Mythology Interview

Thursday


Shiny seems to be on a god kick these days (Messiah, Sacrifice) so the topic of Mythology was an easy one to brooch with them. Coming up with five god solid gods, each with their own motivation and look is not as easy as it sounds. Add in Shinys patented sense of warped humor and you can see the mayhem forming before your eyes. We talked to the Sacrifice team about the back-story and the mythology of Sacrifice.


Participants

Eric Flannum - Lead Designer
Jon Gwyn- Character Modeler

GP: Thank you for James the Earth God, I felt rather dense when I finally figured out that little joke. Aside from James, where did the choice of gods come from?

Eric: The names of the other Gods are all derived from Greek and Latin. In general we wanted their names to really reflect their character. You don't really have to wonder what a god named "Pyro" is the god of.

GP: If there was a movie made from Sacrifice, who would you like to see play each god?

Jon: Pyro is kind of a Nathan Lane type guy.... really annoying!

Charnel reminds me a lot of Peter Cushing from Star Wars ( Grand Moff Tarkin)

James could be John Goodman when he's drunk I suppose.

Stratos reminds me of that fey young king from the heavy metal cartoon...very pompous and bored with all the lesser creatures

Persephone...reminds me of our programmer martin..!!!!!

GP: How much mythological back-story is there for the game?

Eric: We tried to create a fully developed back-story for the Sacrifice world as this lends itself well to telling a great story within the confines of the game. You will run into a lot of interrelationships and history between the various characters in the game as well as a lot of history for the land itself.

GP: What sources did you draw upon for the story?

Eric: In creating the story we drew upon all of our past experiences. From novels, to mythology to other games, all have some small influence on the stories we choose to tell in Sacrifice.

GP: Which god do you feel is most deserving of winning the power struggle?

Eric: I don't want to give anything away, but if I had to answer, I'd say Persephone, because good always triumphs, right?

GP: In a nutshell, what go it this world to its present state of heavenly warfare?

Eric: The Gods in Sacrifice have always had their differences of opinion, but have never really engaged in open warfare with each other until a few events happen in the campaign that manage to stir them up. I could tell you what these events are, but that would ruin the surprise.

GP: Do you find that the back-story in a game benefits the designer or the player more?

Eric: I think that a good back-story benefits both parties a great deal, but I'd have to say it's usually the player who reaps most of the rewards in this area. The reason for this is that while the designer gets to add richness into the game that may not have been there before, it is always the player who gets to experience these elements and discover new and fun things in the game.

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