Adam:

"Well, here's an example. In the first room of GK2, there were 4 things you could do things with, and you could only 'click' on them and hope Gabriel did what you wanted him to do.

In the first room of GK3, there are about 22 things you can 'click' on, and with those 22 things you do all sorts of things. This is because everytime you wanted to pick up something in FMV, you had to film someone picking it up. And that takes a lot of space, and a lot of time. In real-time rendered 3D, you just have an animation of Gabe picking it up, which takes basically no space at all. And you can look at all 4 walls of the room, and behind the bed (where I've always been convinced the bad guys were secretly hiding)."

Question:

"My first question concerns Grace. Will she be included into this game? If she is will you be able to use her like you did in "The Beast Within" or will she be like she was in the original game, like an assisstant or a sidekick type?"

Adam:

"Yes, Grace is in the game. And yes, you will play as Grace through part of the game. She has a role that is similar to her's in The Beast Within. She's less of an assistant this time around, more of a partner."

Question:

"Is GK3 going to be the last GK game?"

Adam:

"I certainly hope not! Actually, I've already heard Jane talking about her plans for the next game. Of course, she's working on a few novels at the moment, so it could be a while before she gets time to work on GK4, but I hope that it won't be too long before she brings us another great story."

Question:

"What is the sound quality going to be like? Dolby surround? Or true 3D sound with or without hardware support? (please not 22khz 8 bit mono!)"

David Henry:

"It will be at least 22kHz 16-bit mono, and we are in the process of seeing if we can support stereo (we have a new compression scheme that currently only works for mono, but it's being worked on...).

All SFX will have a location in 3D space (no need for special hardware), as well as various 3D parameters (how close you need to be to hear it, how loud it is a different distances, etc). Dolby approached us about doing Dolby Surround a bit too late in the development process for us to use it."

Question:

"What's this I hear about GK3 being real-time?"

Adam:

"It's not in real-time as in things take as long in the game as they do in real life. It's a lot like GK1, where the game is split up into timeblocks, and after completing all of the required tasking in that time block, you jump to the next one, which could be that same day, the next day, or whatever.

What IS real-time is the rendering of the scenes. Which means that everything is being rendered as you play, similar to the way Quake and Tomb Raider do real-time rendering. There are only a few places where things have been prerendered, like AVIs and such. Pre-rendered games are like Black Dahlia, Blade Runner, and GK2, where everything has been saved off as little movies and everytime you click on something, it plays the little movie, making the game absolutely HUGE. Doing the rendering in real-time lets us do things much faster, and take much less space."

INTERVIEW WITH PROGRAMMER, SCOTT HONN

Question:

"What is your official title on the GK3 team?"

Scott:

"Game Developer - It covers software engineering but includes the mock art, prototypes, design decisions and all the other aspects of being a player on a creative development team."

Question:

"What did you do in the past? Have you worked on other games?"

Scott: "I have a degree in psychology and used to be a professional magician. More recently I have been programming business, database and game applications. The last game I worked on was Shivers II."

Question:

"What parts of programming the game are your responsibility?"

Scott:

"In this game I have had the chance to cover a wide variety of "problem sets" of which the Game Engine's 2D and 3D animation system is the largest. One exciting part of this system is our support for GAS files. They implement a small scripting language for our character's interruptible behaviors, a richer behavior set than any I have seen in a game before. I also put together message boxes, our sound system, path-based camera movement, the rendering viewport, and a handful of still classified parts..."

Question:

"I have heard that you were very excited about working on this game? Why is that?"

Scott:

"The mysteries of RLC and the Knights Templar have been a personal interest for decades. When Jane and I began talking about her design the cosmic coincidence center began working overtime. It's amazing how creativity lives within a world of synchronicity. The realistic 3D modeling of the (in)famous RLC chapel is a definite plus for fans of the mysteries."

Question:

"What do you think are the most important things that a person needs to know to be a game programmer?"

Scott:

"A sense for what makes great game play and a passion for games. We can render more polys or advance the portal technology but without the game play what have you got? More practically I assume professional competence in C++ and object oriented design. These are the tools we work with but learning to wield them as a craftsman is a life long challenge. The future of game development I can see includes 3D environments. Here a working knowledge of movie maker's "Lights, Cameras, Action !" is essential. 3D computer worlds include them all. Developing these worlds right requires the skills of a film director, choreographer, script writer, set designer, drama coach... You get the picture."

Question:

"How do you think GK3 will affect adventure games? Is it really that different from what we've seen in the past?"

Scott:

"Adventure games have always tried to create an empathy with the protagonist. They are similar to movies and novels in that sense. They all feed the imagination to spawn its magic of empathy. The interactive environment and the freedom of camera movement in GK3 is like gourmet food for the imagination. It adds greatly to a player's immersion in the adventure. Ever wanted to step into a novel? With GK3 we are not presenting snapshots of the hero's world, we grab you by the collar and plop you down right in the middle of it. Is the Holodeck really different than a movie?"

Question:

"What are the benefits of a real-time 3D-engine over a pre-rendered system?"

"Marketing from many sides has done well to muddy the definition of "real-time 3D" to mean just about anything that once existed as a 3D model.

We mean that the rendering of the characters and the environments are done as you play, in "real-time". This gives both the type of freedom of camera movement found in first-person-shooter games and an "AI" component impossible with pre-rendered technologies. In pre-rendered systems you are presented with a series of canned views into the hero's world and a series of canned behaviors. In real time systems the world you experience depends as much on your style of play as it does on our development of plot lines."

Thanks Scott for your great answers!

GK2 BIBLIOGRAPHY We've had many requests for a bibliography of good books to read up on The Beast Within. So Jane put together this short list of good books. A lot of these are out of print, but you probably can find them at your local library. Enjoy!

Otten, Charlotte F.(ed). A Lycanthropy Reader : Werewolves in Western Culture.

Noll, Richard (ed). Vampires, Werewolves, and Demons : Twentieth Century Reports in the Psychiatric Literature.

Chapman-Huston, Desmond. Ludwig II: Mad King of Bavaria.

Sailer, Anton. Castles, mystery and music : the Legend of Ludwig II : a pictorial history of the life of Ludwig II of Bavaria.

Wagner, Richard. My Life.

GK3 TEAM NEWS Lead animator, Tom Springer, was married Friday, May 1! GK1 & GK2 artists Nathan and Darlou Gams just had a baby boy last week! Environment artist, Aubrey Pullman turned 24 on April 28. And Junior Schattenjager, Adam Bormann turned 25 on Cinco de Mayo. Congratulations everyone!

NEXT ISSUE! Meet the new webmaster!