enthusiasm on their part and repeated reminders on our part, Rocket Science never did
anything about it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems thatThe Space Barwas certainly your big-
gest budget project. Were you eager to work with such lavish production
values?
Yes, it was more than twice the
budget ofHodj ’n’ Podj, which
was my largest budget up to that
point. But it was still a relatively
small budget compared to other
graphic adventures of that time;
Boffo was a pretty lean operation
that really got a great deal of bang
for Rocket Science’s buck, and
the same is true for our primary
art subcontractor for the game,
Dub Media.
Even though it was a big
budget, it certainly wasn’t lavish,
because there was never nearly
enough money to do everything we wanted to do, so we were always cutting corners.
Just one example: Alias’ PDA was supposed to be an actual animated face, not just a dis-
embodied voice. So in terms of what we wanted to do versus what we could afford to do,
it was actually my most financially tight project. This is the big problem with graphic
adventures, as discussed earlier, and the main reason why the medium is basically
financially dead at this point.
But the project, while extremely stressful from a budgetary standpoint, was still a
great time. Working with Ron Cobb as the conceptual artist was one of the real thrills of
my career.The Space Barteam was the largest team I’d ever directed, which, of course,
goes hand in hand with it being the largest budget, and it’s pretty exciting having so
many people contributing because almost everyone contributes beyond their narrow
areas of expertise/responsibility. And I felt that despite the cut corners we substantially
met every design goal, which was quite gratifying.
What led you to WorldWinner.com?
After about a year of canceled projects at GameFX/THQ, I was looking to get out and
was working with a recruiter, and she steered me toward WorldWinner. The individual
games will be very reminiscent of the kind of games inHodj ’n’ Podj, which was defi-
nitely one of the main attractions. Also, working in a multi-player online environment
was a big lure, because I haven’t done that before.
Chapter 10: Interview: Steve Meretzky 195
The Space Bar