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Exclusive: Carve Q&A Feature
Derek dela Fuente
07/01/2004
We chat to the guys at Argonaut about their forthcoming Xbox Live! water racer...
You can count on one hand successful water based racing games and only one title springs to mind, Powerboats from Interplay. Put together one of the worldâs premier publishers â“ Take2Games - with world acclaim Britsoft developer â“ Argonaut - and you could well see an aquatic game of note. We interviewed Casper Field, the Producer, to find out the aspirations and inspiration for Carve.
Watercraft racer Carve on Microsoft's Xbox is certainly very focused on some nifty techniques. Skimming across the waves like a cruise missile and packing an equally powerful punch, Carve combines the liquid physics of its environment-mapped bump-mapping (EMBM) system with trick heavy ramp action.
Compete on one of 27 globe-spanning tracks that take in locations as diverse as Thailand, Iceland, Amsterdam and the Grand Canyon. Earn your water wings and then attempt to master the ultimate challenge of the Steel Ocean. But first, you've got to decide who you're going to ride as. Max - rich boy gone bad - or perhaps the allure of ice maiden cum water babe Amiko is more to your liking? Fuel inject another six wetsuit wonders into the mix (Adrienne, Moke, Oz, Nikolai, Elena and Mizuki) and prepare for a multiplayer massacre. The game supports four-way split screen races, or eight player contests via Xbox Live, along with a team-based co-op mode that allows you to hinder other riders while giving your partner a chance to be first across the line.
TVG: What has inspired the game and why an aquatic setting?
Casper Field: We love racing games and someone asked us to make one, so we leapt at the chance! That they wanted a racing game on water made it more of a challenge, both design-wise and code-wise... But it was a challenge we couldn't resist!
TVG: A game based on water, considering the market and trends, and the fact I can't think of any really big aquatic titles, why this theme and why have you chosen the Xbox?
CF: The racing game genre is... well, it's kinda crowded, and Carve definitely stands out from the pack in that sense. Much more important, however, is that making a water-based racer opens up so many opportunities. Fundamentally, the course surface is constantly changing, moving, setting you a new challenge while you race, which is very cool.
Xbox was a) the choice of our publisher, and b) an amazing machine to develop for. It's very powerful, has the hard drive (which we use to cache the levels on, giving 2-3 second reload times), has great audio and video - and it has Live. As people who love racing games, making one that's also online has been like having a dream come true (albeit a dream that took a lot of hard work!)
TVG: Can you give the readers the basic premise to the game and what the overall tasks and objectives are?
CF: Carve offers five main tournaments, which unlock a variety of goodies. When you first play the game you have the basic craft, two courses, one tournament, the training mode... and that's it. By the time you reach the end, you'll have three grades of craft, 27 courses, 32 extra tricks, 5 secrets, and will have completed another four tournaments. We worked hard to make sure gamers won 'real' extra content, not just reversals of courses or other 'cheap' extras.
TVG: Argonaut has no real history of games based on and around water so how hard has it been to ensure you get things spot on and how faithfully are you trying to create the game in terms of propulsion on the water - the full water experience and all the particle effects that will go along with it?
CF: It's fair to say that very few developers have experience of making games on water - and you're right, that's because it's very hard to get right. Carve is packed with fantastic features to make sure the water really hits the mark, for both gameplay and technology. There are three main features that make it happen:
Dynamic and designer-controllable waves, which means we can drop multiple wave 'boxes' in our editor to create overlapping, natural wave patterns quickly and easily. This means that we're able to create a lot of gameplay variety through the courses.
Environment-mapped bump-mapping, which makes that amazing ripple on the water surface. Basically we take a snapshot of the game every single frame, do funky stuff with it on the graphics chip, and blend it into four layers of moving bump-map. And it looks superb.
Last but by no means least is the way we build the water surface itself, which uses a dynamic polygon grid... So basically wherever the water needs to look smoother it just adds more polygons, on its own, no worries.
TVG: Please describe the watercraft - how easy it will be to control, what characteristics it has, and can you improve it in any way throughout the game?
CF: As one of the team who spent several (very cold) days falling off watercraft into an English lake, I can confidently say that we put a lot of effort into making the game have a great handling feel. I think that Gran Turismo remains a great lesson in how to make good handling: make a good physics system and then make it as forgiving as possible without losing the depth, without killing the challenge. That was our target in Carve. The craft are affected by movement over a wave, accelerating down into troughs. Pulling back on the stick adds drag and slows you down, but allows faster turns, like a real watercraft. And sitting the wake of another craft will slow you down because the water is pumped full of turbulence. So Carve is full of lessons learnt from reality - but not limited by reality. If that makes sense...!
TVG: Who are you racing against and how do the AI competitors present a challenge? What kind of difficulty levels will there be along with progression?
CF: Carve has this cool, innovative feature called 'Team AI'. Basically, including the player, there are eight characters in the race, but you're not racing against seven other riders - you're racing against three teams of two characters each, plus your teammate. Each team has a specific riding style: more tricks, sharper lines, more ramming, and more blocking. One teammate will, if you're riding with her, even surrender first place to let you win. Others use their craft's wake to create turbulence in the water and slow you down, glancing over their shoulders when you draw near. It's incredible to see it in action.
TVG: There are 27 settings. What are some of the locations and how pertinent to the locations will be the challenge?
CF: There are four main areas in the game: Europe, Arctic, USA and Pacific. Within each of these are six courses, four of which are completely unique and the other two are extensions (big extensions). In terms of how each related to the progression, the courses are really varied by their water set-up. We have a brilliant feature that allows us to create 'steps' in the water height, so there are both soaring waterfalls (USA) and nimble leaps (Europe) to pull tricks over. The Arctic levels have ocean rollers, the Pacific has both open seas and tight caves to roar through. There's a massive variety in there to discover and some secret extras, too!)
TVG: What games modes are on offer and what do you see as the most innovative feature of the game?
CF: Carve is packed with innovations, from the dynamic buoy lock-on that guides you around the course to the Team AI that delivers a challenging set of opponents to race with. In terms of game modes, you get Arcade (for one to four players), which includes the 'Trick Rank' sub-game (try to score a 'S' ranking for doing tricks on every level!), Tutorial, Tournament, System Link and Xbox Live. The last two also have the 'TeamPlay' co-operative racing mode, which shares penalties and points between two human players, which is superb fun.
Personally, although the buoy lock-on (in design terms) comes close to being my favourite, I can't help but love the 'Trick Rush' feature. Instead of simply accumulating boost that's earned by doing tricks (a la SSX), you get it delivered the instant you stop doing the trick, slamming your character forward around the track. The bigger the trick, the bigger the boost - but bigger tricks take more skill.
TVG: Back to the original point. Why do you feel that aquatic games have had limited success and how do you hope to create excitement and interest, in the game genre, to gee up the lethargic gamer?
CF: Well, Wave Race 64 sold a lot of copies - several million in fact - and deservedly so! With the Live features and so much that's cool, we think that Carve is stacked with the right features to succeed. More than that, though, we think that Carve has a really exuberant feel to it, and the energy of the game will carry you along. It's full of interesting ideas that take both the racing and racing-on-water genres and shake them up. We had a lot of fun making Carve, and we think that comes through when you play it - it's brimming over with love!
TVG: Sum up the experience in one sentence.
CF: Carve packs a serious punch: extreme tricks, entertaining and competitive racing, engaging water and handling physics, all backed up by eight player Live gaming. Howzat?
TVG would like to thank Casper for taking the time to answer our questions and wish the team all the best; weâll have a closer look at Carve soon.
