voyage to mars
What part of "the Xbox version (of Dreamfall) is looking almost as good as the PC version" (from
yesterday's post) translates into "the PC version won't be visually advanced" and "you ain't doing it right"?
First off, the word
almost implies that there
is a difference. Texture resolution is much higher on the PC, as is screen resolution. The shaders are programmed to take advantage of the added technical features of DirectX 9 graphics cards; consequently, particles and special effects, lights and shadows, water and fog - they will all look better on the PC.
Secondly, certain Xbox games (
Fable, for instance;
Chronicles of Riddick;
Ninja Gaiden;
Dead or Alive Ultimate; and what I've seen so far of
Jade Empire) look absolutely stunning. Lower resolution, standardised hardware, and the opportunity to optimise code for a locked target means that developers can push a console much farther than they can a similarly equipped PC. Check out
Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube, for instance, and tell me it doesn't look as good as
DOOM 3 or
Half-Life 2.
Most importantly: The fact that the Xbox version is looking good is a positive thing, people! It means that we
are doing it right. And while
Dreamfall may not be visually 'groundbreaking' - few games are - it's certainly on par with most PC and Xbox games coming out this year, both technically and, most importantly, artistically. This game was never designed to be a showcase for technology. Rather, we're using top notch technology to build an engaging experience, to breathe life to our characters and our worlds, and to tell a great story.
Back from London, just in time for a lovely
Dreamfall deadline. Despite bugs - lots of bugs;
lots of bugs - things look very good. The visual quality has received another bump, and the Xbox version (wheee!) is looking almost as good as the (already stunning) PC version. Wandering around Casablanca with Zoë, bumping into locals and chatting with friends, gives me that TLJ vibe; the sense of being transported into the head of a character, into her world and her life. It's promising stuff. We have a ways to go, and getting voice-overs, lip sync, facial animations, motion capture data - all of that stuff - in there will improve the game massively. But it's working. It's getting there. I'm happy.
Regarding my previous post, I want to extend my sincerest apologies to my readers from Las Vegas, whose comments below made me realise that, like any city, there are layers to Las Vegas. It's not all the Strip; it's not all casinos and gambling and prostitutes and Wayne Newton. I'm fundamentally opposed to gambling - addiction has destroyed too many lives to count, and the casinos have built their fortunes on the backs of human tragedies - but of course there are other sides, positive sides, to Vegas. I just haven't had the chance to experience them. I'll keep an open mind next week when I'm out there.
And so the travelling begins. Again. Wednesday afternoon, I leave for London; Monday morning, I'm off to - of all places - Las Vegas. I thoroughly dislike Vegas. "Vegas, baby!" me all you want, I find the place both disturbing and depressing. Armies of purple-haired women stuffing $1 tokens into one-armed bandits, over and over and over again; roving hordes of drunken conventioneers searching for cheap shrimp cocktails and expensive lap-dances; desperate family-men who lose their savings, and their sanity, at the blackjack table; a melting-pot of the very worst America has to offer. Yeah, I'm a killjoy, but the place honestly gives me the creeps. I like things that are
real.
Speaking of real, Las Vegas will be followed by Los Angeles (L.A. exists in its own version of reality), Seattle, and San Francisco - all of which I enjoy visiting - although, unfortunately, I won't have the opportunity to stop by the most 'real' city of them all, New York, this time around. Time is a concern, and I need to get back to the team and the project as soon as possible. We have an incredibly tight schedule ahead of us.
Dreamfall will allow you to wander through beautiful, intriguing, and detailed locations, interact and converse with interesting characters, look at and examine people and objects, and explore an exciting world without a timer ticking down, enemies spawning, traps opening up below your feet, or your health running out. Old-school or not, point-and-click or not, action or not - the spirit of the adventure is alive and well in
Dreamfall.
Just, you know, FYI.
[EDIT: ...but although you will often be allowed to walk around and explore the world in relative peace and quiet, there will also be times when that's not the case. Yes, there will be 'timed' (or, more appropriately, 'real-time') events, where the outcome depends on your actions or inactions, and where 'failure' is just another fork in the road. And there will be times when you have to act on your feet and fear for your life. I'm simply offering some (re)assurance that the adventure - firmly embedded in the heart and soul of this game - is very much alive and thriving.]
It's no secret that I'm a big fan of the new wave of Asian horror - beginning with the 1998 classic
Ringu and culminating, though with no end in sight, with the American non-remake sequel of a remake,
The Ring Two (obviously classier than plain, old 'The Ring 2') - so tonight I watched
The Grudge which is a remake of a remake of a movie called
Ju-on. Confusingly, the original remake (there's an oxymoron for you) was called
Ju-on: The Grudge, and that movie's working title was actually
Ju-on 3, while
Ju-on: The Grudge 2 was originally called
Ju-on 4. What makes it even
more confusing is that the original (stick with me)
Ju-on 2 is also called
Ju-on: The Curse 2. Curse or grudge, people - make up your minds! I could go on, and the fact that they're now making
Ju-on: The Grudge 3 (which shouldn't be confused with
The Grudge 2, which is probably also in pre-production) means that the filmmakers are probably just as confused as you and I. It also means that this is a pretty damn popular franchise.
And franchise it is. The Japanese - and, lately, Koreans - are making scarier movies than us, but they're just as likely to resort to the same old clichés over and over and over again. Those clichés are still better than ours (black cats jumping out of cupboards notwithstanding), but I'm getting a little weary of black haired women walking funny. And so it goes in
The Grudge (working title:
Untitled 'Ju-on: The Grudge' Remake - couldn't they have come up with something a little more original than that?), which has J-horror clichés aplenty, and which is basically a Greatest Hit collection of scary moments from Ju-ons past. In other words, if you've seen any of them (I've only watched the
original remakes; you do the math on that one), there will be few surprises. It's still scary, in parts, but the story doesn't make much sense anymore. I mean, it never did, but at least in Japanese it makes more sense that it doesn't make sense. If you know what I mean. J-horror (and K-horror, and HK-horror, natch) fans are a forgiving lot.
Is it worth seeing? Yeah, sure. At home, alone, on the couch; you'll jump a few times. In a theatre, the scares are more pedestrian. It's a lesser effort than the past two remakes (sigh), so catch those instead if you can, but it's nice to see a remake of a Japanese horror movie set in Japan. Even if everyone speaks English, which I know for a fact that
no one does.
A few weeks ago, I watched
Kairo, which made even less sense (if that's even possible), but which, for some illogical reason, was more interesting. It evolved from a plain-Jane (or plain-Yoko) evil-spirit-with-a-grudge (not capitalised) flick into an end-of-the-world-filled-with-crazy-shit flick with an awesome ending. Which was fun. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you've watched every other Asian horror movie of the past seven years, but for those of us who have, it's worth a peek. You can buy it
here.
It's been a long while since I've written the amount of dialogue I've written these past three weeks, and despite the somewhat disturbing fact that I'm now starting to
dream dialogue - and believe me, you don't want to be doing that - it's going surprisingly smoothly. I've managed to get into the TLJ groove, style wise, and there's no question that
Dreamfall's original characters inhabit the same universe as their precursors.
It's all too easy, however, to go completely overboard when you're working with interesting and familiar characters. You want to dig into their lives, spend a while getting to know them, their history and quirks - and with returning characters, you want to fill in the details of the past decade - but the story also needs to move forward. You don't, for example, want to stop everything dead for a twenty-minute expository monologue. (Ahem.) There definitely needs to be a balance between idle chatter and that next bit of plot-related info. Momentum and pacing are key, especially in a thriller.
Yeah, about that. Thriller.
'Thriller' - or 'futuristic thriller', if you like - is how we've chosen to categorise and define
Dreamfall. It's not an easy game to pigeonhole in terms of genre, as the game mixes adventure, stealth action, 'puzzles', combat, story, and dialogue in what I believe to be a very unique fashion. We've struggled in the past to define the game within the limiting - and limited - framework of existing genres in order to more easily explain the game to publishers, the press, and the players. 'Adventure' doesn't do it full justice, particularly in the eyes of attention-deficient console gamers, nor does 'action-adventure'. Those definitions are, ironically enough, both too broad and too confining.
'Thriller', then, appears to encapsulate a lot of what we're attempting to accomplish with
Dreamfall, and this genre classification allows us some breathing space in terms of gameplay mechanics, which is
incredibly liberating. We're no longer bound by established conventions, and no one can claim that
Dreamfall's "not a true (pick your genre, any genre) game, 'cause they didn't do such-and-such". After all, why should games be categorised solely by mechanics, and not by story or emotion? And why shouldn't games be allowed the freedom and diversity of novels, films, and television, where conventions are often thrown to the wind, mixed together, reinvented? As a developing and evolving medium, games need more variety, and I hope that we are taking a small step in the right direction with this one.
A couple of weeks ago, I spent a few hours with
Dreamfall's preeminent audio director Morten Sørlie, listening to snippets from a wide variety of movie soundtracks - ranging in style from
Spirited Away and
Road to Perdition, to
The Last Samurai and
A.I. (with many esoteric stops inbetween) - in an effort to nail down the final musical direction for the game.
While Morten will naturally add his own unique stamp to the music - in addition to overseeing the design and implementation of the sound effects, no small task in itself - we have enlisted the help of an extremely talented young composer who will write the score. In a couple of years, this guy will be in huge demand, and he'll be too expensive and busy to work with us, but in the meantime we're enjoying the very tasty fruits of his labours.
I have absolute faith in both of these guys, and I can't wait to see - and hear, of course - how the game will benefit from the marriage between the gorgeous visuals and the equally gorgeous music. The latter adds so much to the experience - layers of emotion that cannot easily be conveyed by other means - and
Dreamfall is all about layers. Even more so than
The Longest Journey, since we are now dealing with three characters and their separate, albeit converging, journeys.
The music also adds texture to the world and the story, and it enriches the whole experience of playing the game, which makes me even more excited to see how the pieces will fit together: Scenery, characters, animations, music, sound effects, voices, cameras, and gameplay. Every day adds another nuance to the universe, and it's hugely exciting to come into work and be able to contribute to the process.
Of course, the question everyone is asking is: "When will we be able to hear (and see) any of this?" And, yes, the time is getting ripe for the first trailer - or at least
teaser - to appear. I don't know exactly when that will happen, but I'm guessing that by the end of February or beginning of March, we'll be ready to show something.
It's been an incredibly exhausting January, and this coming week won't do much to remedy that. In fact, I don't expect the pace to change until after E3 - in May - and since that's when we enter the final stretch of production on
Dreamfall, there will be little rest and no downtime until we've shipped those gold discs. Then we get a breather until the game ships, a good four weeks or so, which is when we find out what the world thinks of our baby. And then it starts all over again. Hopefully. The day the pace drops is the day I no longer have a job.
I do hope, of course, that this blog won't be suffering - both in terms of quantity and quality - for that long, but the reality is that my projects are my number one writing priority, and when I do have the time to think about something, anything, else, real life - friends and family - takes precedence. I'll try and find some time to wrap up some long-in-the-making production related posts this week (there are at least three or four of them), but, as always, I can't and won't make any promises.
Dreamfall - a game I, for some reason, can't seem to stop talking about - is appearing on many 'Games to Watch' and 'Best of' lists for 2005, including (but not limited to) those compiled by Computer Games Magazine, PC Zone, and Eurogamer, who have been kind enough to include us on both their
PC and
Xbox lists.
Eurogamer, by the way, has evolved into one of those must-read gaming sites - mostly because of their rather excellent reviews. Written by grown-ups, for growns-ups, their reviews are refreshingly free of badly spelled hyperbole and publisher-catering sound bites, and I quite look forward to hearing their thoughts on
Dreamfall. Give them a read, and, if you're European - or you're looking for proper game journalism - keep them bookmarked. They're definitely worth your browsing time.
While I'm at it, I might as well recommend
Kotaku, which is the very best alternative gaming blog around. They've got all the news worth reading, compiled into bite sized chunks - with added sarcasm for flavour.
I'm genuinely excited about the new
Mac mini and the
iPod shuffle. I can't explain why, because I don't need either of them. My PowerBook performs well, thank you very much, as does my iPod mini. But like many similarly afflicted male adults out there, I have a weakness for gadgets, particularly gadgets embossed with a seductive apple shaped logo. (I have a problem, but at least I'm not afraid to admit it.) So, yes, I'll probably be picking up a mini and a shuffle - sporting fashionable lower-case names, no less - this spring. (Right, so I need help, and fast.) Let's face it, however: these are both beautiful examples of modern technology, and Apple deserves to win market share against the PC. Competition is good; just look at what it's done for the console business. Competition breeds better hardware and better games, and while there may be some frustration and confusion for the consumers, monopoly - or a single standard - isn't the answer, not in a technologically driven industry. Twenty years from now, maybe we'll be ready for a single format, at which point the Big Boys can compete on content, not platform, but for now we can enjoy the thrill of the race: Nintendo DS, PSP, Xbox 2, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Revolution - and who knows what else to follow.
So yes, I for one would love to see Apple emerge as a real competitor to the Wintel hegemony. Not that I have anything against PCs or Windows; quite the opposite, I use Windows most of the day, and I have few complaints. Without Microsoft, there would be no PC game industry. But healthy competition is a good thing. So I'll vote with my wallet and buy a Mac mini and an iPod shuffle, thank you very much. See how I justified that decision? Smooth.
Where to begin? Long week. Looooo(etc.)ng week. Blog? Low priority. Sleep? High priority. There are a couple of 'started writing, couldn't finish' posts in the pipeline, but I wouldn't stay up waiting for 'em if I were you. Next week's got 'busy' written all over it. There's a lot of writing to do, and the pressure is definitely on. Luckily, I do my best work under pressure, so this ought to be good.
There are a couple of high profile games coming out next week that I absolutely have to play:
Resident Evil 4 - been waiting a long time for that one - and
Mercenaries. The former is a shoe-in for me, and the reviews have been glowing. The latter could go either way, but the premise is intriguing and the word so far has been positive. Besides, you can't go wrong with big explosions. You really can't. So those two will (hopefully) reach my desk by Friday, and I'll let you know what I think next weekend.
The quill is heavy in my hands right now (so to speak), so I'll click 'publish', but I'll drop in tomorrow to - hopefully (again) - write something more meaningful and coherent. Sundays aren't my most coherent days. That's when I wander aimlessly around in socks, crash on the couch, watch stupid TV shows and ruminate about Mondays.
2005. So this is it, then. Right. Looks a lot like 2004, to be honest, but I'll give it time. Maybe it'll improve once January gets going. I'm just not seeing any flying cars or sentient robots yet.
2005 is also the Year of Dreaming. Come fourth quarter, and
Dreamfall will land on store shelves across the world. That's a pretty scary thought. We're far from done, and right now I just can't imagine the game ever being
done done. It's existed in our heads for so long, it's rather surreal to see it take shape on the screen. Of course, by the time the launch date rolls around, I'll already be neck deep in the next project and too busy to ruminate about the process of making this one - and so it goes.
2005 will certainly be a challenging year, but then that's nothing new. We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope that it'll be a rewarding year as well. At this point, I want nothing more than to see
Dreamfall completed, shipped, and living up to everyone's expectations. And, naturally, selling three million copies. That would be nice.
