wfmag.cc \ 09InterviewAttract Mode
Does your experience in games
journalism (still) factor in at all with your
approach to development?
Penn: My experience in games journalism
has always factored in my approach to
development. There’s a lot to be said
for frequent immovable deadlines, of
having someone focused on the role of
editor and tangibility. In print, there’s
no such thing as ‘slippage’; you run too
late, you lose your job: there are too
many physical dependencies, too many
people adversely affected by your failure
to deliver. You learn to adapt; most
importantly, you learn to make the most
of what you have, be that time, content, or
ability. Working on print periodicals isn’t
just about discipline – it’s understanding
and leveraging the power of editing and
presentation. That said, with Autonauts in
particular, where there are only two of us
doing everything trying to make this very
different thing, it’s so hard to make time to
focus on production.You’re an experienced hand in the
industry, Gary – how do you see the
health of modern gaming?
Penn: I like that games and gaming have
become mundane and they don’t stand
out as... well, as weird any more. I think
modern gaming is healthy enough in
terms of it being easier than ever for
anyone to make and share something
with the world, but it’s no easier to get
noticed. I think the future of gaming... the
trajectory is set, which means so many
previous possibilities are unlikely to come
to fruition now. What I mean is, gamesI’m so bad at playing Autonauts. Well, not
bad – I just play it my way, which is quite...
erratic and messy, but I’m enjoying myself
so, yeah. Aaron’s the total opposite: all
neat and tidy and logical. Recently, I’ve
started watching him play and learning
what he does and finding that he does
have a point when it comes to storage and
keeping the jobs simple and distributed.
Aaron’s got this nice little ‘Just In Time’
manufacturing method for a tool supply
chain that I really like, so I use that now.
Autonauts is decidedly nice – why? Surely
all gamers want to shoot and maim and
nothing else, ever?
Penn: It wasn’t a conscious decision to
make such a nice game – not at first,
anyway. It was probably a deep-rooted
reaction to getting older, being a long-
term parent, feeling sad about the way
the world works sometimes... There’s no
political statement here, but there is a
personal belief that we really ought to start
being a lot nicer to each other and helping
each other out more. I’ve definitely had
enough of violence in my media. It’s not
that there isn’t a place for it – that it’s not
effective in the right context – but it’s rare
for me to experience violence in media
these days and it feels... congruous.
Do robots dream
of relaxing fishing?wfmagwfmag.cc .cc \\ 0909are settling down in the way that they
work – the medium is more malleable
than it was, which is good, but it feels like
so many more interesting opportunities
have been missed as a result. But, you
know, we have a more stable foundation
on which to build, so... It’s not as if there’s
any shortage of interesting ideas out there
these days, but too often, I find myself
disappointed in terms of how those ideas
actually play out.Finally, what are your plans, hopes, and
dreams for Autonauts, post-release?
Potentially automating the game so it
manages to code itself a sequel?
Penn: We joked about automating
development... At one point, I gave
serious thought to the idea of a game
that made itself, not necessarily for real
but presented as if it did. That said, I
think it’d be fun to teach the Bots how to
play games, like simple sports or how to
navigate worlds like those in platformers
and adventures and... Things like teaching
bots to dungeon-crawl for you, for
example. As we’ve developed Autonauts,
one of the hardest things of all for us to do
has been to contain its potential; there are
so many different things we could do with
the idea, and that paralysed us for a while,
but we had to go with something – so we
did, and it seems to be working.Autonauts releases on PC very soon.