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Exclusive: Advent Rising Q&A Feature
Derek dela Fuente
28/02/2005
TVG takes a look at the first chapter of an ambitious trilogy...
Advent Rising is the first in a trilogy of games created by US developer Glyphx utilising the Unreal Warfare engine and bringing in the talents of award-winning science fiction author Orson Scott Card. A game of high production values, fast paced action, which we are told will be very similar to the excitement and immersion of a movie - where the player is swept up in a continuously evolving series of sequences and events.
Derek dela Fuente spoke with Donald Mustard, Lead Designer/Director on Advent Rising about the direction of the game, its storyline and exciting elements gamers can look forward to.
TVG: How long has the game been in development and has the concept or design changed in anyway over the last year?
Advent Rising ships in May, at which time it will have been in full development for just over two years. However, the concept for Advent actually originated with my brother Geremy and I back when we were about sixteen years old and weâve been flushing it out ever since.
The core plot of the trilogy has been in place since the very beginning and will remain the backbone of everything that we do. Since its been designed as a trilogy, I spend a lot of time making sure that we are not only consistent with the details of the first Advent game, but that the consistency carries on through the remaining games
TVG: For those not au fait with the game can you tell us what Advent Rising is about â“ the backdrop story and your tasks/objectives?
At the dawn of interstellar reasoning, as the first intelligent races took to the stars and began to interact with each other, they discovered a common thread â“ the legend of an ancient race that would one day âdeliverâ the universe. This race was known as the Humansâ¦
The Seekers alone held the key to the secret of the humans. Humanity did in fact exist, and the Seekers were doing all that they could to eradicate them. Under the guise of âbenevolent exploresâ they spread methodically through out the galaxy destroying all human life they came in contact with.
Consequently, the Seekers did in fact discover many new races and helped introduce them into the galactic arena. This served the Seekers two fold. It allowed them to constantly spread their influence and strengthen their military and civic control of the galaxy, and it allowed them to retain and magnify their image of philanthropic nobility.
The Aurelian culture was rich with tales of humanity. When they were discovered by the Seekers many of their legends rekindled long dormant ideals within the galactic senate.
With the added insight, knowledge, and technology that interstellar society offered the Aurelianâs, it was not long before the Seekers duplicity was discovered. Enraged, the government formed a small covert faction within the Aurelian military to gather as much information about Seeker operations as possible. It was because of this group that Edumea, a small world inhabited by humans, was first discovered and a rescue organized.
With the introduction into the galactic senate close at hand, and the promise of power and wealth looming overhead, many governing Aurelian officials began to doubt the plan to help the humans. They argued that if discovered they would be completely destroyed by the Seekers. It was their opinion that in order to save themselves and insure their place in the senate, their policy on humanity should be to simply look the other way.
With growing dissention within the government it was feared that the Seekers would discover the Aurelianâs plans, and consequently discover the planet of Edumea. Knowing this, the Aurelian head sent a small diplomatic force to Edumea. The humans were to be warned of their plight and aided in any way possible.
As initial steps are being taken toward healing the scars that warfare has left on the battered Edumean civilization, the Aurelians arrive. A diplomatic entourage is quickly formed by the newly established coalition governmentâ”a dozen representatives of humanity to make this pivotal first contact with an alien race. Ethan Wyeth, a world-renowned fighter pilot and war hero is the obvious choice to pilot this vital assembly to first contact. Using his fame and influence, he has his younger brother, Gideon (the player), assigned as co-pilot for the mission. From earliest childhood, Ethan has often relied on his brotherâs level-headedness and clear thinking to support him in unpredictable situations, and this will be no exception.
TVG: Tell us about Gideon Wyeth the main character to the game and what may have inspired this character.
Early on in the game Gideon discovers that to be human means much more than he, or anyone else, ever dreamed. Gideon finds that as he learns to unlock the recesses of his mind he begins to develop strange god-like powers. In the first game, these powers become the backbone of Gideonâs arsenal and include the ability to slow down time, the power to unleash shock waves that will send enemies flying and glass shattering, and the ability to generate protective energy barriers (think Out of this World, only 3-D).
The list goes on. Gideon will receive levitation powers that will allow him to pick up enemies, vehicles, and objects in the world to hurl them around with his brain. This will also give Gideon the ability to suck weapons out of the hands of his enemies. There is nothing cooler than sucking the weapon out of an aliens hands and then blowing it away with its own gun. He will be able to dash at blinding speeds, essentially becoming a blur of light as he ploughs through enemies or zips around them for better positioning. Gideon will also be able to gather the kinetic energy of the world around him and then let loose devastating attacks much like Havok from the X-Men. And there are even moreâ¦
TVG: What do believe makes Advent Rising innovative or indeed interesting?
The entire Advent Trilogy has been designed as if it were an epic film to create a truly cinematic interactive experience. Film-making and storytelling techniques were utilized to create the gameâs unique cinematic look and to evoke a higher level of player emotion not yet accomplished in a video game.
While Adventâs story is paramount, it should never have you putting down the controller. In Advent you will live through the story. We are taking what would normally be cut-scenes and making them playable wherever possible. I want you to be playing through the sequences of a summer blockbuster. Thatâs not to say that there wonât be lots of cut scenes, but they will be punctuations to the action and the pacing, not crutches for bad story telling.
Through the game, players will be thrust into situations where theyâll be forced make choices that effect not only what they experience in Advent Rising, but throughout the entire trilogy. These range from moral decisions to those made in the heat of battle.
TVG: Famed science fiction writer Orson Scott Card is working with the team. What has been his input in terms of gameplay elements created around his story and would the game have been that much different without his input?
Right from the outset we wanted to bring in the help of a professional writer and we were thrilled to have such a prestigious author such as Card on board. As a professional he brought a huge amount of new ideas to the back story and character development. Perhaps the biggest contribution was in creating much of the character dialogue and in directing the voice over recordings. Games rarely involve professionals from other disciplines even though guys like Card are masters of storytelling.
OSC offered not only to develop the back story for the game, but to work with us on creating the script/dialog and directing the voice over sessions. While the bulk of his work on the game has been completed (and might I add is freaking awesome), he and I still have quite a bit of back and forth over little details as we make adjustments and refinements to the pacing and editing of the story. Heâs an amazing resource to have.
He was absolutely the most perfect author to work on the Advent project. The game as it stands already goes far beyond any other in the realm of storytelling, character development, and evoking the emotions of the player and the contributions heâs made will continue to shape the entire trilogy.
TVG: On the outside Advent appears like a typical 3rd person shooter with interesting story but we are sure there is more to it. Can you give us two features that extend the game genre that will interest action players? (The moves and actions you can undertake?)
In Advent, we wanted to provide players with true combat freedom so theyâd have the feeling of becoming a superhero. Youâll start the game off will all the big rocket launchers, microwave guns, and more, but as you play youâll unleash powers within yourself as you become the ultimate weapon. There is nothing quite as satisfying as using your powers to rip a boulder out of the ground and squash some guy with it (unless maybe its yanking a hover tank out of the air and squishing five guys with it)â¦
In order to allow the players to experience this higher level combat, we developed an innovative new combat control scheme called Flick-Targeting. Flick-Targeting is a natural extension of the typical camera stick (right Xbox joystick). As with most 3rd person games, we use this joystick to orbit the camera around Gideon. However, if you flick it in the direction of an enemy (or other selectable object) Gideon will target it. When targeted, all Gideon's movement will be relative to the target (i.e. he will strafe around the target and dodge appropriately), his actions will be directed at the target (he shoots at it, can do special hand to hand finishing moves on it, etc.) and, of course, the camera will lock on to the target. Clicking down on the camera stick will break the lock.
Another major benefit of Flick-Targeting is that it is directional: flicking left picks the next best target to the left on the screen, etc. It also allows the player to rapidly jump between many targets by flicking multiple times. All of this gives you excellent targeting ability during combat against 10+ enemies at once while still having access to nearly every available button on the controller!
Flick-Targeting is an evolutionary step because: one, it frees back up the left trigger button; two, it allows the player to choose a target himself; and three, it frees the player's thumb from resting on the camera stick!
TVG: You are using the Unreal engine. Did you interact with Epic and what elements of the engine impressed you most?
We have worked very closely with Epic over the course of development to ensure that we are taking full advantage of the latest and greatest Unreal code. We chose to use the Unreal engine as Adventâs underlying technology because it was a proven, established engine that multiple titles from multiple genres have used well and successfully. We felt that that the core features of the engine, from its amazing graphical capabilities to its strong AI and physics, would give us the base ingredients we wanted for our game and would allow us to focus completely on Adventâs more unique features and gameplay elements.
TVG: How diverse are the weapons on offer?
Advent features twelve different weapons for you to wield as you pound your way through the game. In addition to this, each weapon has a unique and very cool alternate fire. As if that werenât enough, every weapon in Advent can be dual-wielded. And did I mention that there is also a dedicated button for throwing grenadesâ¦Yeah, we want you to be able to use those whenever you want.
TVG: What kind of rewards are on offer for success and how does telekinesis work for our hero!?
One key feature of Advent is the evolutionary game-play model. The abilities and characteristics of the player evolve as the player progresses through the game, ever widening the scope of solutions to any given problem. Abilities evolve naturally, based on the manner in which the game is played.
For example, the more a player shoots a certain gun, the more accurate that gun will become; the more the player jumps, the higher and farther those jumps will become. There are dozens of these evolving attributes; so, for example, when Jimmy and John finish the game, Jimmyâs character will be dramatically different from Johnâs character. However, the playerâs critical abilities can never fall below the default progression level, so the player can never get stuck because they did not develop a particular skill. Some non-critical powers and skills can be underdeveloped, and some even undiscovered. Any power, though, can be developed well beyond the norm, satisfying players who like to spend time developing characters.
In sequels to the game, the player will have the option to start with a default character or to load in their previous character. This adds a certain depth to the game that will appeal to more hard core gamers while maintaining a simplicity that will not turn away average gamers.
TVG: Some final words.
What fun would it be for us to give you all sorts of neat powers and then not let you use the world as a weapon? You will do everything from ripping boulders out of the ground to hurl at your enemies to punching enemies through fully destructible columns. Need cover? Make some. Are Sentries patrolling along a precarious gantry way? Rip it out from under them. See a group of enemies standing next to a vehicle? Pick it up and drop it on their heads
Weâve designed the environments in Advent to be very diverse and fully interactive. They range from futuristic space stations, to alien-inhabited planets, to your own human planet Edumea, which has already been destroyed by the Seekers.
We are shooting for 12 to 15 hours of game play but what we donât have is levels just for the sake of having more levels. In the end, the game will be as long as it needs to be to tell the story in the most exciting way possible.
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