS, they were extremely skeptical. They were told of the long line of great RPGs that Interplay had made. No response. They were told that they would have creative control over the game. Still no response. Then they were told the up-front license money they would be getting. Suddenly, there was a response.
With GURPS given a green light, Tim assembled a team, and (because SimEarth was just canned) chose me as the Lead Designer. It was a bit of a rocky start, as much finagling was needed to secure people for the team from other projects.
Once the contract was signed, Steve Jackson came to the studios for a meet and greet with the team. I remember him being extremely cool with our overall ideas about handling the game. One pointed question was, “What do you think about blood and violence in the game?” With a smirk and a wave of his hand, he answered, “The more the better!”
Words that would eventually come to haunt us.<blockquote>Later that day, several of us played a game of Illuminati with Steve (who created the game.) As the game progressed, Steve made a sweeping move, shuffling cards and resources in a flurry of action. One of the players, Floyd, piped up, “Ah, Steve. You can’t do that.”
Mr. Jackson blinked at him, then replied, “I think I know the rules.”
But, Floyd persisted, “No, really. Check the manual.”
Tension mounted as Steve took the manual and thumbed through it. After a minute, he said, “I guess you’re right.” He dropped the manual and changed his action.
After a few heartbeats, Floyd exhaled and exclaimed, “Oh my god! I just corrected Steve Jackson on a rule!”</blockquote>All was looking good! Now all we needed was a story…
<center>[ Page 1 ] - [ Page 2 ] - [ Page 3 ] - [ Page 4 ] - [ Page 5 ] - [ Page 6 ] - [ Page 7 ] - [ Page 8 ]</center>