Part 8 of a continuing series, where I interview members of the now-defunct but highly influential Looking Glass Studios (1990-2000), which wrote the book on 3D first-person narrative game design throughout the 90s, in such games as Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Thief.
This week is Marc "Mahk" LeBlanc. Marc was a programmer/designer at Looking Glass for most of the company's life, and was one of the major voices in shaping the overarching design aesthetic of the company. This is partially what lead to Marc being a thinker, writer, and educator on game design, developing the MDA framework (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) as a simple tool for creating emergence-centric games. I talk with Marc about his time at Looking Glass, how he remembered dealing with simulation, fiction, and emergence across various projects, and how those lessons and strategies have filtered out into the rest of the games industry after the company folded.
If you ever wanted to know how performance-enhancing drugs can help you in System Shock or what the exact difference is between the design philosophies of Deus Ex and Thief, give it a listen.
Download the podcast here.
If you ever wanted to know how performance-enhancing drugs can help you in System Shock or what the exact difference is between the design philosophies of Deus Ex and Thief, give it a listen.
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npc's with a schedule, i think the first time i experienced that was on arx fatalis. i remember on that on the human level [2nd level?] some of the npcs would be away from their stores and when i would ask them to sell whatever junk i had, they would just say something like "wait until the store is open" or something.
ReplyDeleteits been a while so i can exactly remember the dialogue and stuff, but i do remember this a lot.
anyway, great interviews dude! :)