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Draft:Chris Sorrell: Difference between revisions
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==Interviews== | ==Interviews== | ||
===[[MediEvil EU site]]=== | |||
====1998{{Siteref|MED-EU-Site|english/sorcerers/sorcerers_chris_1.html|Sorcerers - Chris Sorrell}}==== | |||
*'''Education''': Usual school qualifications, but (to the horror of my parents!) I left as soon as I could to pursue a career in games. | |||
*'''Joined Millenium/Sony''': July 1994 | |||
*'''Colour of Socks''': Black… Like most of my clothes | |||
=====JAMES POND===== | |||
'''What do you do?'''<br />On MediEvil my official title is producer, but I was also responsible for the initial design concept. As the project progressed I became increasingly involved in its programming side too. By the end of the project this was the main thing occupying my time. | |||
'''What's your background?'''<br />I've been working in games for about nine years now. I started off working for a small development company called Vectordean, in Derbyshire (where I grew up). There were only three of us to begin with and my initial work was as a graphic artist. After a couple of projects, I went on to the thing I really wanted to do, which was programming. After a simple conversion title, my first 'big' project was James Pond, for which I handled design, graphics and programming. James Pond 2 and 3 followed, before I left the fish behind and moved on to the PlayStation. | |||
'''How old were you when you started making games?'''<br />From the time I was given my first computer (an Atari 400) when I was 11, I knew that I wanted to make games. Atari BASIC wasn't great for this however, so I moved on from the Atari to a Commodore 64. I taught myself assembly language, and spend all my spare time writing pieces of game and demo code (and creating fonts and sprites to use in these). By the time I had done my GCSEs and had by this time moved on to the Amiga, I took the first opportunity to leave school and take some practical steps towards my goal! | |||
=====STANDARD IN POLISH===== | |||
'''What games do you like to Play?'''<br />My favourite genres are action adventures, platform games, and action RPGs. There are some great examples of these genres on PlayStation - my favourites would certainly include Resident Evil 1 and 2. I also have a lot of admiration for the Crash Bandicoot games - they set a standard in polish and graphical quality that's quite remarkable. | |||
'''When you designed Medievil, what area did you start with?'''<br />Its inspirations were the arcade classic Ghouls'n'Ghosts, and the art style of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. This set the look and feel for the game, which meant the next big step was to build up our gameplay and visual ideas, striving for a combination that would set the game apart from the crowd and make good use of the target platform. | |||
'''At present, is it pretty much how you envisaged it?'''<br />Visually, it's certainly all I hoped it would be. On the design front, things have shifted away from the simple arcade feel to offer a more involved, quest based structure containing a real mix of gameplay styles, and certainly greater diversity in play than I had initially anticipated… It's certainly a more complex and larger scale project than I first envisaged! | |||
'''How many people worked on the project?'''<br />The core team consisted of around 10 people, 4 programmers, 5 artists and 1 mapper but there have been a number of extra people working on the project at various times during development. In addition, our internal A/V team were responsible for all the music and sound effects, our technologies department offered general support, and several vital development tools, and our QA group provided all important testing and feedback, helping us to bring all the elements together. So, all in all it's been a pretty big project. | |||
=====LATE NIGHTS===== | |||
'''What was your working schedule like during Medievil?'''<br />Pretty crazy (or sad, depending how you look at things!)… Since December '96, I've worked pretty much every day including weekends, working late on most. Most of the core team have invested many long hours and late nights into the project. | |||
My favourite time to work has been weekends. It's quiet, no other office duties to worry about, and a great chance to put some music on and get absorbed in some programming work, usually until four or five in the morning… Fortunately my girlfriend, being part of the team, has been very understanding of all this. We're looking forward to a nice break now things are complete! | |||
'''What's the game's camera system like?'''<br />A big challenge of the game has been the camera, our goals being a system allowing the player the freedom to explore, offering a clear enough view to counter attacks from all sides, and allowing for cinematic and interesting views. We started with a purely spline based system (like Pandemonium, but with full 3d freedom). Unfortunately this proved to be rather inadequate for the game we wanted to make, and we lost quite a bit of time reworking things to enable a freeform 'chase' style camera. The final game uses a mixture of spline and chase camera styles, and I believe meets the initial goals pretty well, especially considering the complexity of the worlds it has to work within. | |||
=====DIVERSITY===== | |||
'''In the game what is your favourite part?'''<br />I'm really pleased with the diversity of the game - all the levels are very individual, both graphically and gameplay wise. There are also plenty of weapons and enemies, and so quite a few different ways that the player can tackle the game. Also, Medievil doesn't take itself too seriously - it has a sense of humour, offering some genuinely funny moments, something not often found in an action game.<br />If I had to name a single favourite part, it would have to be the final showdown with the evil sorcerer Zarok. This is a pretty unique blend of action, humour and wacky ideas that define the game very well, and should offer a few surprises to the player! | |||
=====FORTY HOURS===== | |||
'''How long do you think it will take to get through the entire game?'''<br />It's hard to say. We've got people in QA who know everything there is to know about the game and it takes them about four to five hours of solid play to get through. First time, it will take people a lot more than that, probably between twenty and forty hours. | |||
===Retro Gamer=== | ===Retro Gamer=== | ||
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====December 14, 2017==== | ====December 14, 2017==== | ||
{{cite web|site=Push Square|title=Interview: MediEvil Creators Give Their Verdict on the Forthcoming PS4 Remaster|published=December 14, 2017|url=http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/12/interview_medievil_creators_give_their_verdict_on_the_forthcoming_ps4_remaster}} | {{cite web|site=Push Square|title=Interview: MediEvil Creators Give Their Verdict on the Forthcoming PS4 Remaster|published=December 14, 2017|url=http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/12/interview_medievil_creators_give_their_verdict_on_the_forthcoming_ps4_remaster}} | ||
==Trivia== | ==Trivia== | ||
*Chris is married to [[Katie Lea]]. | *Chris is married to [[Katie Lea]]. | ||