Questions to the Developers

[hinch]

We have an opportunity to run a developer Q&D directly with the developers of the latest Turok game.

(Dino's n everything)

So if you have any questions you've always fancied asking some game developers directly either about the latest Turok game directly or more in general about how they approach writing a game etc

Post them here and if I get a sensible sized list I'll push to make the Q&A Happen.

[CtpUK]

Will the Wii version of the game include Throwing Knives, and if so, will this require you launching your Wiimote at the nearest window?

[Fortune]

Why does every Turok game suck.

[LiL T]

Why would people care anyway honestly, sorry but thats my thoughts...

From a guy that does not play stupidly shite games.

Took one look into it and it seems its for concoles, its fails straight away cos concoles are for fucking dickheads who want to waste thier money on shit.

[Nightbrother]

If you can't write anything constructive, don't write. :p

1) Hinch, I'd like to know if they, when they build a game, most often firstly think up cool scenes and then wrap the story and the rest of the game around those scenes, or most often make up a good background story and try to fit everything around it?

I know it's being done both ways sometimes, but how is their take on the subject? Also, who decides how that decision gets finalized?

2) How do they stand in terms of Non Player Characters, in the sense that, who gets to write up the NPCs? Is it divided among the game creators, or is that most often the work of one man or a few?

3) I would like to know if they could compare and describe the processes that differ when writing a rather linear game and when writing a very open-ended one? Are open-ended games simply too big a headache often?

4) Which games have they looked to (that they will admit) for inspiration for the latest game, and which games have they looked to in the past?


For the record, I certainly don't like the Turok games either, not by a long shot, but there are still some things I'd like to ask, now that we have the chance, just for the fun of it.

[grindcore]

I'm interested in the stories and overall feeling of the games that have been released over the past few years - in most cases, it seems like the developers have seen the "next gen" graphics engine, decided that it's awesome enough to appeal to people to get them to buy the game, and the story and atmosphere gets flushed down the toilet.

When you had games with crap graphics, there were many games which had immense storylines and all sorts of fun things to compensate for the lack of graphics. Now you have great graphics but you won't be able to enjoy it because the games feel like they've been created to watch, not play and have fun.

Honestly, the only non-MMORPG games I've played over the last few years that actually had me playing for more than a few days were Bioshock and Kane&Lynch (Overlord too, with some exceptions), other than that it's just "buy, watch, admire the graphics, get angry at the shit and boring gameplay&story, uninstall"

What is the devs' opinion on this occuring ever more frequently and how are they trying to avoid it?

[Nightbrother]

Come on, more questions you slackers. :)