Interviews// F1 2009: Sumo Digital's Ned Waterhouse

SPOnG: I’ve been taking a look at the feature set for this game, and there’s mention of several ‘Driving Aids’. Could you explain a little bit about what those are?

Ned Waterhouse: I think there’s about five or six driving aids in the game. A really simple one, as an example, is the ability to display a HUD bumps telling you the severity of an upcoming corner. We’ve also got the dynamic racing line in there, where you get a coloured line that offers the best driving line to take around the course. We felt that inclusion was quite important to show players the point in which to brake. Formula 1 is all about two things; the right line, and the right braking points. Well, and the right acceleration as well (laughs).

So getting the dynamic racing line was important for us, and I really think it helps with learning the circuits and becoming competitive on the harder difficulty levels. Then on top of that with the driving aids we’ve got things like anti-skid and braking and steering assists. The players can really configure it for their skill level.

We also have a system in place where, if you’re competing against the same player - like a father and son playing against each other for example - and one of you is constantly winning, the game can determine the losing player’s specific driving aid setup and suggest an automatic retune to a level where they can even the playing field.


SPOnG: Sumo Digital’s also had some racing history in developing console versions of OutRun. Not that an arcade racer and a Formula 1 simulation are the same, but did your experience in working on a driving game in its purest form with OutRun help determine how to best tackle a serious racer like Formula 1?

Ned Waterhouse: I’d say so, yes. I think that Sumo as a studio has a real pedigree with racing games. You mentioned OutRun there, but we’ve also done the TOCA series with Codemasters on PSP, we developed GTi Club for PlayStation Network and Colin McCrae DiRT 2 for Wii and PSP. So all of those past titles has given the team a rich background in perfecting this genre of game.


SPOnG: And how would you say developing a Formula 1 game is different to say, a game like OutRun or TOCA or DiRT?

Ned Waterhouse: I think with Formula 1 you have to be respectful of the license, and of what the player expects as well because of that license. You need to conform to all the rules of the sport, whilst teaching the player of the same, because some people go watch an F1 race on TV but they don’t want to spend their game time learning about the different types of tyre compounds. So we have to help the player out on that and help them understand the qualifying formats.

With a game that isn’t based around a license, you have a little more freedom to experiment with different things like race modes and so on. But then again, I say that and yet - I’m going to contradict myself here (laughs) - in Formula 1 we have challenge games and we’ve added some traditional arcade-style modes like Elimination, Gates challenges and Slipstream challenges. Those will allow players to experience Formula 1 in a slightly different and unique way, but not so much that it wanders off the license track.


SPOnG: It’s interesting you mention the license as well, because it brings me nicely onto its impact on development. Has the fact you’re working on a Formula 1 game brought any limitations to what you could do?

Ned Waterhouse: I think when you take on a license like Formula 1, you know what you’re going to be doing and how you’re going to tackle it, so the primary idea was to provide an experience that didn’t undermine the ruleset in any way. I personally felt it was important that we reproduced qualifying, for example. One of the features of our game is that you can watch the qualifying session if you want; you’re in your garage and you can watch the cars zip along the track and look for your closest rivals.

Ideas like that, to try to enhance the experience while staying true to the rules and style of F1, aren’t exactly objectionable to the license holder so we didn’t have any real limitations to what we could or wanted to do. In fact I’d say that, because we were working with the license, we were able to do the things we’ve done in this game.

We really wanted to implement the sense of realism, and through things like qualifying matches, fine tuning and adding a real layer of strategy to it - for example, if it starts to rain you need to head into the pits to adapt your strategy - I think we’ve done a good job. Weather changes, fuel usage, tyre wear ... all these things are in the game and can dynamically change your racing approach, and we felt that was very important for the license.


SPOnG: Finally, I wanted to go back to your career history for a second if I could because a lot of people are trying to get into the games industry and finding it very difficult right now. For some, a tester position is one of the most accessible points of entry. I just wanted to ask if you had any advice for people who might want to enter the industry, and what the benefits were to you for entering as a tester and working your way up?

Ned Waterhouse: One thing I should say is that I tailored my education towards doing this - I did a Computer Science degree before joining Sega as a tester. Testing gives you a real understanding of the components of the game and particularly how games can go wrong. Thus, you get a sort of unique idea of how games are constructed. You get experience with different games and an understanding of the development process, because pre-Alpha builds of a game looks nothing like the final version that players end up seeing. There’s a process as you test these games where a title slowly refines and becomes worthy of a disc-based product, and that’s interesting to experience as well.

My advice for people who want to get into games depends on the field you want to specifically enter. For something like programming, a Computer Science degree and an understanding of 3D maths is essential. For Design, an understanding of those things help, but equally if not more it’s to do with your communication skills and knowing what makes video games fun.

SPOnG: Ned Waterhouse, thanks for your time.

Ned Waterhouse: Thank you.