Ultima 7's 20th Anniversary at The Ultima Codex: Design Docs + Interview with Brian Martin
Ultima 7's 20th Anniversary at The Ultima Codex: Design Docs + Interview with Brian Martin
Information - posted by Crooked Bee on Tue 17 April 2012, 08:41:57
Tags: Brian Martin; Ultima VII: The Black GateIn celebration of Ultima 7's 20th Anniversary, The Ultima Codex has put up a special page abundant in information about the game. More specifically, you can find many exciting design documents there as well as an interview with Brian Martin, one of the designers on the game. The design docs include:
The Brian Martin interview has some interesting details, too:
Game industry, worst thing since slavery? Anyway, be sure to read the interview in full.
- Usecode Eggs: A short list of usecode eggs from Ultima 7, most of which could be used to damage the party.
- Software Features List: A short list of software features to be included in Ultima 7.
- Jone Watson's "It Worked!" Note: A short note from the late John Watson expressing quite a lot of joy that something worked.
- Playtester Impressions for Forge of Virtue.
- Emp Character Art: A sketch and some design notes for the Emps in Ultima 7.
- Destroying the Black Gate: Hastily-scribbled notes concerning the means of destroying the Black Gate in Ultima 7.
- Copy Protection Questions: A list of the copy protection questions that Batlin and the mayor of Trinsic can ask the Avatar.
- Conversation Style Guide: A style guide for writing conversations for Ultima 7.
- Cluepath: A one-page document detailing the locations the Avatar would visit to progress through an earlier version of Ultima 7's plot.
- Usable Index and Flags: A list of indices and flags used in Ultima 7.
- The World Editor: A document describing the world editor for Ultima 7.
- Training Code: A short document detailing changes to the code controlling skills training in Ultima 7.
- The AGIL Usecode Language: Documents describing and detailing AGIL, the usecode language of Ultima 7.
- Map Sketches: Sketches of the towns and cities of Britannia, as per Ultima 7.
- Items: A list of items planned for inclusion in Ultima 7.
- Conversation Functions: A description of the functions that could be called from conversations in Ultima 7.
- Cities & Towns: Various revisions of plots for a few of the cities and towns which appear in Ultima 7. Not all of this material made the final cut.
- Character Lists: Lists of NPCs which were to appear in Ultima 7. Not all of them made the cut.
Ultima Codex: Who were the ‘unsung heroes’ of development for U7?
Brian Martin: Wow, there were a lot. Ken Demarest was the lead developer and he did a great job. Herman Miller was (and I guess still is) an amazing programmer. Herman handled all of the low level, really core, code and was brilliant. Mike McShaffry came in kind of late and just tore it up (in a good way). I remember someone calling Mike a code machine and they were right. John Watson was certainly an unsung hero. He loved those games and worked insanely hard on them and he always had a smile on his face. ‘Manda Dee is another name that immediately comes to mind. Really all of the people that worked the 12 hour days for months — programmers, artists, designers and QA — who didn’t get the big money and the glory were unsung heroes. Probably the QA guys because their job was so thankless. Keep in mind; we didn’t begrudge Richard for getting the big bucks and the fame: he created the whole thing. Without him there wouldn’t have been an Ultima or an Origin. We understood why Rich was the rock star and weren’t upset by that.
Ultima Codex: What are you doing now? Are there any current projects you can tell us about?
Brian Martin: I work for Hewlett Packard as a test program manager. I’m sure that’s a pretty disappointing answer given that you thought I was still in the game biz, but I actually prefer working in the normal, corporate world. There’s a misconception about the game industry. People think that it’s all fun but it’s not and frankly, I think that game companies treat their employees worse than most of those “evil corporate world” companies. Now, I have to say that I was never treated badly at Origin, but several friends were. I saw more promotion by friendship there than anywhere else in my career and more layoffs in that industry than any other. All in all, the game industry demands more hours for less pay than places like Dell, AT&T and Hewlett Packard (the three companies for which I’ve worked since leaving Origin). Shoot, Dell was like a vacation after Origin: fewer hours, less stress and more money? What’s not to like? Of course, there are people who wouldn’t work anywhere but in the game biz and I say more power to them. I don’t begrudge my time at Origin, in fact I’m grateful for it, but in the end, it was time for me to move onto a different career path.
Brian Martin: Wow, there were a lot. Ken Demarest was the lead developer and he did a great job. Herman Miller was (and I guess still is) an amazing programmer. Herman handled all of the low level, really core, code and was brilliant. Mike McShaffry came in kind of late and just tore it up (in a good way). I remember someone calling Mike a code machine and they were right. John Watson was certainly an unsung hero. He loved those games and worked insanely hard on them and he always had a smile on his face. ‘Manda Dee is another name that immediately comes to mind. Really all of the people that worked the 12 hour days for months — programmers, artists, designers and QA — who didn’t get the big money and the glory were unsung heroes. Probably the QA guys because their job was so thankless. Keep in mind; we didn’t begrudge Richard for getting the big bucks and the fame: he created the whole thing. Without him there wouldn’t have been an Ultima or an Origin. We understood why Rich was the rock star and weren’t upset by that.
Ultima Codex: What are you doing now? Are there any current projects you can tell us about?
Brian Martin: I work for Hewlett Packard as a test program manager. I’m sure that’s a pretty disappointing answer given that you thought I was still in the game biz, but I actually prefer working in the normal, corporate world. There’s a misconception about the game industry. People think that it’s all fun but it’s not and frankly, I think that game companies treat their employees worse than most of those “evil corporate world” companies. Now, I have to say that I was never treated badly at Origin, but several friends were. I saw more promotion by friendship there than anywhere else in my career and more layoffs in that industry than any other. All in all, the game industry demands more hours for less pay than places like Dell, AT&T and Hewlett Packard (the three companies for which I’ve worked since leaving Origin). Shoot, Dell was like a vacation after Origin: fewer hours, less stress and more money? What’s not to like? Of course, there are people who wouldn’t work anywhere but in the game biz and I say more power to them. I don’t begrudge my time at Origin, in fact I’m grateful for it, but in the end, it was time for me to move onto a different career path.
Game industry, worst thing since slavery? Anyway, be sure to read the interview in full.
