Interview with Mike Schmitt, Tomb Raider Associate Producer 

Reviewed by: Aaron Nicholls and Richard Law  

Tomb Raider has been one of only a handful of games to star a female hero, tough as nails and ready to go toe-to-toe with any man on the block. Was she modeled after any particular women/men, both real and fictional?

The game concept and character design came from Toby Gard (an artist at Core Design). They wanted an agile character, someone athletic but in a gymnastic/graceful way...hence Lara Croft was born.

What are your plans for the Tomb Raider engine? Do you plan on using a modified version of it to make any future games?

The engine will be used for Tomb Raider 2 with slight modifications/tweaks.

Tomb Raider has been billed as somewhat of a trend-setter for game companies doing semi-simultaneous releases on PC and consoles. Was it difficult to get both versions out the door around the same time? Was either version particularly more difficult than the other?

The initial work was started on PC. Then other facets moved to console. For example, AI was done by 1 programmer on one platform while the camera system was done on another platform. When solutions for different things were worked out, it was just a matter of writing specific code for each machine.

This game is a graphical feast. The way the creatures move, the depth of the environment, and the massive size of the game leave a lot of ground for other games to cover. However, some gamers have commented about the use of a few blocky sprites and relatively low-resolution textures. Do you plan on using higher resolution textures and objects in future games, or do you think the current wave of 3D cards and filtered texturing will provide a hardware work-around?

Probably both.

Comparing what you envisioned before you started the Tomb Raider project with the finished product, what do you think? What parts turned out better than anticipated? What parts do you feel you could have improved upon?

We think the overall length & challenge of the game was perfect. It wasn't too difficult for someone to complete the game. The only real knock on the game was the music. There simply wasn't enough of it! The music Nathan McRee came up with was amazing, but there were times in the game when all you would hear was the pitter-patter of Lara's footsteps.

I told my wife "Hey, look, here's an action game with a female protagonist," but when she saw the box for the game she said "My God! She's wearing pistols and hot pants! Is this some kind of adolescent male fantasy?" So the question is, what was the thinking behind Lara's appearance and what sort of feedback have you received on the way she looks?

We've received nothing but love letters from male consumers wondering who the 'real' Lara Croft is!

What other games, movies, books, etc. influenced you in the design and concept for this game, and what do you compare this game to when asked?

Only Toby could answer this, but you can see elements of Prince of Persia and the "Indiana Jones" films.

In reference to the question above, Tomb Raider seems to break across several genre lines—action, adventure, fighting—and you are certainly aware of the other benchmark titles in each of these categories. What do you feel makes Tomb Raider unique in each of these genres?

I think the camera system & auto targeting is very unique in Tomb Raider. Being able to see your character on-screen at all times was certainly different from a 1st person game like Doom or Quake.

The polygon-based graphics engine in this game seems akin to the basic structure in such other engines as Quake and Unreal, and certainly benefits from 3D accelerated cards. What cards do you use in testing / playing Tomb Raider, and which ones would you recommend for best performance?

I don't think any 3D cards were going to be supported originally. 3Dfx and Rendition each heard about the game & worked with Core to come up with the patches. They felt this sort of game would really lend itself well to what their cards can do.

Are there any plans at Eidos to either release add-on maps / adventures for Tomb Raider or to release the build engine so that 3rd parties (players, designers, etc.) can build their own levels? If so, can you give us some insight as to when these might be available? If not, when can we expect to see Lara again?

There are no plans at this time for any kind of expansion disks, etc...The team is hard at work on Tomb Raider 2 at the moment.

Gamezilla wishes to thank Mike Schmitt and Eidos for making this interview possible.
Interview Posted 1997.