Matt Findley: Yeah, it's always challenging. It's not so much a design challenge as it is a technology challenge, and making sure you're doing something that can run on the engine.
Brian Fargo: And it's a budget challenge too. (Laughs)
Matt Findley: I think our extensive experience with the technology allowed us to overcome that challenge pretty easily, and our guys really know what the tech can do and how to push it. And we want to do that – we want to push the envelope on the 360 and PS3, and each machine has its strengths and weaknesses. Tailoring those factors in with the design aspects of development is a process of ours.
Brian Fargo: It's that 40/40/20 rule that we were talking about in the presentation – we knew that there was a percentage of the game that a lot of people will always see, and then some that very few players will see. So we have 40 per cent of the game's pathways and challenges designed for the novice, another 40 per cent for the advanced gamer and the last 20 per cent will be really difficult for the hardcore player.
Matt Findley: Those rewards vary as well. Sometimes it's a door that lets you skip a certain part of the dungeon, other times it's a hallway leading to a treasure chest, or an NPC that gives you backstory on something else or a Deathstone. The Deathstones are artifacts you get early on in the game to communicate with the dead.
There are dead people walking the dungeons that can fill in significant amounts of story and background – be it something about where you are, things they've seen, heard or what's about to happen, where secrets might be...
If you're the type of player that likes that kind of experience, you can absorb all of it, and hunting around for every single Deathstone to get the entire story requires quite a lot of work and effort. If you're an action player that doesn't really care about that stuff, you can leave it aside and focus on killing enemies.
Brian Fargo: Philosophically, you think about the way puzzles are handled today versus yesterday, right? In the 90s, you'd find a puzzle, and if you couldn't solve it you were stuck! Players took great pleasure in being challenged like that.
But tastes change, people don't have that sort of patience, and developers can't do that anymore (laughs). You've gotta have a game that people can work through and be challenged by, but when it comes to puzzles and riddles, there's got to be an incentive to make players want to do it. I think that's the fundamental difference in design today – players don't get satisfaction in being stuck, they want to work on getting a reward.
Matt Findley: Yeah, it really needed to be. I heard someone say that multiplayer can be something that can just be slapped on at the end. That may be true, but when you add co-op, it has to be there from the first moment in the game, it has to be designed in.
The skills are particularly designed to have co-op abilities - even the magic and the enemies are built to take advantage of the fact that two players are different. Elara and Caddoc aren't carbon copies of each other, they each have their strengths and weaknesses. The combination of those strengths in various situations helps you beat each kind of bad guy out there.
Even from a graphic point of view and in terms of level design, we worked the whole concept of teamwork into it. Almost every area has am elevated vantage point where Alara can go and provide ranged support, there are specially designed melee areas where some close-quarter combat takes place. The co-op element has been a challenge because it's something that's had to be a part of every single decision that's made in the game.
Matt Findley: We give you the option of letting someone come in and play your character, or have them bring in their own. It's up to you – if I let you bring in your weak character, we've already mutually agreed that you're gonna suck (laughs).
And if we don't want that experience, you can leave your character behind and play mine, and still get the advantage of what we achieved together. You can take those crystals back to your own single-player game and power up your characters so that you can advance easier.
SPOnG: You said in your presentation of Hunted: The Demon's Forge that the role playing game has evolved over the decades and changed in style. What do you think is the next step? Where would you like to see the dungeon crawler go?
Brian Fargo: Maybe using a sword peripheral! (Laughs)
Matt Findley: Or four player co-op. (Laughs) To me, that's the next thing.
Brian Fargo: If I could swing a sword, and feel like I'm in contact with something, having a bow... I mean, to me that's the holy grail.
Matt Findley: The archery game on the Wii is really cool.
Brian Fargo: Yeah, something like that. If there was a physical experience in it for me - walking on the spot, moving my head around to see environments... yeah, that would be the ultimate.
Brian Fargo: Oh, I was just throwing ideas out there! I haven't really thought about working with those devices, I'm not a hardware guy.
Matt Findley: I think a good thing for the future of these kinds of games would be an always-persistent environment, where we can do away with AI and have players assume the role of heroes, enemies and other characters. Imagine logging on to a dungeon crawler to find that the first enemy troll you encounter is another human opponent? That would be pretty cool.
SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time.