You know those beer commercials where they say that everything from Australia is bigger? Well if this interview is any indication, that's not just marketing malarkey. This is one beefy interview -- over 4,000 words.
And the Aussies aren't shy about talking, either. Not only did lead programmer Tony Oakden and lead designer Ed Orman jump up to answer our call for some more information on Fallout Tactics, but programmer Karl Burdack and lead artist Parrish Rodgers had plenty to say about Tactics as well. Even former IGNPC Editor in Chief (and my old boss) Trent Ward piped up on a few of the questions (he never was one to keep his mouth shut...you can't fire me now, Trent).
So go make yourself a sandwich, grab a drink, and hunker in for a good read on what could possibly be the squad-based tactical game of the year.
IGNPC: What's the history of Micro Forte? What's a typical day like around the office?
Trent Ward: I'll field the first part of that and then let the guys describe how their days work on their own?
Micro Forte was founded in 1985 and has studios in both Sydney and Canberra (which is the capital of Australia, just ask Tal, he knows all the world's capitals). Over the course of the last fifteen years, we've designed a load of different games for different platforms starting back in the early days of EA with a product called Demon Stalkers. Our most recent products were Enemy Infestation (for Ripcord), BigWorld (a massively multiplayer technology that you'll be hearing a lot more about soon) and, of course, Fallout: Tactics. For the last five years, we've also worked closely with the Academy of Interactive Entertainment, a college here in Canberra that teaches game design.
Okay, now that that's been said, I'll let the guys have at it?
Tony Oakden: Well I get up at eight and watch DragonBallZ (which seems to have been going on for ever). Then I cycle to work, which takes about 3 minutes unless the traffic is heavy in which case it takes closer to four. The weather is always glorious in Australia (not like Newcastle-upon-Tyme in England where I lived previously). I get into work at 9.00 and say hello to Ed. If it's a Monday then I can't speak to Interplay cos it will be Sunday in LA. If it's any other day (including Saturday) I generally start by ploughing through a dozen or so emails from Interplay asking when the next version will arrive and when are we going to fix multi-player? I try to keep track of all the communication between Micro Forte and Interplay with regards to Tactics. This means I get quite a lot of stuff about, presales, Promotional stuff, Sound, QA problems etc. At 1:00 I go for lunch. 2:00 I come back in and generally organise meetings, talk to people, play the game and maybe do some odd jobs to help the project flow. 6:00 I think about going home, between 7:00 and 8:00 I go home. At Reflections I used to come back to work until midnight but I try not to do that now. The best thing about being the producer is I get to see all the apsects of the game and how it all fits together. it's as close as I can get to doing everything (although actually I have hardly any direct effect on anything)
Ed Orman: I live on the other side of Canberra (a whole 25 minutes away), so I'm usually at work by 7.30-8am, which gives me an opportunity to catch up on a bunch of miscellaneous tasks (tidying up missions, replying to emails, answering interview questions). I'll ride the forums for half an hour and see what people are saying about the game or if there are any major issues with the demos. Around 9:15, Damian, one of the Senior Artists, has made coffee (sweeeet coffee!) so I'll get a big mug of that and settle in to working. That currently involves playing the game, checking the missions, taking abuse from QA, scripting the bunkers, tweaking text and entities, just loads of urgent, assorted tasks.
Karl Burdack: A typical day begins with me driving in to work by a leisurely 9:30am, depends on whether I get stuck behind a cement truck. For the first half hour I check email and think about what I'm going to do that day. I usually get some solid work done until about 11:00am when things start going wrong. I actually spend a lot of my time communicating with QA, who usually have found some broken stuff from the previous days build, or the level designers who will need some new kind of urgently required hacked up entity or scripting trigger. Other things I typically have to do each day is: Hassle Robin (one of the programming team members) for a build, maintain a programmers task list, hope Al (another programming team member) doesn't go insane over the latest sound mix-up, delegate tasks to programmers, explain to Tony again why I haven't finished multiplayer, answer interview questions (*grin*), and put together a version for Interplay. In between all this I squeeze some actual programming in.
IGNPC: For starters, tell us a little bit about the key members of the development team. What are some other projects they've worked on? How long have you been working on Fallout Tactics?
Tony Oakden: As I never tire of telling people I worked on Driver for Reflections. I was one of several programmers on the PSX version of the game. Driver was a great game to work on. After Driver I became lead programmer on Driver 2 but I only stayed for the first half of the project before emigrating to Australia. I've been in the industry since 1988 when I got my first game, Quest, published by Superior Software for the Acorn BBC computer. It's a great industry to be in despite what you might read on Fatbabies.
Ed Orman: I only have one other major project under my belt, and that was Enemy Infestation for Ripcord Games. Not a lot of people will have heard of it, but that's OK. I look at it as a great learning experience. I've only been in games since 1997, so Fallout: Tactics has been a huge opportunity for myself and many of the other less experienced people we have in the team. It's a little hazy now, but I guess we've been working on FT since November 99. Oh, and did I mention that Tony worked on Driver?
Karl Burdack: This is the first game title I have worked on. Before this I was worked on a few prototypes for the company. Before I worked at Micro Forte, I used to run a computer retail business, and worked on a prototype game from home. Ed's mistaken; we've actually been working on Tactics since September ?99. Other key people on my programming team are Robin Maddock, who takes care of AI, path finding and game logic. Jan Marecek, who maintains our object persistence and GUI's. Al Phillips who takes care of sound, game logic, and special scripting hacks.
Parrish Rodgers: I started in the games industry a few weeks after Ed, working on Enemy Infestation as Senior 3D artist. After Enemy Infestation I was given the role of Lead Artist for Fallout Tactics. We have quite a large art team working on this project:
Tariq Raheem: He does all of our character design. Rachael Johnson, Lorne Brooks and Damian Stocks ? Senior 3D Artists.
The Senior Artists help me establish a technical plan for the creation of the art content. This involves them writing scripts for 3D Studio max, working out the most efficient way to complete an art task and acting as mentors for all the art team. This frees up my time to concentrate on the Art Direction of the project.
The Art team has been busy working on Fallout Tactics since November 1999.
IGNPC: What do you think about the current state of PC gaming? Tell us about the experience of developing games in Australia.
Tony Oakden: The more interesting titles certainly appear on PC. In terms of quality and production value the consoles are king but who wants a hundred well crafted beautifully produced examples of blandness? The Australian games industry still seems to be in its infancy. I'm not really sure why that is 'cos companies here have been producing good games for decades. It's a nice place to work though. I suspect the fact that we are so far away from the rest of the world has had a bad effect on the industry here. However that's all changing now Korea, China, India etc are coming online.
Ed Orman: I'm a relative newbie, but from what I've seen of the Australian industry, it's full of enthusiasm and determination. we're really out to prove ourselves (even though, as Tony points out, we've been making games for decades). One of the downsides to developing in Oz is the time difference between here and our American counterparts. It just slows communication down, so problems take longer to come to light and resolve themselves.
Karl Burdack: The state of PC gaming looks good for my thinking. There are some really interesting technologies on the horizon that will hit PC games first as always. PC titles tend to innovate more, and I think that's what attracts me to them. Developing games in Australia is great, because I wouldn't want to work or live anywhere else in the world more than here. Come visit sometime and you will see what I mean :)
IGNPC: Give us a little background for the plot of the game. How does it connect between Fallout 1 and Fallout 2? What's the main thrust of the storyline? Will any characters from the RPGs make an appearance in Tactics?
Ed Orman: There is the occasional cameo (hell, you just can't leave out old Harold), but we've tried to create our own continuity as much as possible.
For the uninitiated, Fallout is set in a future where the cold-war fears of the 50s unfortunately came true. A massive nuclear exchange between various countries wiped out most of the planet, and it's only after some time that people are able to emerge from the protective underground Vaults and survey the wreckage.
The Brotherhood of Steel is one such group. Primarily military in nature, the BOS starts to gather technology and knowledge, trying to rebuild. They make a good start, but end up being drawn into fighting with the Super Mutants that emerge in Fallout 1. By Fallout 2, the BOS has become isolationist and weaker for it.
Our game is set between the two previous stories. After the events in Fallout 1, a faction forms within the Brotherhood, one that wants to expand their operations and recruit more people from the wastes. After a lot of arguing, the faction leaves the main BOS group, taking with them supplies and a big chunk of the brighter scientists. Unfortunately, they're heading east across the mountains when a storm strikes their transport, a group of dirigibles. This forces them to crash-land near Chicago, where they have to start rebuilding from scratch.
IGNPC: What's it like working within a pre-defined game universe? Do you find it more limiting because you had set boundaries or more creatively stimulating since you could explore the universe more and build on what people already know?
Tony Oakden: Good and bad. The good is that you have a well-defined starting point and loads of history to draw on. The bad is that whatever new stuff you do is almost bound to be in conflict with someone's idea of what the world should have looked like.
Ed Orman: It's great. The Fallout universe is distinctive in itself, but it's also very cleverly put together. There are obviously limitations on what we can do, but there's also so much material to draw from that if you have a good idea, you can usually find a way to make it work. Plus we've had a great time extrapolating out themes and ideas from the other two products.
Karl Burdack: It doesn't really limit you. Because much of the universe is already set out, you actually get to achieve a lot more interesting things because you're not redoing everything from scratch. But this area of the project doesn't effect me much, the programming is a different beast altogether.
Parrish Rodgers: Making a game in the Fallout universe has been a wonderful experience. Artists love making rusty texture maps!
IGNPC: How difficult will it be for someone new to the Fallout series to get into the game?
Tony Oakden: Anyone who is into tactical games will get into this quickly enough. Also anyone who understands RPG will get into that side of it. Understanding both is probably the biggest leg up. But we have faithfully copied the original SPECIAL system and character progression so from that point of view the Fallout fans will have an advantage.
Ed Orman: Well, the story has enough background information for the game to stand by itself. From a gameplay point of view, anyone who's played a tactical game or an RPG should be able to pick this up and run with it straight out of the box. For totally fresh players, we have the in-game tutorials, and there's always the manual!
Karl Burdack: It's really a stand-alone product. There is a fair amount of detail, so some players might have trouble at first, as in any detailed PC game. But overall it's fairly straightforward.
Parrish Rodgers: The tutorials for the game are very well designed, so after playing these it's pretty easy to get straight into the action.
IGNPC: One of the neatest features of Fallout Tactics is the "continuous turn-based system." It sounds like this could be the link between action gamers and those that like to take a little more time and micro-manage their strategies. Tell us a little more about it.
Tony Oakden: We invented CTB for multi-player squad based play. We did some math and realised that 6 players with 6 guys in each squad taking 10 seconds per turn meant 6 minutes for each round! We could not really imagine the average Starcraft or Quake 3 fan waiting 6 minutes for there next turn! Once we got CTB working we tried it in the single player maps and what do you know? It worked pretty well in single player too! The speed the action points regenerate is based on your stats, and ultimately that determines how many actions you can do in a particular time interval so there is still a strong RPG element in the combat.
Karl Burdack: CTB is simply well paced real time combat. Each character is limited in how often actions can be performed, but can move their characters at any time. This way the player never feels like they have been locked out of the action, but has plenty of time to think about strategies. The player can seamlessly move between CTB and Turn Based at any time, and it works very well. This should please Real time gamers and Turn Based fans alike.
It goes beyond this simple point system though. In Tactics, we have designed the action to be player driven. This game is definitely not an RTS, and we have also designed the AI's to respond to the player's actions in small tactical groups, rather than exhibit complex and global strategic behavior.
IGNPC: What sorts of mission types can we expect to see in Fallout Tactics?
Tony Oakden: Well most of them are assault style missions. We found that they work best. But there are also a couple of missions where you are escorting a vehicle through enemy territory and some more traditional Fallouty ones where you are exploring a map to find lost items. We managed to do some defence style missions but they are very hard to design well. We also have the random encounters that are normally a straight firefight.
Ed Orman: Plus we have message delivery, rescue attempts, search and destroy, assassination, and even a brief stop for some revenge. We tried to mix it up as much as possible when we were first designing the missions.
IGNPC: Has the wasteland been populated with any new monsters? Describe a few for us.
Tony Oakden: Well, we have the Eastern Hairy Deathclaws that the fans love so much. We also have giant cockroaches cos we understand that in the event of a nuclear was they will be the most likely to survive and as every one who watches 50s sci-fi knows they will mutate to enormous size (we took the liberty of introducing a venomous spit). We also have some rats but they are a bit bigger than the Fallout ones! Giant wasps and a komodo dragon are some of the others.
IGNPC: The Pipboy caricatures representing the skills and perks were a big part of the charm of Fallout. Tell us about some of the new Pipboys we can expect to see in Tactics.
Tony Oakden: Hmmm. Ed is currently getting psyched ready to draw another 50 odd of the little bleeders! He loves doing them so much! I like the ones depicting leg and arm injuries (very Monty Python ? The Black Knight).
Ed Orman: If there's one thing that most people remember about Fallout, it's the Pipboy character. he's always so darned cheery. I get to do a bunch of new Pipboys for the game, and my favorite so far has to be the one for the special damage effect of "immobile." here's the little chap, arms and legs missing, blood spurting comically from the stumps, and he still wears that happy, devil-may-care grin. Bless him.
Karl Burdack: Yep, immobile always makes me laugh quietly.
IGNPC: Tell us a little about the technology that powers the game. Fallout Tactics runs off of some of the components of the Fallout engine, but it has obviously been highly modified. How have you changed the game engine to move it from its RPG roots to a squad-based tactical combat game?
Tony Oakden: There are no code components from the Fallout Engine in our game. We have developed our own engine from scratch called Phoenix. Black Isle where kind enough to give us access to the Fallout Source and where extremely helpful in getting us started. We used quite a lot of the tables from the original Fallout source code and we got some of the algorithms for the combat by studying the code, but the Phoenix engine, game and renderer were created by Micro Forte for the sole purpose of Tactics. The game is entirely written in C++ whereas the originals where in C for another thing.
Ed Orman: Graphically, the renderer is a big step forward, with anti-aliasing, alpha blending, and all that groovy stuff. Gameplay-wise, we had to modify the interface to accommodate six characters instead of one, and to help the player control those characters in a tactical manner. But the RPG aspects, like the Character Screen or the Skilldex, have survived the translation relatively untouched.
Karl Burdack: Um, guys? You stole all the stuff I was going to say? Another significant aspect that was improved was Turn Based. We realized that for turn based to work in this squad-based game we would have to change the traditional Fallout Turn Based. But rather than do that (and upset hard core fans), we added both the traditional Individual Turn Based, and the new Squad Turn Based. And of course we also created CTB.
IGNPC: Obviously a big part of the game is the multiplayer experience. What are you looking at for multiplayer options?
Tony Oakden: One thing we have pretty much decided is NO RESPAWING. This is actually a really big decision but it just makes no sense in a squad-based game. It also means that there is a real sense of consequence whenever you advance a guy. Once all your guys are dead that's it! On the other hand you have six guys in your squad, so when one dies you have more to fall back on. Assault is currently the best we've tested. The game lends itself very well to this. Capture the Flag also works well. A straight skirmish tends to be a bit tedious cos of the line of site code making it difficult to find your opponent so we have added the twist that the players have to scavenge for items. This means you can set up an ambush. Some people are complaining about camping. I think they are missing the point! Camping is an art form is used properly.
Ed Orman: The basic play styles are Assault and Skirmish, and we're developing two other modes for variation, and maps to support them. The temptation is to pack in as many different modes as possible, because it's very easy to modify a rule slightly and come up with an entirely different way to play the game. We've had to rein that in and concentrate on the four main modes, so instead we've tried to fill out the options screen so that the host can customize the game as much as possible.
One interesting option is the Friendly Fire slider, which sets the percentage of damage your characters can inflict on each other. Avoiding friendly fire is a tactic in itself, but we felt some people who were newer to the game might feel the need to get rid of it while they found their feet.
Karl Burdack: There are countless different tactics to use in multiplayer, and on top of this you have different maps and game options that modify those tactics. We are also releasing the map editors, which should make things very interesting.
IGNPC: Let's cover the two basics everybody wants to know: what are the system requirements and when is the game going to be released?
Karl Burdack: Requires Pentium II 300, 64MB RAM, and a 4MB PCI or AGP Graphics Card. 700MB HDD space minimum. The game will be released first Quarter. That means before the end of March.
IGNPC: So what's next for Micro Forte? What else are you currently working on?
Tony Oakden: We are currently developing the Phoenix 2 engine for use in a new project. I can't say very much about it except that its tile based, sits on top of the existing combat engine and won't work without hardware support. We're not ready to talk about the next game yet though.
Karl Burdack: We're going through a lot of thinking about new technology, and what we want to do better on future games. I've been doing a lot of research into scripting languages. I would like to see our future titles be more customizable by releasing a lot of our source code as scripts (following the lead of games like Quake and Unreal). Online modding communities play an ever-growing role, and are a strong consideration for any future titles.
IGNPC: And finally, Trent was known as a pretty big drinker around here at IGN. On a scale of 1-10, how would he rate against you Aussies?
Trent Ward: Thanks for coming out for the interview guys, that's all the time we have right now?
Tony Oakden: I'm not an Aussie but against the Aussies I know I'd say; Spirits 8, Beer 4. He's a good laugh on a night out though.
Ed Orman: I haven't had a chance to find out, but I will . . . oh yes, I will . . .
Karl Burdack: I've yet to see him prove himself worthy.
Parrish Rodgers: He would rate a big fat "0" We all went out after work to have a few drinks last week. I and was driving Trent home at 11:30 hahahaha can't hold his beer. Though in his defence he said he had a toothache hehe.
Trent Ward: If IGN ever decides to do an expose on the ugly dark underbelly of art design, just let me know. All of the sudden I feel a strong urge to help you unveil Parrish's sinister (and frankly vile) background?
-- Tal Blevins
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