So I think it would be good to talk about this^
notion and what attracted you to this?
CC: Well, working on my first game, obviously
that was Myst. That was the first game that
worked on and it sort of started my career. Myst
in essence was an immersive game. It was not
violent like DOOM. You had a story that you
were trying to figure out, through those two
brothers in the game. You know: “which one do
you release?” So by discovering more about the
brothers you were essentially traversing a story,
and I really found that I like that idea of how to
do the gameplay. I liked that fact that the
nonviolent aspect of it is something that allows
you to not have to rush through a game.
Because you have to survive. This is a game
that lets you play pretty much at your own pace
and it lets you know and lets the narrative come
at you and at a pace that's easy to understand.
Most of it's about discovery, and a lot of
narrative is about the main character. It’s about
discovering how you do that through these
dreams. It appealed to me, because I think that
right now with a lot of games — and I play my
share of ‘em — they are based around violent
themes. I think that it's a good thing just from a
standpoint as a designer, to try and go outside
that box, and to provide people with something
that's an alternative. I think that's something
that has a real draw for a lot of people. It’s
maybe the game you want to play after you've
got to playing a big game like DOOM, to relax
you a little bit. Once the player learns to slow
the there's a lot of value to be had from a game
like that.
DAL: And I think personally this kind of harks
back to good old text based and graphic based
adventure games?
CC: Right.
DAL: There often was a kind of violence in those
games. You had swords and things to pick up
and kill things with, but it allowed you to play at
your own place to explore to discover. But when
graphics kind of took over I think some of that
got swept under the carpet. So it's really
pleasing to see this style of game come to the
fore again. I don't know if you agree, but do you
think this kind of game sits side-by-side with
“sandbox” games?
CC: I think so, sure. I mean in order to move
through it there are puzzles, a lot of puzzles.
That will either slow you down, meaning that you
have to go to explore to find out other answers.
I mean it's not Myst-like in that respect, the way
the puzzles are designed, but it does have that
that kind of open-world feel for the most part.
Not in our current demo, you don't see thatPictures: Screenshots from an early
version of ZED.