![]() The problem was increasing like a fractal, and was rendered almost impossibly more complicated by the fact that I had recklessly decided early on that each of the Bots would have a series of different moods and behaviors, each of which had to be covered for any given situation. This all got coded into the game, and again it wasn't remotely enough. ![]() So we started on a second, much, much deeper and longer set of scripts to cover what we had overlooked, and got the actors in again, this time to record reams and reams of sentences, phrases, words, numbers, names, burps, sneezes and names of chicken recipes. For every input line we had thought of there were ninety-nine we hadn't. ![]() We brought in actors to record the lines, programmed them into the game and tested it to see how it worked. We started very simply, sketching out some of the things that we imagined a player might think of saying to the characters and what the characters should say in response. Neil knew little about computers and was therefore easily fooled into taking on the task of managing and editing the dialogue, a job that dominated his life for the next year. Michael is an old friend who had already worked with me sketching out the structure of the game. Clearly the task was beyond the scope of any one person and we recruited a small team of dialogue writers to work with me, including Neil Richards and Michael Bywater. In fact, everybody whose advice we sought said we couldn't do it and would be mad to even attempt it. Nothing on this scale had ever been attempted in a computer game before. Probably the biggest task, certainly the biggest leap into the unknown, was handling the language interaction. We had no idea well, certainly I had no idea of the scale of the enterprise we were undertaking. The only surprising thing about ours being late is that we were surprised by it. Its because its a bloody CD-ROM, that's why. That and the long nights they've all spent sleeping on couches or floors around the office, living off coffee, cold pizza and crumbs of encouragement from people like me saying Do you think the parrot might look better in green? They're all brilliant heroes, I salute them, and I'm not at all surprised they don't want to see me this week.Ī lot of people have been saying to me, with worried, searching looks, How come the CD-ROM is six months late? The answer is very simple. So my habit of wandering in and saying, Hey, heres a great idea, why don't we put in a bit where.? is beginning to get to them. They are chasing down the very last of the bugs, making sure that the cursors all point the right way, and that there are no hitherto unnoticed glitches in the control interface. We are about two days from final delivery of the game. ![]() I'm not allowed into the programmers room any more. ![]()
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