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Ladies and Gents, Boys and Girls... Who did we leave out? Oh ya, and subscribers to PC Games: It's time to hear from the Tribe Ritual once again. This month we bring you the famous, nay, the infamous One Thumb, aka Don MacAskill. As you'll find, the Digitally Challenged One is one of our newest hunter-gatherers. Don is our webmaster and creator of all things good. If it's broken, he'll fix it. If it's not communicating, he'll get it talking. If it's too quiet, he'll crank up his $80,000 stereo system (seriously, the bars downstairs have had to ask us to turn it down because it was overriding their country bumping--bless you, Don). He is obviously star-struck and will share with you just how wonderful it is to work with such a great group as ourselves. Yes, yes, Don, we're all pretty amazed with ourselves, indeed! Seriously, this makes for great reading if you've ever wondered what the first few months of "I'm actually working in the game industry!" is like. It can be as wonderful as that first time Marcia and I went behind the...
--Levelord
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The SiN Files
After nearly 2,000 miles and three days of driving, I'm finally back in Dallas, this time for good. Me. Don. Working for the hottest game company around. I've wanted this for more than 12 years, and suddenly everything is falling into place. I'm still not sure if I'm going to wake up and find out that it's all just a dream...
Some of my earliest memories are of playing Miner 2049er on my uncle's Odyssey. I must've been around 4 years old, but I knew it was fun stuff. Soon it was Combat on our Atari 2600 while I was in Kindergarten, and, finally, King's Quest on a brand-new IBM PCjr. Many PCs and a handful of consoles later, I'm a certified grade-A videogame addict.
How much of a videogame addict, you ask? Enough that I began to look up to and idolize those who made the games I love. The Commander Keen series was the first to really spark my interest in those behind the game (although classic Sierra games and Origin's Ultima series also did the same). Well before Wolfenstein 3D, I knew the names of the wizards of id. By the time the Doom franchise was in full swing, I knew who my heroes were--the Two Johns, Carmack and Romero. To me, they were the pinnacle of the videogame industry, and I devoured every news bite I could get my hands on that had anything to do with these gods of gaming.
Now I wake up in the morning and head to work literally down the street from Romero. I'm on a first-name basis with both Johns, and it boggles my mind. I now live and breathe my dreams. What's more, after a visit to Dallas almost exactly a year ago, I found more people to worship--Hipnotic Interactive (soon to be renamed Ritual Entertainment). I hung on their every word during my visit and was in awe of their creativity and motivation. Their levels for the Mission Pack amazed and astounded me. And now, through some bizarre twist of fate, I find myself working right alongside this illustrious group of designers. After three weeks, I still can't believe it. It's too amazing to be true.
And what is working with them like? I have to admit, I was a little nervous about joining the company this late in SiN's development. I mean, everything will have been decided, right? I won't get any creative input, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. These mighty legends actually listen to what I have to say. It's truly amazing to hear them go "Wow, cool!" to some weapon idea I put forth. I mean, these are my heroes!
Now, that's not to say that I'm going to have this huge impact on SiN--quite the contrary. SiN has been seething in the minds of everyone here for nearly a year now and has almost taken on a life of its own. The creativity, detail, and "cool-factor" at work here is staggering. The whole tribe gets together for pow-wows, and between spear-throwing contests, walking on hot coals, and beaning each other with coconuts, we manage to actually come away with a slew of brilliant game ideas or a truly unique user-interface. After a few of these meetings, it became increasingly apparent that everyone here loves games, right down to their core. The tribe's chock-full of hardcore gamers, and it's clear to me that they're making the game that they want to play. Sharing it with everyone is just an added bonus.
Of course, my perspective on SiN is perhaps a bit different from the rest of the company's. I've only been involved with Ritual for a few weeks now, so my eyes are still "fresh," so to speak. In a very real sense, I'm almost like your average gamer getting a sneak peek of this wonderful game well before release. I desperately hope I always feel this way, since I want to be a gamer first and foremost. Anyhow, I must say that as I've played through the game we call SiN, a couple of key features have stuck out in my mind. So, being the nice person that I am, I thought I'd take this chance to quickly relay exactly what I think the most compelling things are about SiN versus other current 3D shooters on the market.
First and foremost is its environment. The artists here have done an absolutely stunning job creating a completely different feel in each and every level. In a game like Quake or Quake II, for example, the art is absolutely beautiful, but it's fairly consistent. Adrian, Kevin, and Paul over at id created a very believable alien world, but the tribe is taking SiN on a totally different path--to Earth itself. With a game set in near-future Earth, the environments have to be very realistic and strike a chord in the player's mind to be believable. And the building blocks of such environments are the work and effort the artists put into the texture sets. Of course, games are about the suspension of disbelief, so interactivity is also essential. Luckily, we have an incredibly talented trio of programmers working on SiN to provide us with a simple, easy-to-use scripting language that allows all sorts of machinery and interaction.
Of course, a whole heap of art and a grade-A scripting language don't mean anything without someone to put the ingredients together just right. Luckily, the level designers here at Ritual are the best I've ever seen at creating lifelike, believable, intricate architecture. They have this uncanny knack for creating truly immersive, interactive environments that are eerily realistic. The end result is that you get dozens of varied, very real environments in which to play.
Secondly--and this still amazes me--SiN manages to be quite nonlinear without creating a lot of back-and-forth gameplay. The buzzword here at the offices is "ABO," or Action-Based Outcome. What that means, basically, is that various actions taken by the gamer can cause gameplay twists and changes, resulting in a different experience with each outcome. For example, if you were to shoot and destroy some vats of mutagen which spill out into a water source, you may have to fight different adversaries in a later underwater level. The creatures may have mutated, creating much more vicious creatures. However, if you leave the vats alone, chances are there'll just be some normal scuba guards thirsting for your blood. Also, a given level may have more than one exit--not necessarily to different levels (although this can occur as well), but perhaps to different areas of the same level. So, for example, if your goal is to infiltrate an enemy stronghold of some kind, you may want to think carefully about which entrance to use, since different parts of the stronghold may have different defense levels. Some ABOs can be felt many levels later in the game, causing you to really feel like they're manipulating the entire game's path and outcome (which, indeed, they are).
I'm sure I could keep going on and on about how new and innovative SiN is, but we have to keep a few secrets, don't we? Have no fear--the tribe has more serious juju up its sleeve. There are a lot of jaw-dropping little goodies that are really the icing on the cake. I really do think that it's the little details that make or break good games, and SiN's full to the brim with them.
Working at Ritual is truly a dream come true. The sheer talent at work here is staggering. Each and every day, some new bit of code, piece of art, or amazing level startles me. It's impossible to fail with this sort of work going on day in and day out. I just hope no one wakes me up, because I sure am enjoying being a part of the tribe.
