July 11, 2013 at 19:09History of the creation of BioForge
- Transfer
I continue the series of articles “History of Creation” and today I will talk about the game BioForge.
The plot of the game is pretty banal - the main character, who has lost his memory, found himself on an unknown planet, not knowing what to do next. However, for Origin, this was a “completely new idea”, as stated by the project manager, lead programmer and producer Ken Demarest, and that symbolically, at the beginning of the development of the game, the team, like the main character, had no idea about further purposes.
In addition to the plot, the project was developed as a revolutionary gaming technology. But what if we take and use a new technology called “texture mapping” and combine it with 3D characters, animations and decorations? What would it look like? No one has seen this before, so we had a large field for experiment. But in the end it turned out to be a world where there is Lex, Dr. Mastaba and Reticulum.
Working for Origin Systems, which has released games such as Ultima, Wing Commander and Crusader, Demarest has been the leader of a team known for its passion for innovative technology. “We just didn't think about risk,” he said. “Artists, programmers, designers all worked for the benefit of creating and testing new technologies. Everyone was so passionate that they even worked at night. ”
Initially, the game BioForge was called Interactive Movie 1 and Origin planned to release a series of games under this name. However, the development of the game dragged on for two whole years, although it was originally planned to complete it in a year (Mark Hamill and his game Wing Commander III forced to postpone the development of BioForge). “At that time, technology was my main hobby,” recalls Demarest. “I think it’s safe to say that BioForge should have greatly changed ideas about technology, the presentation of the plot and the genre as a whole. At that time, no one knew what "interactive cinema" was, so BioForge was able to become a real breakthrough, unlike games released today. And personally, I saw the term “interactive cinema” as a marketing move. ”
It has been 18 years since the release of the game, but so far the technological part of the game is admirable, especially considering the fact that most of it was written personally by the team. “I created the whole animation system from scratch,” Demarest explains. “Then there simply wasn’t the necessary 3D engine that would support the type of animation we needed and that would not cost fabulous money, so I had to do it myself.
It was unprofitable to use capture with the help of optics - expensive, slow and inaccurate, therefore, taking the Flock of birds electromagnetic suit as a basis, I created my own. The result was real-time capture technology that six years later became known as motion-capture and became the industry standard. ”
The only drawback of the system is the stiffness of the character’s movements, which was very successfully explained by various experiments on his body. “We dressed people in a suit and in real time watched their movements on completely rendered heroes; even a cybernetic predator was portrayed by a man, waving his hands like a tail. When we first created this system and for the first time saw the characters on the screen, everyone just went crazy! It was awesome, no one had seen anything like it. Demarest planned to develop the animation system even more, and perhaps that is why the combat system in the final version turned out to be very uncomfortable. “I remember how I wanted to make difficult team battles, but it was too much - this was only implemented in the Havok physics engine!”
The combat system is surprisingly similar to the model in the games of the Alone in The Dark series. Most likely, it was a forced compromise, due to the complex animation system. “One moment was an unpleasant surprise for us: it was very difficult to determine whether a character is looking (deployed) at the enemy or not. Lex could deviate by 50-60 degrees, but often the player simply did not understand this! The key to success is letting Lex stop to auto-target the enemy. If you constantly press the buttons, it will simply strike past the enemy. " Nevertheless, if hand-to-hand combat required dexterity, the shootings were simply an incredible, but painstaking, achievement - after all, the laser beams ricocheted off the walls in real time. “It all started with one puzzle: if Lex is ambushed in the elevator, the outcome is one - they shoot at you and you die.
Beautiful graphics are now a thing of the past, but the game itself is endlessly exciting: thanks to the abundance of journal entries, our hero will learn step by step the true reasons for his abduction. Meanwhile, the bio-modified character learns that his name is Lex (despite the fact that he is called the Experimental Object AR-127 in the game) and he became a victim of the experiment of the mad scientist Dr. Mastaba, and he needs to save humanity from destruction.
Strictly speaking, Lex looks disgusting. “Disgusting? I think that he has some kind of futuristic charm, ”Demarest objects. “In a couple of hundred years, everyone will be biomodified, so it's worth starting to get used to the new look!” But seriously, Lex appears both as a hero and as an antihero, surrounded by ambiguity and ambiguity, opposing his fears. Lex is a kind of prism through which the player explores and perceives the gloomy world of BioForge. In the game, he connects humanity and aliens, and in the same way connects the player and the new reality. ”
The game is full of amazing details and scenes, especially the moment at the beginning of the game, when Lex beats a cyborg named Kanean with his cut off hand, is especially remembered. “This moment was remembered by many - such a good black humor!” - laughs Demarest. Subsequently, the gloomy and heavy tone of the narrative of the game is periodically diluted with such episodes, which vary from affectation to surrealism. “When the game scenario became absurd, we sought to make this absurdity play into our hands. Anyone who finds himself in a similar situation, like Lex, would behave outside the limits of what is permissible, especially at the moments on which his life depends. ”
Demarest noted his favorite scene in the game - a conversation with one of the "patients" of Dr. Mastaba on the operating table; this moment is one of the determining factors for what Lex will eventually become at the end of the game. “I always loved this moment - oppressive, painful - perhaps cliche, and nonetheless. I am very grateful to the screenwriter Jack Herman, he perfectly felt the gloomy and artsy nature of BioForge. I also really like that feeling of relief at the end of the game, when Lex flies through the transport channels of aliens, as well as when he finds reflective armor (also a technological novelty), and real power becomes visible.
If the story of the game is worth criticizing, then only for a hasty and somewhat incomprehensible ending. Demarest, however, objects: “The sworn enemy, Dr. Mastaba, should be seen as transcending the limits of human nature. In another world, Lex’s superpowers seem to be a blessing rather than a cross on his humanity. "Their relationship remains unclear and the ending should have smoothly prepared us for the continuation of the game, which never came out." There were two options for Bioforge 2 during the life of the project: at first, a full sequel was conceived, but then it became an addition called BioForge Plus (an introductory video for which can be viewed on YouTube ). Unfortunately, Demarest did not directly participate in any of the projects.
Demarest notes: “I can only express the opinion of an outside observer. When we finished BioForge, I noticed that a crazy invention called the Internet came true. As a hardcore roleplayer - and I was the technical director of Ultima VII - I tried to convince Origin and EA that it was time to focus on the network game in Ultima. However, they had no confidence in the project, so I left and founded a new company to develop online video games, and just then the development of BioForge 2 began.
Does BioForge have a future? “I believe that you can quite successfully port the project to iPhone, but it would be better to completely redesign the concept of the game,” says Demarest. Currently, he acts as a technology consultant for MMO games and is still obsessed with advanced technology. “BioForge was an innovative project and in the same way I’m doing real-time ray tracing technology, add to this movement based on the laws of physics - you can create incredibly realistic characters! Plus, the innovative Ai will allow characters to interact with the player on a new level, which means that the possibilities are truly endless. "
Many games that Demarest worked on, including Wing Commander and Ultima VII, are now considered classics, while the BioForge game, on the contrary, is almost forgotten. We must pay tribute to Demarest that he is clearly convinced that this game is probably his most ambitious creation. “BioForge was evaluated mainly from a technical point of view, and if I paid the gameplay as much attention as the technological aspect, the game would have been much warmer. Nevertheless, I am proud of my brainchild, and the legacy of BioForge clearly shows the superiority of gameplay over technology. "
The plot of the game is pretty banal - the main character, who has lost his memory, found himself on an unknown planet, not knowing what to do next. However, for Origin, this was a “completely new idea”, as stated by the project manager, lead programmer and producer Ken Demarest, and that symbolically, at the beginning of the development of the game, the team, like the main character, had no idea about further purposes.
In addition to the plot, the project was developed as a revolutionary gaming technology. But what if we take and use a new technology called “texture mapping” and combine it with 3D characters, animations and decorations? What would it look like? No one has seen this before, so we had a large field for experiment. But in the end it turned out to be a world where there is Lex, Dr. Mastaba and Reticulum.
Working for Origin Systems, which has released games such as Ultima, Wing Commander and Crusader, Demarest has been the leader of a team known for its passion for innovative technology. “We just didn't think about risk,” he said. “Artists, programmers, designers all worked for the benefit of creating and testing new technologies. Everyone was so passionate that they even worked at night. ”
Initially, the game BioForge was called Interactive Movie 1 and Origin planned to release a series of games under this name. However, the development of the game dragged on for two whole years, although it was originally planned to complete it in a year (Mark Hamill and his game Wing Commander III forced to postpone the development of BioForge). “At that time, technology was my main hobby,” recalls Demarest. “I think it’s safe to say that BioForge should have greatly changed ideas about technology, the presentation of the plot and the genre as a whole. At that time, no one knew what "interactive cinema" was, so BioForge was able to become a real breakthrough, unlike games released today. And personally, I saw the term “interactive cinema” as a marketing move. ”
It has been 18 years since the release of the game, but so far the technological part of the game is admirable, especially considering the fact that most of it was written personally by the team. “I created the whole animation system from scratch,” Demarest explains. “Then there simply wasn’t the necessary 3D engine that would support the type of animation we needed and that would not cost fabulous money, so I had to do it myself.
It was unprofitable to use capture with the help of optics - expensive, slow and inaccurate, therefore, taking the Flock of birds electromagnetic suit as a basis, I created my own. The result was real-time capture technology that six years later became known as motion-capture and became the industry standard. ”
The only drawback of the system is the stiffness of the character’s movements, which was very successfully explained by various experiments on his body. “We dressed people in a suit and in real time watched their movements on completely rendered heroes; even a cybernetic predator was portrayed by a man, waving his hands like a tail. When we first created this system and for the first time saw the characters on the screen, everyone just went crazy! It was awesome, no one had seen anything like it. Demarest planned to develop the animation system even more, and perhaps that is why the combat system in the final version turned out to be very uncomfortable. “I remember how I wanted to make difficult team battles, but it was too much - this was only implemented in the Havok physics engine!”
The combat system is surprisingly similar to the model in the games of the Alone in The Dark series. Most likely, it was a forced compromise, due to the complex animation system. “One moment was an unpleasant surprise for us: it was very difficult to determine whether a character is looking (deployed) at the enemy or not. Lex could deviate by 50-60 degrees, but often the player simply did not understand this! The key to success is letting Lex stop to auto-target the enemy. If you constantly press the buttons, it will simply strike past the enemy. " Nevertheless, if hand-to-hand combat required dexterity, the shootings were simply an incredible, but painstaking, achievement - after all, the laser beams ricocheted off the walls in real time. “It all started with one puzzle: if Lex is ambushed in the elevator, the outcome is one - they shoot at you and you die.
Beautiful graphics are now a thing of the past, but the game itself is endlessly exciting: thanks to the abundance of journal entries, our hero will learn step by step the true reasons for his abduction. Meanwhile, the bio-modified character learns that his name is Lex (despite the fact that he is called the Experimental Object AR-127 in the game) and he became a victim of the experiment of the mad scientist Dr. Mastaba, and he needs to save humanity from destruction.
Strictly speaking, Lex looks disgusting. “Disgusting? I think that he has some kind of futuristic charm, ”Demarest objects. “In a couple of hundred years, everyone will be biomodified, so it's worth starting to get used to the new look!” But seriously, Lex appears both as a hero and as an antihero, surrounded by ambiguity and ambiguity, opposing his fears. Lex is a kind of prism through which the player explores and perceives the gloomy world of BioForge. In the game, he connects humanity and aliens, and in the same way connects the player and the new reality. ”
The game is full of amazing details and scenes, especially the moment at the beginning of the game, when Lex beats a cyborg named Kanean with his cut off hand, is especially remembered. “This moment was remembered by many - such a good black humor!” - laughs Demarest. Subsequently, the gloomy and heavy tone of the narrative of the game is periodically diluted with such episodes, which vary from affectation to surrealism. “When the game scenario became absurd, we sought to make this absurdity play into our hands. Anyone who finds himself in a similar situation, like Lex, would behave outside the limits of what is permissible, especially at the moments on which his life depends. ”
Demarest noted his favorite scene in the game - a conversation with one of the "patients" of Dr. Mastaba on the operating table; this moment is one of the determining factors for what Lex will eventually become at the end of the game. “I always loved this moment - oppressive, painful - perhaps cliche, and nonetheless. I am very grateful to the screenwriter Jack Herman, he perfectly felt the gloomy and artsy nature of BioForge. I also really like that feeling of relief at the end of the game, when Lex flies through the transport channels of aliens, as well as when he finds reflective armor (also a technological novelty), and real power becomes visible.
If the story of the game is worth criticizing, then only for a hasty and somewhat incomprehensible ending. Demarest, however, objects: “The sworn enemy, Dr. Mastaba, should be seen as transcending the limits of human nature. In another world, Lex’s superpowers seem to be a blessing rather than a cross on his humanity. "Their relationship remains unclear and the ending should have smoothly prepared us for the continuation of the game, which never came out." There were two options for Bioforge 2 during the life of the project: at first, a full sequel was conceived, but then it became an addition called BioForge Plus (an introductory video for which can be viewed on YouTube ). Unfortunately, Demarest did not directly participate in any of the projects.
Demarest notes: “I can only express the opinion of an outside observer. When we finished BioForge, I noticed that a crazy invention called the Internet came true. As a hardcore roleplayer - and I was the technical director of Ultima VII - I tried to convince Origin and EA that it was time to focus on the network game in Ultima. However, they had no confidence in the project, so I left and founded a new company to develop online video games, and just then the development of BioForge 2 began.
Does BioForge have a future? “I believe that you can quite successfully port the project to iPhone, but it would be better to completely redesign the concept of the game,” says Demarest. Currently, he acts as a technology consultant for MMO games and is still obsessed with advanced technology. “BioForge was an innovative project and in the same way I’m doing real-time ray tracing technology, add to this movement based on the laws of physics - you can create incredibly realistic characters! Plus, the innovative Ai will allow characters to interact with the player on a new level, which means that the possibilities are truly endless. "
Many games that Demarest worked on, including Wing Commander and Ultima VII, are now considered classics, while the BioForge game, on the contrary, is almost forgotten. We must pay tribute to Demarest that he is clearly convinced that this game is probably his most ambitious creation. “BioForge was evaluated mainly from a technical point of view, and if I paid the gameplay as much attention as the technological aspect, the game would have been much warmer. Nevertheless, I am proud of my brainchild, and the legacy of BioForge clearly shows the superiority of gameplay over technology. "