Interviews// Insomniac's TJ Fixman and James Stevenson

SPOnG: It must be quite difficult to design Clank's part of the game, that features a large amount of time-based puzzle play. With the ability to record yourself over and over and play alongside your recordings, you must have tried very hard to avoid things like time paradoxes.

TJ Fixman: Yeah, you try to keep the mechanics simple and just lay down the amount of Clanks that you need. It took a lot of usability testing, but they get really complex – there'll be a point where you'll need about five Clanks doing different things. You know, you'd be riding up an elevator with five different versions of yourself, all different colours (laughs). It's pretty cool.


SPOnG: James, you mentioned the Spiral of Death which was made by fans, and there are a bunch of customisable weapons that players can create to make their game unique. What has it been like to involve the community in the whole development process? Has it been difficult to address all of their concerns and requests?

James Stevenson: Well, we can't always listen to everything the fans want. I mean, there's a big community out there that's into the multiplayer side of Ratchet and Clank – they loved the netplay from the PS2 days and so they always want that, for example. When it comes to suggestions we have to take things with a grain of salt, although we do really listen to the community, for the most part.

For example, we had some feedback on the lack of Captain Quark in Quest For Booty, it was a big issue for fans – they really wanted more Quark. We definitely addressed that.

TJ Fixman: Dr. Nefarious was something else, we had people requesting for him to come back too so we fixed that. And the lack of replay that people found in Quest For Booty was also something we really spent a lot of time addressing.

James Stevenson: Yeah, so we added a whole heap of side-quests, hidden treasures, that sort of thing. People also felt that Tools of Destruction was too easy, so you'll find that Normal mode in A Crack In Time is harder than in Tools of Destruction, but we added a Hard mode and unlockable Hardcore difficulty too. In that sense we involved the fans by simply listening to them and acting on their suggestions, we want to do right by the people who invest the time in our games and we want to give them as much stuff as possible.


SPOnG: Doing the series for so long – there's almost been a Ratchet and Clank game every year since the PS2 debut – are there any new difficulties in trying to keep the series fresh?

TJ Fixman: For any of us, be it those who write the story, or code the game or reach out to the community... it's always a challenge, every time. We have lots of brainstorming sessions where the team meets up and thinks of new ideas. We have internal mailing lists set up for everything from story ideas to new kinds of weapons to interesting enemies. Of course, we play our own games in case we find things that might add a new element to a Ratchet game specifically.

For A Crack In Time, one of the ways in which we've been fighting the stale franchise is by adding things like the Hoverboots. In seven games we've never done anything like the Hoverboots, and you can see how it changes the way you play the game. We've got a level called Krell Canyon which is a completely open desert landscape where you can hover around at blazing speeds and just jump off of rocks.

The cool thing about Quest For Booty is that it turned out to be a great proving ground for new ideas. When we wanted to do more platforming, that's where we thought up of Ratchet's Kinetic Tether. And since we were making a short downloadable game we figured we could make the entire game use this new idea and see what it would be like for Ratchet to use his wrench for other things instead of just moving bolt cranks.


SPOnG: There must be a load of pressure to make each game better than the last, considering Ratchet and Clank is one of the last big-name platforming mascots still around in today's gaming climate?

James Stevenson: I think there are some higher expectations for us to do well, because Ratchet's so much of an established series now. There's also more pressure because we're the big PS3 exclusive. You know, it's not the trio of Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper like it was in the PS2 days, it's just Ratchet right now. And essentially when you look at this holiday's exclusives, you're looking at Ratchet, Uncharted 2 and EyePet. We're basically propping up one of those important tent-poles. In some regards that does put a little more pressure on us.

And on top of that, we have the weight of expectations from the previous Ratchet games. And people don't just want the same experience over and over – people want new stuff, they want better stuff. It's a lot to live up to.

It's a difficult time for developers now too because there are a lot of studios consolidating, and every new IP is a risk. If it's not successful, you've just put a lot of time into something nobody wants. New IPs are a lot harder to develop too, it's a lot of work to do from scratch for an unpredictable outcome. We've experienced that most recently with Resistance. At one point that game was a futuristic space opera! It's amazing how much things change over time when you actually start developing it.


SPOnG: Speaking of Resistance, can you talk about that billboard that was recently put up on a movie set for a third game for 2010? I'll take the awkward silence as a 'No Comment', right?

James Stevenson: No comment.

TJ Fixman: No comment. Don't worry, we've been asked this before and you probably won't be the last one to ask us that question either. (laughs)

James Stevenson: The funny thing is, we've been making records as to how many times we're asked that question. But I believe the Belgian PR team kind of screwed us because I think at some point they told journalists not to ask that question before they started coming in to interview us. So they ruined our game! (laughs)


SPOnG: Well, I'm honoured to have continued the game for you, you can carry on the tally now. Finally, it's obviously far too early to ask about sequels, but where would you like to see Ratchet go from here in the future?

James Stevenson: It's a tricky question, because who knows what the future holds for the series. Or even what's next for Insomniac. I think Ratchet and Clank has a large universe that we can expand upon, so there's a lot that can still be done with the franchise, for sure.

The thing with the PS3 Ratchet games that are different than before is that A Crack In Time is essentially the end of this epic trilogy that we have that started with Tools of Destruction. While the universe is the same, previous Ratchet games have had their own contained stories and we really wanted to really make this stand as the 'Future Trilogy'. A lot of it was to do with us bringing Ratchet to next-gen, showcasing our cinematic storytelling and just tell this epic Ratchet story that we've always wanted to tell. This is our big love-letter to the fans.


SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time, guys.

TJ Fixman: You're welcome, thank you.

James Stevenson: Thanks a lot!