In an exclusive interview, the Lead Designer Steven Burgess tells about the origins of LostWinds, generally about Frontier Developments and developing games for Wii. The Frontier founder & boss David Braben, of Elite & Zarch/Virus fame joins in the conversation.
Can you tell a short biography of yourself?
Hi, my name is Steven Burgess; I joined Frontier back in 2001 as a junior level
designer which was my first job in the games industry (my first real job ever in
fact :-o).
I worked on Wallace and Gromit: Project Zoo, followed then by Wallace and Gromit:
Curse of the Were Rabbit, before finally working on Thrillville: Off the Rails.
I recently became the Lead Designer on LostWinds, a game that I pitched on
Frontier's "Game of the Week" forum.
Congratulations, LostWinds and Frontier got nominated in three Develop magazine
Industry Excellence Awards! Besides the great reaction to LostWinds, this must be
one of the developer's highlights?
Frontier is fortunate that we have a good track record; aside from the many 'firsts'
and huge success David Braben had with his own games, the company has had some
outstanding achievements - for example we've been nominated for BAFTA awards,
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 was a number 1 game in the US, Thrillville was the best
selling family game in the US in 2006. But having said that, if we WIN the three
Develop awards, yes that would be something to be proud of!
What are your other personal highlights in your career?
Joining the industry was a pretty big highlight for me. It was a very exciting time
(both within the company and the industry), every day was a new experience. Getting
paid to do what you love was brilliant. I remember thinking at the time that I would
worked for free if they asked.
We were also BAFTA nominated in 2003 for Wallace and Gromit: Project Zoo
(coincidentally our other title at the time Dog's Life was also nominated) and then
we were nominated once again in 2006 for Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which was of
course an honour.
I think overall however, being given the opportunity to develop LostWinds has been
my biggest highlight of my career so far.
How long did it take to develop LostWinds, and how many people worked on it?
The concept for LostWinds itself has been around for a while now. As soon as WiiWare
was announced we knew that it was the "right" game for us to do. There was a
pre-production phase in late December 07, with full development of LostWinds starting in
January 2008. The number of people on project varied throughout its development, but
in total there was about 5 "man years" of production effort. The finished game is a
testament to the passion and hard work of all those that helped make it.
I could bet that there are Asian influences throughout the LostWinds, in graphics
and in music? Am I right?
Absolutely, but the influences for LostWinds spread much further than you might
initially think. Early on in the concept phase I worked closely with Chris Symonds
(Lead Artist on Lostwinds), to develop the "look of LostWinds". We started exploring
different colour palettes and rendering styles for the potential directions the game
could go in (Toku was much older at one point). Being a game that centred on the
Wind, it seemed natural to inherit the cultural styles for people that lived in open
high, indigenous environments. This led us to Tibetan cultures, or cultures that lived
in the Andes.
As for the audio design, this process developed almost as organically as the visual
design. We deliberately headed in a direction with softer woodwind and stringed
instruments, again to evoke feelings of very rural, down-to-earth cultures.
The calm and relaxed atmosphere is something you rarely experience in games of today.
Was this planned from the very beginning?
I'm not sure we really planned all of it, but we definitely wanted a game that
people could play and lose themselves in. We very much wanted to create a very
luscious, tactile experience so that the player could be drawn into the game.
I didn't want people to feel pressured into doing certain things, so it was
important that we allow them to explore at their own pace. I think the music became
a natural extension to this idea, it doesn't overpower the player but underscores
their action well.
Overall I think it creates an experience that people can enjoy simply to escape the
daily grind of the real world.
LostWinds gameplay is also highly refreshing stuff with the motion controls. How did the idea came up and was it difficult to implement for Wii?
The inspiration for the game came whilst watching the world outside on a windy day.
I wanted to try and transfer the many ways in which the wind manipulates the world
into a game context. When I saw the specification for the Wii controller (before the
console was launched) I then applied this train of thought to the Wii controller.
The idea of having both Toku and Enril created a nice symbiosis to their
relationship because Enril has almost god-like powers in many ways, yet lacks the
physical presence in the world that Toku provides. So the two work very well and
naturally together as the player wields the power of the wind to protect, guide and
do battle on behalf of Toku.
We were fortunate in that almost all of the original concepts played as well as I
had imagined on paper. I think it has less "on the cutting room floor" than most
Frontier games. Aside from mixing up 3D and 2D, it wasn't really that difficult to
implement on the Wii, and of course we were also helped by the experience developing
on the on the Wii from our previous work on Thrillville: Off the Rails.
You have hinted about the sequel. If it happens, when can we expect it to be available?
We're designing it at the moment, but we can't really comment at this point on when
it will be released. There is a very detailed backstory to the world, and a lot more
we want to do both with the story and characters but most importantly through the
game-play
For now, we hope that people will appreciate LostWinds for what it is and remember
the experience as a positive one. When we are ready to reveal more, we hope that
people will be as excited as we are to continue the adventure of Toku and Enril
through the world of Mistralis.
What are your personal thoughts about the minimal Wii memory and lack of harddrives?
I haven't had to "clean the fridge out" yet, but I can definitely see why current
limits are causing a lot of inconvenience for people. I suppose Nintendo do at least
allow you re-download the titles again whenever you wish.
Fortunately, though, Nintendo do now seem to be taking this issue more seriously,
especially with the increase in downloadable content and larger games on WiiWare, so
it wouldn't surprise me if they announced something better to address this soon.
The most fun aspect of developing games for Wii?
The Choices!
With the controller itself, you have the benefits of a standard controller (analogue
stick and buttons), there's the precision of a pointer based system (Like a PC
cursor) plus it's got motion and tilt sensitivity too! My favourite little feature
is that they thought to include a little speaker in the controller itself, it's very
Nintendo.
The Wii itself isn't as underpowered as people often make out. Clearly in the right
hands it's capable of some pretty amazing visuals. Take for example Super Mario Galaxy,
Okami or Resident Evil 4; they are all beautiful in their own right and each takes
the hardware in a new direction.
Last but not least, lets not forget the under explored potential for games that link
both the Wii and DS together. Personally I'm hoping we will see more of this cross
platform linking and Wifi connectivity in the future.
Can you tell something about developing games for Frontier Developments,
as a day job? And what is the typical day in your work?
In general Frontier has a very open design process; anyone can suggest ideas (it's
not just the designers). We understand that a good idea is a good idea no matter who
it comes from. And I think we have experience developing on just about every last
and current generation platform.
As for what a typical day is, I'd have to say that every day is different because
the challenges we face change daily. One day could I could be planning the motion
model for our next action hero, or inventing cool new ways for the player to
interact with the environment around them. The next day I could be laying out
spreadsheets or writing a concept document for our next big adventure.
I don't think there is such a thing as a "typical" day, and it's all the more
exciting for it.
I noticed from your job ads, that the "industry experience is not essential, but passion
and enthusiasm are". What are the benefits of this kind of approach?
Thanks for letting us plug the fact that we are hiring! What the phrase you picked
out illustrates is that Frontier is a meritocracy - if you are good enough, you're
old enough. Of course we hire a mix of experienced and 'new to the industry'
people, but we do have a great faith in the ability of talented but inexperienced
graduates, for example. Once people have proved themselves, they get as much
responsibility as they can handle at the time - we do care about people's career
development. As with most games companies, Frontier is packed with people who are
game players, and the resulting vast accumulated fund of knowledge helps to provide
quick references that can make conversations much shorter that they would otherwise
be, and informing decisions - it seems like someone in the company has played every
game there has ever been, so we know what has & hasn't worked for others, and why.
Do you play video games when you get home from the work?
Less so when we are busy, but I do I try to play as many games as possible, both the
good and bad ones. Sometimes it's frustrating for me that I can't play games with
the mindset of a new player and just enjoy the experience without playing it as a
designer and trying to figure out how everything works.
Your first video game console + your all time favourite console and why?
I think the first proper games console my family got was the Sega Master System
II..Alex Kidd in Miracle World rocked! Fact.
As for my favourite console of all time, Wow that's tough! I'm going to have to
say.... Nintendo 64, I've especially fond memories of playing 4-player Goldeneye with my
friends, it was a real community machine that we would literally play for days on
end. Of course its the platform that brought us Super Mario 64 and Zelda : Ocarina of
Time, two titles that served to shape the games landscape for many years to come.
Thinking about it now, whatever happened to Blast Corps? I loved that game! They
need to make another one of those.
Your favorite WiiWare game (besides LostWinds, of course)?
I think it's going to have to be World of Goo, I can't wait to get my hands on it.
Is David Braben a tough boss?
LOL! Of course not. David's ideas have to go through the same filters as any other
member of the team and he is as fully understanding to the development process as
anyone else. In that respect, I think that our boss is actually "Frontier", rather
than just one man. David, anything you'd like to say?
David: Of course I'm a tough boss! I'm also lucky to have a great group of people
round me who produce fantastic work :-)
Is there ever going to be Virus sequel - maybe for Wii?
David: Thanks for your kind words - and I think I see where you're going with the
Wii idea! We have a soft spot at Frontier for Virus too, so you never know - if we
did it, of course, it would be fully re-imagined for today's hardware and audience.
An exciting thought!
