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{{Infobox personnel | {{Infobox personnel | ||
|image= | |image = | ||
|caption=[[Chris Sorrell]] in ''The Making of MediEvil'' video. | |caption=[[Chris Sorrell]] in ''The Making of MediEvil'' video. | ||
|medievil= Game Concept / Direction<br>Main Programming<br>Producer | |medievil= Game Concept / Direction<br>Main Programming<br>Producer | ||
|resurrection= Original ''MediEvil'' Design | |resurrection= Original ''MediEvil'' Design | ||
}} | }}'''Chris Sorrell''' is a veteran video game developer and former producer at Sony Computer Entertainment. | ||
==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=== | ||
====March 27, 2008==== | ====March 27, 2008==== | ||
{{cite web|site=The Mean Machines Archive|title=Retro Gamer - The Making of... MediEvil|type=PDF file|published=March 27, 2008|url=http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/upload/media/scans/medievil_retrogamer.pdf}} | *{{cite web|site=The Mean Machines Archive|title=Retro Gamer - The Making of... MediEvil|type=PDF file|published=March 27, 2008|url=http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/upload/media/scans/medievil_retrogamer.pdf}} | ||
===Behind the Classics: MediEvil=== | ===Behind the Classics: MediEvil=== | ||
====September 7, 2012<sup><ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/09/07/behind-the-classics-medievil/|site=PlayStation.Blog|title=Behind the Classics: MediEvil|author=Fred Dutton|published=September 7, 2012}}</ref></sup>==== | ====September 7, 2012<sup><ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/09/07/behind-the-classics-medievil/|site=PlayStation.Blog|title=Behind the Classics: MediEvil|author=Fred Dutton|published=September 7, 2012}}</ref></sup>==== | ||
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'''Chris Sorrell''': ''[[MediEvil]]'' presented a real mountain of challenges. The game started life as a project of a small, cash-strapped independent developer – [[Millennium Interactive]]. In addition to bringing together a brand new team – none of whom had really made a 3D game of this scale before – we were in ‘sell’ mode almost from day one, with the future of the studio riding on our ability to attract a major publishing deal as quickly as possible. | '''Chris Sorrell''': ''[[MediEvil]]'' presented a real mountain of challenges. The game started life as a project of a small, cash-strapped independent developer – [[Millennium Interactive]]. In addition to bringing together a brand new team – none of whom had really made a 3D game of this scale before – we were in ‘sell’ mode almost from day one, with the future of the studio riding on our ability to attract a major publishing deal as quickly as possible. | ||
We were initially working on multiple platforms including Windows and Sega Saturn as well as PlayStation before we finally had the chance to demo the game for Sony. Thankfully that was probably our best pitch ever: SCEE had some really inspiring people in management, they loved ''MediEvil'', and within a few weeks we were signed to make an exclusive | We were initially working on multiple platforms including Windows and Sega Saturn as well as PlayStation before we finally had the chance to demo the game for Sony. Thankfully that was probably our best pitch ever: SCEE had some really inspiring people in management, they loved ''MediEvil'', and within a few weeks we were signed to make an exclusive PlayStation game. In a few more months we became [[SCE Cambridge Studio|Sony’s second studio in the UK]]. | ||
Of course another layer of challenge came from the fact that, like most other developers at that time, we were still feeling our way with 3D. Things like camera and character control presented a lot of interesting new challenges and required us to try out a number of approaches before we settled on solutions that seemed to work. | Of course another layer of challenge came from the fact that, like most other developers at that time, we were still feeling our way with 3D. Things like camera and character control presented a lot of interesting new challenges and required us to try out a number of approaches before we settled on solutions that seemed to work. | ||
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'''CS''' - That was a little extra added by one of the level programmers (Matt Johnston). There's a rock jutting out of the pond in the village and the idea was that if you stood there for a moment or two the game would start to spawn ducks swimming across the pond that you could shoot with a ranged weapon. I don't recall exactly why it didn't make the final cut. Most likely there were just too many other things to finish and debug. Shame - I love little easter eggs like this! | '''CS''' - That was a little extra added by one of the level programmers (Matt Johnston). There's a rock jutting out of the pond in the village and the idea was that if you stood there for a moment or two the game would start to spawn ducks swimming across the pond that you could shoot with a ranged weapon. I don't recall exactly why it didn't make the final cut. Most likely there were just too many other things to finish and debug. Shame - I love little easter eggs like this! | ||
'''3) '''An in-game model of the exterior of the [[Inside | '''3) '''An in-game model of the exterior of the [[Inside The Asylum|Asylum]] is featured within the prototype; | ||
{{clear}} | {{clear}} | ||
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'''CS''' - That's really part of the grander notion that we originally had for the Asylum - that you'd complete the maze and then go inside, playing a side-viewed platform section as Morten. That platform section never materialized, and we ended up almost having to cut the Asylum interior altogether - until we realized that we could pretty easily create those 'Smash TV' style attack rooms that we finally shipped with. ...Sometimes you put a lot of effort into something and it doesn't pan out and other times something really simple to create totally pays off as those I think those rooms did. | '''CS''' - That's really part of the grander notion that we originally had for the Asylum - that you'd complete the maze and then go inside, playing a side-viewed platform section as Morten. That platform section never materialized, and we ended up almost having to cut the Asylum interior altogether - until we realized that we could pretty easily create those 'Smash TV' style attack rooms that we finally shipped with. ...Sometimes you put a lot of effort into something and it doesn't pan out and other times something really simple to create totally pays off as those I think those rooms did. | ||
'''4)''' This is a bit of an oddball; there's a message in the beginning of the [[The Graveyard | '''4)''' This is a bit of an oddball; there's a message in the beginning of the [[The Graveyard|Graveyard]] level which talks about "visitors from space in sci-fi movies and how genetic cloning is making Mary Shelley's Frankenstein closer to reality"; | ||
{{clear}} | {{clear}} | ||
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'''2)''' This question is just related to an image in ''MediEvil 1'', which is found in the "[[The Gallows Gauntlet|Gallows Gauntlet]]" stage; | '''2)''' This question is just related to an image in ''MediEvil 1'', which is found in the "[[The Gallows Gauntlet|Gallows Gauntlet]]" stage; | ||
{{clear}} | {{clear}} | ||
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'''5) '''Also, I have question about a character called "[[Uncle Mad]]" who can be found in Sleeping Village in the prototype; | '''5) '''Also, I have question about a character called "[[Uncle Mad]]" who can be found in Sleeping Village in the prototype; | ||
{{clear}} | {{clear}} | ||
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I don't know if every one of those ideas would have stuck had I directed M2 myself, but I passed them all over to James Shepherd during a couple of meetings we had at the start of the project. After the first such meeting a couple of things we'd been discussing clicked together and I went into the second session with a sketch of Dan's head atop one of the severed hands - the basis for [[Dan-hand]]. | I don't know if every one of those ideas would have stuck had I directed M2 myself, but I passed them all over to James Shepherd during a couple of meetings we had at the start of the project. After the first such meeting a couple of things we'd been discussing clicked together and I went into the second session with a sketch of Dan's head atop one of the severed hands - the basis for [[Dan-hand]]. | ||
James ran with the ideas and - of course - introduced many of his own. Jason was involved too, although I don't know how he and James worked together. Overall I liked most of what they came up with for M2, although I disliked the [[Winston, the Help Ghost|squeaky voiced helper ghost]], and definitely in places the game's humour crossed a line for me from the silly/bawdy tone we had in M1 to something a little too puerile for my liking! (I guess the [[Professor ]] embodied a lot of that.) I would also have definitely kept the [[Hall of Heroes]] since I always thought that was one of the more distinctive presentational mechanics we created in M1, oh and Dan's voice was *horrible* - incoherent mumbling was a far better way to go! | James ran with the ideas and - of course - introduced many of his own. Jason was involved too, although I don't know how he and James worked together. Overall I liked most of what they came up with for M2, although I disliked the [[Winston, the Help Ghost|squeaky voiced helper ghost]], and definitely in places the game's humour crossed a line for me from the silly/bawdy tone we had in M1 to something a little too puerile for my liking! (I guess the [[Professor]] embodied a lot of that.) I would also have definitely kept the [[Hall of Heroes]] since I always thought that was one of the more distinctive presentational mechanics we created in M1, oh and Dan's voice was *horrible* - incoherent mumbling was a far better way to go! | ||
On balance I was probably more in tune with what they did in M2 than the changes that were made in MPSP. | On balance I was probably more in tune with what they did in M2 than the changes that were made in MPSP. | ||
===RETRO=== | ===RETRO=== | ||
====July 25, 2015==== | ====July 25, 2015==== | ||
{{cite web|site=gamesTM|title=RETRO - Behind the scenes of MediEvil|type=PDF file|published=July 25, 2015|url=https://www.gamestm.co.uk/features/behind-the-scenes-of-medievil/}} | *{{cite web|site=gamesTM|title=RETRO - Behind the scenes of MediEvil|type=PDF file|published=July 25, 2015|url=https://www.gamestm.co.uk/features/behind-the-scenes-of-medievil/}} | ||
===Push Square=== | ===Push Square=== | ||
====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}} | ||
===PREVIEWSworld=== | |||
====September 17, 2019==== | |||
*{{cite web|site=PREVIEWSworld|title=Dead Man Dan Returns In MediEvil Graphic Novel|published=September 17, 2019|url= https://previewsworld.com/Article/234752-Dead-Man-Dan-Returns-In-MediEvil-Graphic-Novel}} | |||
===MediEvil Madness Facebook Q&A=== | |||
====December 9, 2019==== | |||
'''Q. Why isn’t the comic longer?''' | |||
'''A.''' We had a very limited page count, primarily due to the time available and the crazy amount of work for one person to draw and color it, not to mention the additional animation requirements for the digital version. Despite that I wanted to try and tell a worthwhile story and to pack as much as we could into the constrained space. Honestly - we would have loved for it to be longer, but as it is I have to stress just how hard Jason worked on this. It’s amazing that he created as much glorious looking artwork as he did in the time! | |||
'''Q. Why is Canny Tim now a girl?''' | |||
'''A'''. Well obviously the idea is that she always was, but was just hiding the fact in order to fight alongside her male peers. Ok, I admit we never really though of her that way originally, but to be quite honest none of those guys ever had much depth. I loved some of them nevertheless, and I wanted to give one of my favorites a little more back-story. I liked the idea of doing something a little surprising, of adding another much needed female into the MediEvil world, and, like I say, of fleshing out the character a bit! | |||
'''Q. Why was living Sir Dan such a horrible person?''' | |||
'''A.''' Well the gargoyles always said he was a coward and a cheat that didn’t deserve to be celebrated as a hero. …All of which - combined with being given a second chance - made him step up and become the hero that we know and love. It may be a little jarring to see him be quite so obnoxious, but his journey was always one of redemption - literally from zero to hero. Personally I think it’s much more interesting for us to truly dislike him, so that we can also see how far that spark of redemption has taken Sir Dan. …Another take on this: I’ve always (even back in the early days) had the original Black Adder series in mind when I consider who living Dan might have been. I think Captain F is something of a composite of Edmund from series 1 and Edmund from series 2. Truth be told I might have subconsciously borrowed the Canny Tim as a girl idea from there too :) | |||
'''Q. Why did Kiya’s design change?''' | |||
'''A.''' Conceptually I think Kiya was a great addition to MediEvil 2 - I love the idea of Sir Dan having an undead soul-mate. Unfortunately to me, her appearance and character depth never extended beyond the typical ‘male gaze’ tropes so familiar in that period in game development. That’s something I’ve always found pretty embarrassing - video games should be for '''everyone'''. I believe Jason felt the same, and was only too happy to give her a look more becoming both of an Egyptian princess, and more befitting a central character in the series. | |||
'''Q. Why didn’t we do more with Kiya?''' | |||
'''A.''' Primarily page count. I preferred the idea of offering a (hopefully) touching conclusion to their relationship over having her as a bit of a third wheel in a story that clearly needed to be about Sir Dan. So is that absolutely the end for her? No, I really don’t think it has to be - at least I know just how I’d like to see her make a re-appearance ;) | |||
[About Present Day Dan's Voice] There was supposed to be a slightly 'electrical' look to his speech bubbles to suggest a voice-box. I'm not sure if that got lost along the way?! | |||
BTW (for the record) Dan's death date was supposed to be 100 years earlier than it says. I accidentally put his resurrection date instead. Stupid! | |||
====December 10, 2019==== | |||
'''Q. What about the super-armor?''' | |||
'''A.''' Sorry, it wasn't deliberately ignored, I just didn't think to reference it (my thinking tends to be more around M1 than M2 for obvious reasons). | |||
'''Q. What about Dan in the future?''' | |||
'''A.''' There was a time when I thought having the series jump forward in time was a good idea. I was picturing it a bit like Blackadder (which I mentioned above). In fact my original premise for M2 had not Dan, but Sir Henry Fortesque as a Victorian descendant of Sir Dan. ...But anyhow, I have nothing against 'future Sir Dan' storylines, but I did come to think that the further you head from the Medieval roots, the more the game loses its identity. Victorian London had a suitable vibe, I'm not sure too many other places and times do. Just IMO of course :) | |||
'''Q. Did we come up with ages for the characters?''' | |||
'''A.''' Not really, just Dan. Please note my comment earlier that in the comic I stupidly wrote his resurrection date when it should have been his year of death (so no deliberate shifting of that!). I picture Dan dying in his mid thirties, King P in his late sixties. | |||
'''Q. Was Gallowmere still a kingdom by the time of the first game?''' | |||
'''A.''' Yeah, I think so, albeit I think it would have been a kingdom very much in decline. Obviously the whole concept of Gallowmere is taking liberties with real history - as I touched on in the comic, I notionally imagined it being one of a number of 'kingdoms' within dark ages England. Clearly those must have all long disappeared by the time of M2! | |||
'''Q. Had Dan already died a hero in M1?''' | |||
'''A.''' Definitely not would be my take! I like to think of the comic as the ending of the first time through these events. With the comic's ending, yes, a time-loop begins. So how did the King's forces win the battle prior to M1? Probably by some random act of good fortune - as one of many divergent possible realities where in most others they would have lost terribly. Dan's act at the end of the comic 'locks down' that victory and causes those other timelines to fade away. In a bigger story I would have loved to see some conflict between timelines that clearly only Dan's sacrifice can resolve. | |||
'''Q. Why did Dan have to redeem himself?''' | |||
'''A.''' Because previously he had failed his men and his king. His failings and inaction meant they went into battle with no battle-plan, no belief in their leader and no hope of victory. | |||
'''Q. Are Sir Dan and Captain F separate entities now?''' | |||
'''A.''' My take on this would be yes! | |||
'''Q. Who locked up the Shadow Demons.''' | |||
'''A.''' Sorry, that one's not had any thought to date. | |||
==Trivia== | |||
*Chris is married to [[Katie Lea]]. | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
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*[http://www.spoonsized.com/index.html SpoonSized Entertainment] | *[http://www.spoonsized.com/index.html SpoonSized Entertainment] | ||
[ | *[https://twitter.com/trepan Chris Sorrell] on Twitter | ||
[ | *[https://rawg.io/creators/chris-sorrell Chris Sorrell] at RAWG.io | ||
[[Category: | |||
[[Category:People]] | |||
[[Category:Interviews]] | [[Category:Interviews]] | ||