Tags: Al Escudero; Deathlord; Electronic Arts; Retrospective Interview; Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace; Strategic Simulations, Inc.
In this retrospective interview, we talk to Al Escudero, the designer behind two notable and unique if relatively obscure CRPGs, Electronic Arts' Deathlord (1987) and SSI's Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace (1992). The interview's main focus is Deathlord, but it also touches on Spelljammer's development and Al Escudero's career as a whole. As you can see from the interview, both Deathlord and Spelljammer had it really rough during development, to the point where the publisher would change the entire theme/concept of the game on the fly - something you would expect from Electronic Arts, I guess.
Have a snippet:
Read the full article: RPG Codex Retrospective Interview: Al Escudero on Deathlord and Spelljammer CRPG
In this retrospective interview, we talk to Al Escudero, the designer behind two notable and unique if relatively obscure CRPGs, Electronic Arts' Deathlord (1987) and SSI's Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace (1992). The interview's main focus is Deathlord, but it also touches on Spelljammer's development and Al Escudero's career as a whole. As you can see from the interview, both Deathlord and Spelljammer had it really rough during development, to the point where the publisher would change the entire theme/concept of the game on the fly - something you would expect from Electronic Arts, I guess.
Have a snippet:
What motivated you to choose the quasi-Japanese setting for Deathlord? Were the Japanese names for classes, weapons, spells, etc., there just for flavor, or did the whole thing grow out of your fascination with Japanese culture?
Honestly, no. Though I had a budding interest in Japanese culture at the time, the game was originally created with a Norse/Teutonic theme, and I had the game finished that way. It was the marketing dept at EA that insisted we change it (at the last minute) to an Oriental/Japanese theme. I was given 5 weeks to change all the art, story, spell names, equipment names, location names, etc. I was quite upset about it. I had a game I had crafted over a year and a half I needed to convert to an entirely different style at the 11th hour and wasn't given sufficient time to do the new style justice. It felt like a hack to me, and I hated doing it. If I'd had a few months, time to do reading on Japanese culture and myths, time to craft a tale that tapped into their rich Mythology, I feel I could have done a far better job, as it was I felt very dissatisfied.
What were your goals and intentions with Deathlord? What kind of game did you set out to make, and in what ways did you intend Deathlord to be different from other games of the era?
There were a number of goals, but primarily I wanted to make it BIG. I loved playing rpg's, but they seemed to be over so quickly, and the content often felt very thin. The RPGS of the time were ones like Bard's Tale and Wizardry that were a single dungeon, or Ultima 3, which had a small world with a lot of generic dungeons that were all more or less the same. I wanted to make Deathlord feel like a real world, with big oceans, climate zones, and different lands with different customs and styles. To accomplish this we created a huge streaming world with dozens of dungeons that had unique themes. In the course of creating the ones integral to the main story line, we also created numerous 'just for fun' dungeons that were explorations of various concepts - mazes, elements, illusions, etc. I ultimately added those into the game anyway as 'filler'. Akin to the Oblivion's and Skyrim's of later years so that there were new things to explore even if you had finished the game.
What were the challenges involved in Spelljammer's development, and were you pleased with the state that the game was released in? In hindsight, to what extent would you say you succeeded in your goals and how do you feel about the game today?
Similar to Deathlord, another mid-project change in direction happened. Initially Spelljammer was going to be an rpg. You would fly through space, and explore abandoned Dwarven citadels, floating castles and dungeons on alien worlds - but a few months into development, the game was cut back to a strategy game. I had to take my ambitious space-rpg and pare it down to something more like interceptor with magic. The game I got isn't really the one I set out to make.
You call Spelljammer's schedule "aggressive." Why did SSI rush Spelljammer's development? What were their reasons for that, as well as for the mid-project change in the game's concept?
I was never told explicitly why it was rushed. If I had to speculate, Dark Sun was over schedule and presumably over budget. It was probably the single most important title the company was producing at the time and had a huge development team and a lot riding on its success. I got the impression that anything that took resources away from Dark Sun was being reigned in.
Honestly, no. Though I had a budding interest in Japanese culture at the time, the game was originally created with a Norse/Teutonic theme, and I had the game finished that way. It was the marketing dept at EA that insisted we change it (at the last minute) to an Oriental/Japanese theme. I was given 5 weeks to change all the art, story, spell names, equipment names, location names, etc. I was quite upset about it. I had a game I had crafted over a year and a half I needed to convert to an entirely different style at the 11th hour and wasn't given sufficient time to do the new style justice. It felt like a hack to me, and I hated doing it. If I'd had a few months, time to do reading on Japanese culture and myths, time to craft a tale that tapped into their rich Mythology, I feel I could have done a far better job, as it was I felt very dissatisfied.
What were your goals and intentions with Deathlord? What kind of game did you set out to make, and in what ways did you intend Deathlord to be different from other games of the era?
There were a number of goals, but primarily I wanted to make it BIG. I loved playing rpg's, but they seemed to be over so quickly, and the content often felt very thin. The RPGS of the time were ones like Bard's Tale and Wizardry that were a single dungeon, or Ultima 3, which had a small world with a lot of generic dungeons that were all more or less the same. I wanted to make Deathlord feel like a real world, with big oceans, climate zones, and different lands with different customs and styles. To accomplish this we created a huge streaming world with dozens of dungeons that had unique themes. In the course of creating the ones integral to the main story line, we also created numerous 'just for fun' dungeons that were explorations of various concepts - mazes, elements, illusions, etc. I ultimately added those into the game anyway as 'filler'. Akin to the Oblivion's and Skyrim's of later years so that there were new things to explore even if you had finished the game.
What were the challenges involved in Spelljammer's development, and were you pleased with the state that the game was released in? In hindsight, to what extent would you say you succeeded in your goals and how do you feel about the game today?
Similar to Deathlord, another mid-project change in direction happened. Initially Spelljammer was going to be an rpg. You would fly through space, and explore abandoned Dwarven citadels, floating castles and dungeons on alien worlds - but a few months into development, the game was cut back to a strategy game. I had to take my ambitious space-rpg and pare it down to something more like interceptor with magic. The game I got isn't really the one I set out to make.
You call Spelljammer's schedule "aggressive." Why did SSI rush Spelljammer's development? What were their reasons for that, as well as for the mid-project change in the game's concept?
I was never told explicitly why it was rushed. If I had to speculate, Dark Sun was over schedule and presumably over budget. It was probably the single most important title the company was producing at the time and had a huge development team and a lot riding on its success. I got the impression that anything that took resources away from Dark Sun was being reigned in.
Read the full article: RPG Codex Retrospective Interview: Al Escudero on Deathlord and Spelljammer CRPG
