George Andreas: Senior Designer
George Andreas has worked for Rare since the mid-90s. Among his game design credits with Rare, he lists Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. Most recently, he has been serving as the Senior Designer for Kameo™: Elements of Power™. George agreed to answer a few questions for us about the development of Kameo. He’s got a special view of the process, having been the one to direct it from the ground up.
|
|
|
 If you could be any of the Elemental Warriors or other characters in Kameo, which one would you be, and why?
In many ways, I would like to be them all. This may sound strange but they all have something about them that I empathise with and relate to. Pummel Weed has so much attitude and pent up aggression. Flex is soft and spongy on the outside, but beneath that soft comical exterior he’s a bit of a slapper. His slap storm is one of my favourite moves. Thermite is the smallest warrior by far, but definitely has the most devastating attacks – especially his back blast move!
But if I really had to choose just one, then it would be..? Probably Chilla. Because I could then set up my very own gorilla-gram service.
|
Kameo has a bright future, there’s no doubt. How has your vision for the game changed from when it was first conceived to more recent work done to make it ready for Xbox 360®?
To be totally honest, not that much really. The core concept has always remained the same. Collect monsters (which we now call Warriors) and use their abilities to progress through the game world by fighting and using their individual environmental abilities. So this hasn’t changed. The execution, though, has changed to a degree. One of the things we always wanted to do was create a vast landscape with epic battles. But hardware limitations meant we always had to scale back our ideas to the point where it wasn’t even feasible on the last generations of machines. But the 360 has now allowed us to revisit some of our more ambitious ideas and actually turn them into reality. So the battlefield level is something that just wouldn’t be possible on any previous machine. With the 360, we really are at a point where we can turn some of our more ambitious visions into reality.
Did you have any concerns about switching over to the Xbox 360 platform? If so, what were they and how did you overcome them?
The only real concern was getting a game ready for launch. We had to totally rebuild every single asset. The backgrounds, the characters, the effects everything. Together with getting the game finished to a high enough standard and making sure we got it all working how we expected. So our only real concern was time.
What benefits and frustrations did you have because of Kameo’s extended development period?
The frustrations have long been forgotten now. Having to jump from one platform to another is probably the most frustrating thing any development team would have to go through. Believe it or not, it really eats into actual game development time. Every time we thought we got close to finishing, another giant hurdle appeared. Simply moving the game over to another machine didn’t mean we had plenty of time to redevelop gameplay or implement loads of new features. It was more about having to get everything you’d spent a long time working on converted over to a new machine, and then getting it all to work again! Anyone that has attempted a conversion will know what I mean! It takes a long time. And then having to redo the graphics, the backgrounds, the characters, the props and lighting to suit the new hardware. But overall, I really think the game has benefited from this. We have a very unique product in terms of the way it looks and the way it plays. From a gameplay perspective, we can now realise the battlefield level and support some online features too.
What has been your greatest challenge while working on Kameo?
Having to create 10 very different looking and working characters. The great thing about the game is everyone has their favorite Warriors. But the game is all about personal expression to a degree and giving the player a choice in how they combat certain scenarios and situations. People find they mould their own personalities around he warriors and end up creating their own fighting style. I thought this was all in my head, until I watched other people play the game. They all play it very differently. Obviously there are fight puzzles that can only be resolved using a particular warrior, but its how each player uses that warrior to accomplish the task that makes the game fresh and interesting.
What has been your greatest joy?
Hasn’t really happened yet. It will be when the game is on the shop shelf.
Continue to Part 2...