Postmortems From Game Developers

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Section I: STARTUPS 4influences in to the more commercial scene. Asid Software’s Jay Wilbur once told Wired magazine,“People ask me who I fear, which of ourcompetition—LucasArts, Microsoft, any of thebig companies. They don’t frighten me. WhatI’m afraid of is two guys in a garage, working intotal obscurity. That’s where the heart and soulof this business is at. Those are the guys who aregoing to come up with the stuff that blows usout of the water.”
5Irrational <strong>Game</strong>s’SYSTEM SHOCK 2by jonathan cheyThis is the story of a young and inexperiencedcompany that was given the chance to developthe sequel to one of the top ten games of alltime. The sequel was allotted roughly one yearof development with its full team. To make upfor the short development cycle and correspondinglysmall budget, the project was supposed toreuse technology. Not technology in the sense ofa stand-alone engine from another game, butindividual components that were spun off fromyet another game, THIEF: THE DARK PROJECT.The THIEF technology was still under developmentand months away from completion whenour team started working with it. To cap everythingoff, the project was a collaborative effortbetween two companies based on a contractthat only loosely defined the responsibilities ofeach organization.Add to these gloomy initial conditions the factthat the game from which our sharedtechnology was derived slipped more than sixmonths from the initially estimated date, thatseveral developers quit during the project, thatwe didn’t bring the full team up to strength untilsix months from the final ship date, and that westruggled with financial and business problemsduring the entire project. Having learned this,you might anticipate the worst. Strangely,Back-StorySYSTEM SHOCK 2 came out in 1999, as the sequel to SYS-TEM SHOCK, the critically acclaimed action/role-playinggame released in 1994 by Looking Glass Studios. Likeits predecessor, SYSTEM SHOCK 2 is an action gameshown in first-person perspective but with a richer narrativeand game-system than most shooters—playerscould hack into computers and access psychic abilities.It also tells a complex story—the player explores a derelictspacecraft after something has gone wrong withhumankind's first interstellar colony mission. These elementsblend in a marriage of design and technology—therich level design and complex charactercreationnever get in the way of the storytelling and suspensefulaction gameplay. SYSTEM SHOCK 2 is part of awave of deeper, more story-oriented action games thatbegan appearing in the late 90s (starting with UNREALand HALF-LIFE), a change from the stripped-down, allactionapproach of DOOM and QUAKE.SYSTEM SHOCK 2 shipped within two months ofits targeted date and will, I hope, be recognizedas a sequel worthy of its esteemed ancestor.Let’s step back and trace the origins of the companiesand the project. Looking Glass Studios isfamiliar to many as the creator of a series ofhighly innovative titles including the originalSYSTEM SHOCK, the ULTIMA UNDERWORLDseries, the FLIGHT UNLIMITED line and TERRA
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109SECTION II: SEQUELS AND SOPHOMOR
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115Ensemble Studios’AGE OF EMPIRE
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127Presto Studios’MYST III: EXILE
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137Poptop Software’sTROPICOby bre
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147SECTION IIIManaging InnovationTh
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149Section III: MANAGING INNOVATION
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151Lionhead Studios’BLACK & WHITE
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153SECTION III: MANAGING INNOVATION
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161Bungie Software’sMYTH: THE FAL
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171Looking Glass’sTHIEF: THE DARK
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183DreamWorks Interactive’sTRESPA
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195Ion Storm’sDEUS EXby warren sp
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209Naughty Dog’sJAK & DAXTER: THE
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219SECTION IVBuilding on a LicenseA
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221Section IV: BUILDING ON A LICENS
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223LucasArts’STAR WARSSTARFIGHTER
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225SECTION IV: BUILDING ON A LICENS
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237Raven Software’sSTAR TREK:VOYA
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251Red Storm Entertainment’sRAINB
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259Raven Software’sSOLDIER OF FOR
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273SECTION VThe Online FrontierOnli
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275Section V: THE ONLINE FRONTIER27
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277Mythic Entertainment’sDARK AGE
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279SECTION V: THE ONLINE FRONTIER27
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287Multitude’sFIRETEAMby art minO
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299Turbine’sASHERON’S CALLby to
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311Afterword: Independent Game Deve
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313APPENDIX AGAME DEVELOPMENT TEAMR
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315Appendix A: GAME DEVELOPMENT TEA
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317Glossarycut-scene a non-interact
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319Index of Game Titles & Developer
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321Index of Game Titles & Developer
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323 Index 323IndexBe sure to also u
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325Index 325IIntelVTune 30Internetp
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327Index 327renderer 179, 318softwa
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