Postmortems From Game Developers

Surreal Software’s DRAKAN: ORDER OF THE FLAME 32required quite a bit ofreworking on most of thetextures in the first few levels.This decision is just oneexample of Surreal’s aestheticfussiness. Often if afew people thought thatsomething within the gamedidn’t look good enough, itwould end up gettingredone until everyone wassatisfied. The benefits canbe seen in the final product,but our schedule sometimessuffered as a result.Though the artists createdthe objects and buildings inthe game, the designerswere responsible for placingthe objects into the gameand gave immediate aestheticand game-play feedbackto the artists. Theyalso were responsible forbuilding the landscapes andcaves, which defined the overall level flow. Thisprocess evened out the workload between artistsand designers, but it required the designers tohave a good artistic sense. This can be seen inthe very fantastical landscape architectures thatthe designers constructed and then painted withtileable textures. The textures were drawn bythe artists to have many variations and transitions,which added to the organic nature of theterrain.2. A green teamwith fresh ideasDRAKAN had an advantagethat many large gamedevelopment companiessometimes overlook. It hada young team, highly motivated,bursting with ideas,and ready to take risks. Theideas were unique andmotivated by the desire toset DRAKAN apart from theshooters and TOMB RAIDERclones (although this wasstill difficult, given the tendencyof the gaming pressto compare games to oneanother).The most original idea inDRAKAN was the combinationof dragon flight withsword and bow combat onArokh’s polygon mesh and alphablendedwings (above).tal idea formed a devel-the ground. This fundamenoper’scarnival for moreinnovative ideas and forced the player to strategizein a way not often seen in action games.The relative vulnerability of the female ridercontrasted with the powerful dragon requiredcareful thinking by the designers. Levels werecreated with restrictions on the dragon’s abilityto go places. Rynn could enter caves, but wouldcome across areas where the dragon’s flyingabilities or strength would be necessary to proceed.The player (as Rynn) would then have tofind a large door or other method to get thedragon inside the cave system. In this world of