Issue 4 PDF - Downloads at abime.net

apov 4
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INTERVIEW: ANDREW BAILEY
So I rushed out and bought a copy of
Quarterback and a load of floppy disks.
What brought you to Palace Software?
Firebird knocked back our submission of
Dragon's Breath, I'm guessing the company's
death knell was already being heard around
its offices. So I basically started ringing
around companies I sourced from the computer
mags. Palace bit first and off I went to
London.
Palace definitely had more creative input
than Firebird as a publisher, which of course
was met with resistance at first, but was very
mild to publisher involvement these days.
Were you affected by the demise of Palace?
Hard to say, as I was in Australia by then.
More than likely there were royalties of mine
that went to pay bigger fish.
When and how did you come up with the idea
for DDrraaggoonn''ss BBrreeaatthh??
I think it slowly evolved. After the D&D
inspired Druid games I really wanted to do a
Dragon based game. So it started with the
breeding section, the custom dragon concept.
Then the map where the game would take
place and then the spell system. Simon's art
was inspirational; the baby dragon hatching is
still one of my favourite clips.
What sort of budget would it have taken to
develop a game like DDrraaggoonn''ss BBrreeaatthh??
In a word, zero. Most of the game was written
before it was presented to Palace, which
meant it was developed for what some call
'sweat equity'. It was done in spare time, I
was at Uni, Simon at school and David worked
nights.
Did your development team gather at a single
location or did you work separately?
A bit of both :) David and I shared a flat just
outside of Guildford, while Simon still lived
with his parents. It was in the days before the
Internet so art updates were done by regular
car trips.
Was "Outlaw" the name of your development
team or a label for Palace?
I really can't remember but I'm going for a
Palace label. David and I already had an unincorporated
partnership by the name of
'Digital Sonic and Chrome' so I don't see why
we would have changed it.
Which programming language did you use?
Dragon's Breath was written in C, with a
touch of assembler for the blitter routines.
And it was quite horrible C as DB was only my
second program in the language.
Were you involved in the creation of the
elaborate spell system with David Hanlon?
David and I worked equally together on the
spell system. It was one part of the game that
could be worked out on paper first, rather
than tweaking code variables, like the village
simulation. So non-programmers could really
get in to this.
What was the reasoning behind the inclusion
of the flying dragon shoot-'em-up section?
The arcade section of the game realised the
final fantasy of actually flying your dragons
you had raised from an egg. And it also acted
as another way to change the stats of your
dragon. If I were writing/designing the game
twenty years on, however, I would probably
drop it, as it was a bit unbalanced in the feel
of the game. Or at least integrate arcade
action more seamlessly (see last question).
Which elements of DDrraaggoonn''ss BBrreeaatthh are you
most and least happy with?
The spell system is the part most people mention
when people talk to me about Dragon's
Breath, so I am very happy with that. Least
happy would have to be the end-play of the
game. Once you were all powered up with
eight dragons the game-play resorted to a
form of 'deal or no deal' as you searched for
the talisman. It really needed some random
events to hurt your dragons or income to provide
more challenge. Or some way to reduce
the gaming area to increase opposing dragon
clashes.
Why was the name changed to DDrraaggoonn LLoorrdd in
the United States?
Proctor and Gamble or Palmolive (one or the
other) held the trademark on Dragons Breath
in the States, for mouth wash. So Palace
changed the name for the US release.
A hidden message in DDrraaggoonn''ss BBrreeaatthh finishes
with "Yours, probably now down under, Bilbo
Baggins." Coming from the UK, was there a
significant difference in the gaming industry
or opportunities in Australia?
When I first came to Australia, it only going to
be for a year (that was over 19 years ago) and
it was really only one company, Beam
Software, in Melbourne here. They offered me
a job just as I was looking for one at the end
of Uni, so I thought a trip overseas would be
cool. So the industry was much smaller than
the UK but now it has grown to a fair size with
many companies in Melbourne and Brisbane.
What was the origin of your company
Tantalus?
Tantalus was set up by four (ex)employees of
Beam Software in 1993. One was in the states
but he never came back and another lasted 9
months before returning to his parents' farm.
So Trevor and myself (the remaining founders)
offered a partnership to another Beam
employee and grew from there. The company's
original name was 'Pacific Isle
Entertainment' but soon realised that was dull
and changed to a Greek demi god. The company
was sold a couple of years ago and is
now owned by a media investment company.
Does the development of handheld games on
the DS or PSP hark back to the 16 bit era in
any way?
Not really, the DS and PSP are far more powerful
machines, and the production of games
for them is very different (read commercial).
The nearest thing to development twenty
years ago is probably writing for the iPhone. It
is a platform that does better with small
teams 'in a bedroom' rather than companies
with business plans. It is also a 'sweat equity'
type of development and the sort of thing a
single person can do. However, the move of
both DS and PSP into digital distribution may
change that.
Would you consider reviving DDrraaggoonn''ss BBrreeaatthh
for the modern handheld market?
I actually have on paper design for another
Druid game with mass Golem action, and a
re-design of Dragon's Breath to be in real
time (rather than turn based) and FPS viewpoint.
However, I'm currently in the process of
merging these two into a single game, which
is Dragon's Breath based, but with a RTS
viewpoint that may go MMO. However, I can't
work on these while I'm still working for
Tantalus, the designs are just a hobby at the
moment.