[Geraldo] Alright, so can I just ask for your opinion on the systems that Bioware uses now? So Dragon Age, the wheel, that line of dialogue that doesn't really match what the person says?
[Chris] I don't mind the dialogue wheel, it works, and also I think it works better with the controller in some fashion, in terms of choosing options, it's a lot easier to get to certain subjects based on the thumbstick when you have a radial like that. The two issues you have with that are, if you spell out the entire line, and then it shows it, and they say it, that sort of wastes player time, but then when you have just the topic points that you're choosing, and then the player says something in relation to the topic, you have the issue like what you were talking about, and then it's not exactly like you imagined that topic being asked about but I think that's a much lesser evil than doing the "I read the whole line, I hit the button, I say the line", I just get tired, I just get exhausted.
[Geraldo] Is there a future for RPGs that are different, so have we hit a ceiling, what do you think?
[Chris] No, I think all types of RPGs are possible, just a lot of the samples of games that I saw at Rezzed, I could see a lot of those having RPG elements added to them, like the one game, I think it's Tengami, where you go through the Japanese pop-up storybook, I thought it was awesome, there's no reason you couldn't set an RPG in that universe, I think that game Journal was much the same way like almost all of the Rezzed games that I've seen I can see ways of adding RPGs elements to them, it's just a matter of finding the right hybrid that works for both the systems and the actual gameplay being presented but I don't think there's a ceiling at all.
[Geraldo] Games inspire your writing, you mentioned Walking Dead a lot, but what about upcoming RPGs that aren't the ones you're working on? Can you think of anything? What are you looking for?
[Chris] Ones that I've played recently, obviously, not RPGs, I really enjoyed the conversations in Walking Dead, I got really emotionally invested in those, I thought the moral choice points were excellent and then it took one of my hated game tropes which is escort mission, escort mission for a child, and then with Walking Dead they actually made it fun and made it interesting and added a lot of depth to it, so much I actually cared about it, and I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite but in terms of RPGs coming up, I guess I've been so focused on Eternity nothing immediately jumps to mind, I know that we've backed a number of RPGs that look promising, I think there's one, it's like an RPG survival game that I've recently backed and then also we backed, I believe… Ah, I'll have to check. (The game is Forsaken Fortress)
[Geraldo] This (one) is from a lot of budding game designers, so it's just the classic, how do you become a game designer? Do you have to start from somewhere else, how does it happen?
[Chris] There's a lot of different routes that you can take, the best thing to do is just be a game designer first. If you really enjoy the job, don't let anything get in your way, there's plenty of toolsets to create content for games that you like, go ahead and use them. Go and use Unity, like those programs aren't hard to figure out, and there's a community around each one, like mod makers and the Unity community, reach out to them, understand how it all works. Even get involved with indie development or even volunteer for a Kickstarter you like.
Sure you may not get paid upfront but the important thing is build up your resume, build up your portfolio, like imagine what would have been like if you had the chance to volunteer for FTL. And then that was on your resume for all time, that's a fantastic game to have on your resume. Basically just do the job before you get the job and there's plenty of ways to do the job out there for free.
[Geraldo] Well, we talked about writing for comics, so what's the greatest challenge writing a game compared to writing static stories?
[Chris] Actually, so writing for games is a lot more difficult, because you are basically telling anywhere from three to six different ways the NPC can react to you, so you're actually like writing almost three different comic books or six different comic books, scenes for each character that you interact with, not to mention how the plot can arc. So usually when I've written comics or when I'm writing short stories and novellas it's a lot easier to focus and choose the one path and then you go from there, but the nice thing about games is I can explore all the paths that come to mind and see how they would play out and so in some respects that's more fun because you can explore all the potential ways the story could have developed rather than just this one that you're putting in front of the reader.
[Geraldo] In Torment, do you feel there was a dissonance between the visual representation of female characters and male characters, sure the Nameless One is pretty much naked, but the rest of the male characters, they had armour and all that, but the female ones weren't so much covered, do you think there was any of that? What I'm trying to get is if there is a way for a writer to input to the art team?
[Chris] Sure, generally we allow the art department to maintain its vision and the writers maintain their vision, the design maintain their vision and empower everyone to develop the game from their department. That said we did try and have characters that would have normally been naked versions or overly sexed up versions of those characters and then we made a conscious effort to reverse them, and that was a specific request from design, that you know it's very important that Fall-from-Grace not be the typical succubus, and here's the reasons why.
And our character concept (artist) and modeler totally got it, he's like "yeah, I read the description, I get exactly what you're looking for, let’s go from there", and like you were saying, while there are some parts like the Nameless One who's always completely naked running around and there are some female NPCs that have the same issue, we did try and do reversals when possible but there you go.
[Geraldo] Now going into some funnier questions…
Will we ever see Gann-of-Dreams again? I really like this character.
[Chris] I don't know, that all depends on Hasbro and Wizards, I certainly enjoyed writing that character I thought it was pretty great. I'd like a bit more freedom to develop that character but yeah I really enjoyed writing him.
[Geraldo] Particularly the performance of the voice actor was really well done.
[Chris] Yeah the casting agency we used did a really good job with him and Kaelyn and I just thought they did a good job with the cast in general.
[Geraldo] I liked that it was less companions but all of them were very strong and very compelling.
[Chris] Yeah, that's one of the reason people compare it with Torment in the sense they didn't have the huge range of companions that Neverwinter 2 did, but because they were smaller, they felt there was much more to them, we just had more time to develop them. And also they really tied into the storyline and what was going on so that helped as well.
[Geraldo] You probably can't discuss this as well but what if Disney offered Obsidian the chance to do Knights of the Old Republic 3?
[Chris] We would love to do Knights of the Old Republic 3 in any fashion.
[Geraldo] Bethesda, Fallout 4, they're not going to hire, they're not going to make a contracting thing?
[Chris] All of the Fallout stuff is totally up to Bethesda, while we would love to do another Fallout game again that is totally up to them.
[Geraldo] Do you still hate Arcanum?
[Chris] I really like the ambience of the world, I really like the characters, I really like the quests I've been on, I feel the conversations are really clever. I really like the art style as well as the animation. I am not a fan of the interface, I think the interface is absolutely beautiful and terrible at the same time and I felt the Fallout 1 interface was absolutely beautiful and terrible at the same time as well. I was actually at an Australian conference where someone called me out and said "Hey I don't mean any disrespect to this Chris but like your design for the Fallout 1 interface was terrible" and I'm like "I didn't design the Fallout 1 interface!" but I understand all the problems that the presenter had with it.
[Geraldo] Bonus question: you didn't have any involvement with Fallout 1 right, but with characters from Fallout 2, like Cassidy, is he meant to be Tycho's son or something like that?
[Chris] No. He sort of shares a similar model, he was mostly there because we wanted to do another companion in this location, and I was like, well I don't want to really do another talking head, I already did a lot with Myron, how about I do a much more simpler, just fun combat character, Cassidy, the gun-toting bartender, sure. *laughs*
[Geraldo] That's all of the questions I have. It's been great to have the chance to interview you, it's not something I thought would be possible, thanks for being available.
[Chris] Thank you very much for your questions, I really appreciate them.
———-
And then he went off into the sunset, as the Rezzed show came to an end.
If you saw the Rezzed Project Eternity session you'll notice there was no Q&A. Well, shortly after Rezzed was closed for the day, Chris Avellone was at the pub participating in a very impromptu Q&A, and it was fantastic. Fans would come around and ask questions or express their love for Alpha Protocol.
It's not everyday that you get to meet your favorite game designer and writer. Having a chance to sit down and ask some questions to Chris was a fantastic opportunity, something I never expected to happen, so I have to thank Chris Avellone, firstly for coming to the UK to talk about Project Eternity at Rezzed, this cozy, fun and very indie game expo, and second for being available to do the interview.
Updated my journal.
