was a waste of time. Imagine
if they were to ask anyone if a
purple hedgehog or an Italian
plumber would make a good
main character. Of course, the
answer came back that the
mad scientist was not a good
idea because they had no
point of reference as to how it
would be used. In the mean-
time we did a small demo with
a couple of rooms to show off
our rendering engine, basic
look and feel, morphing, and
some basic humor. When
management saw this, they
knew exactly what we had in
mind and we got a unanimous decision to go ahead with the project.
I always thought thatDr. Mutowas fairly unique for a platformer in that its
main character was older and not particularly cute or furry. Where did the
desire to have such a different character originate?
The character design concepts came from our lead artist, Steve Caterson, whom we
call Scat. We definitely wanted to do something different than everyone else was doing.
Having a cute and fuzzy mad scientist just did not sound right. Besides, we wanted to
look different than everyone else.
Dr. Mutowas the first game you developed for the home market that wasn’t an
adaptation of an existing game. How was the development different from your
previous experiences?
This game was so different from any other game I have attempted to do. The market of
course had changed, requiring better rendering, special effects, and movies. But the
most important point was, this was a platformer and the standards for this type of game
are very high indeed. We needed to match anything that was currently on the market or
planned to be on the market.
The other most significant point is the sheer number of people, the cost, and the
time required to do this project.Dr. Mutowas by far the largest project I had ever been
part of. There were more than twenty-five people on the team plus a tools group and
video production people. The game design alone was orders of magnitude larger than
anything else I have ever been associated with.
ForDr. Mutoyou were just the lead programmer and not the lead designer,
correct?
The lead designer, Mark Simon, came in later on the project, around April 2002, I
believe. This was his first large-scale project where he was lead designer, and I think he
Chapter 6: Interview: Ed Logg 105
Dr. Muto