Max Cant: Yeah definitely, I think Stu' deserves a large amount of credit for what we’ve put together here. His departure hasn’t directly affected the core of the gameplay - we had already stuck our stake in the sand in regards to that. So if you look at the E3 footage from a year and a bit ago, it’s still pretty much the same game as that today.
We’ve added certain elements to it, but certainly from an art direction side of things I’ve not changed anything at all. I guess it comes down to the fact that a game is more than just a single person, but I’ve worked with Stuart on Black as well, and no doubt I’ll see him in the future. I wish him all the best for all the stuff he’s doing at City, I hope it works out for him.
SPOnG: With that in mind - should Bodycount become quite successful, would there be nothing stopping you guys from exploring sequels or expanding that universe further?
Max Cant: I’d do another one.
Max Cant: God, yeah. I’ve got four or five pages worth of notes for stuff like expanding the universe. Ideas that have huge amounts of background and subtext on the Target and the Network. I’d be well up for it. I’ve loved working on Bodycount, even if there were a lot of challenging things, like putting together a new studio and a new game.
But it’s definitely the project I’ve most enjoyed working on in 13 years. There’s just a lot of scope for having fun with it, you stop getting constrained by reality and the real world. Then you’re only limited by your imagination.
SPOnG: It must be quite difficult, because it’s a new IP - people don’t tend to normally pay attention to a game until it gets a sequel. Has it been particularly hard for you guys to get a lot of interest within the community at all?
Max Cant: No, what we found is that you can sit and talk about a game, but the real difference is when you’re given something to play and let people get their hands on the title. That’s where we’ve received the biggest swell of enthusiasm.
It’s interesting doing a lot of shows, because you’re meeting a lot of new people at once and you worry that it won’t resonate because everyone’s tired towards the middle and end of a show like E3. And then when you give people a controller, they suddenly perk up and actually start enjoying the game.
So I think it’s got a lot of stuff that could sell it, and I think it’s the thing I’m most looking forward to getting out of all the stuff I’ve worked on in 13 years. I’ve already pre-ordered my own copy!
SPOnG: Wow, that’s dedication!
Max Cant: Yeah. Well, the funny thing is, when we were making it I always get into trouble with the artists because they’re trying to show me something and I’ve just wandered off and started blowing stuff up (laughs)! Turns out it’s even a lot of fun just to smash things.
Max Cant: Yeah, hundreds. There’s a lot of key things. One of the things - the proportioning on the characters - we wanted to give it a comic book style feel, and avoid going into that uncanny valley territory and make them weird-looking. So the proportions of the characters are pretty realistic, but there’s a theatrical, comic style in there. A big influence for that stuff was UK comic art from Mike McMahon and Cam Kennedy - staples of 2000AD and Marshal Law.
For the environment stuff, interestingly - there are little nods to the Metal Slug series in there. I love the colour palettes that they use in those games. But the majority of it comes from classical painting. My background is in concept art and illustration, which I did at art school. Years ago I read an article where someone was quoted as saying ‘games never look like their concept art.’ My reaction to that was ‘Ah, well. We’ll see, won’t we?’ So it was a big thing for me to make Bodycount look like a painting.
SPOnG: Is that your ultimate goal, to prove people wrong about that?
Max Cant: Yeah.
SPOnG: Wow, I’m one step away from asking the dreaded ‘are games art’ question, aren’t I?
Max Cant: Hah, well I don’t know - you look at a urinal in a gallery, is that art? No, this game is more ‘art’ than that (laughs). Well, it’s true though, more art went into this game than some guy stealing someone else’s urinal and writing your name on it. That’s just tacky. But yeah, I wanted to make something that was a little bit more creative, but was also the definition of ‘classic arcade action.’
SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time!
Max Cant: Cheers!