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The End Result
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Wednesday, March 04, 2009 |
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Narrativity
Yasumi Matsuno
Writer
Contracted by Platinum Games for MadWorld
When PlatinumGames approached me for MadWorld, I thought about whether or not gamers actually expected a complex world setting or narrative in an action game. Personally, I don’t buy action games for their stories. However, due to the recent evolution of hardware, games have become more detailed, as can be seen by the ever improving graphics. Due to this, I can understand that modern gamers are not satisfied with action itself. So, for gamers that set a high value on atmosphere and depth of the story, I was requested to build the game’s world and script from the ground up.
In order to write the story, I met the development team more times than I could count in order to understand their game design and needs as clearly as possible. What I found interesting was that the development team told me one thing and producer was telling me another. More specifically, they gave me different orders from their respective positions.
Click here for a higher res version of today's gameplay image.
The development team gave me two guidelines. First, “Jack is not a righteous person”. This is because he has no hesitation in regards to his violence. Secondly, “Violence is accepted in the world”. This was from the same reasoning as the first point. During gameplay, they did not want the players to doubt their action when performing an extreme act of violence.
On the other hand, the producer believed that “Violence should ultimately be denied in the end”. It meant that we had to be concerned about the current circumstance surrounding the videogame industry. I thought it was a quite reasonable request because, as a company, both SEGA and PlatinumGames did not consider violence right.
The setting of DeathWatch (an illegal underground live show) came from these two contradictory orders - the acceptance and negation of violence. In the extraordinary world of the DeathWatch games, violence and brutality is not only required, but accepted. However, once you step out of the show, the world outside is ruled by normal conventions. It’s not only in MADWORLD. Haven’t you felt that big contradiction in your life? I would like gamers to play the game so that they can experience the unusual world & its story that was created from these two conflicting orders.
Finally, it may be a little difficult to catch everything in the story by only playing the game once. With each replay you can understand the true meaning of each character’s dialogue more and more.
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Thursday, February 12, 2009 |
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Origins
Atsushi Inaba
Producer
PlatinumGames
Several teams are developing titles at PlatinumGames. Even among them, the MadWorld team can be considered quite unconventional. The team was launched with the concepts of “creating something fun on Wii” and “creating content that is of a style absent from Wii’s current lineup.” Also, the game was developed with the help of many external creators, including original game design and scenario writing. In that sense, the team can be considered something akin to a foreign legion.
The most challenging aspect of this title was that acts of “violence” were its core theme. We knew that if the theme was handled incorrectly, we could be saddled with heavy societal risk.
For me personally, MadWorld is the first title that takes on the theme of violence so directly.
In general, the element of violence is one that is indispensable to action games. Any method of attack equals violence. For example, even the Mario series has violence as means of attack. However, there aren’t any people who would perceive that as violence in a negative way. In essence, the perception of violence is largely swayed by the style of presentation and the overall atmosphere of the game.
That said, I think there has been an increase in “unfunny violence”—the kind you can’t laugh at—as a consequence of improved graphic capabilities of game hardware. Violence that isn’t for enjoyment in a virtual world, but as an alternative for reality. That approach is certainly valid, so I can’t refute it outright. However, with MadWorld, I think I managed to stay out of that realm. I tried to explore a new style of violence that doesn’t spoil the heart of fun in games.
With this title, we were faced with the element of “blood” seriously for the first time. We were faced with the choice of treating this element in the context of a “means of attack” or “violence,” and this has significant consequences for the presentation of the game.
We chose to go with “violence,” but with the challenging caveat that it also be entertaining. Violence that is so extreme it becomes comical. And to represent that vision, an edgy, non-realistic art style. These two concepts were key in developing MadWorld.
It may well be that the game will simply be seen as extremely violent and worthless. It would make me happy if people would understand that it’s a title in which we sought new entertainment values at the extremes of tolerance.
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