Interview Matt Chat 217: Guido Henkel's Early Days

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Attic Entertainment; Bard's Tale; Brian Fargo; G3 Studios; Guido Henkel; Matt Barton; Realms of Arkania; Spirit of Adventure; The Dark Eye

In the latest Matt Chat episode, Matt "J_C" Barton interviews Guido Henkel on the latter's early days. Among other things, Guido talks about the start of Attic Entertainment, his love for text adventures, Die Drachen von Laas, The Bard's Tale and Spirit of Adventure, Brian Fargo and how Guido got to be the producer on Planescape: Torment, Amiga and Atari, as well as the difference between US and German game(r)s. (Spoiler: German games tend to focus on gameplay.)

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Also, Guido mentions how he loaded up Realms of Arkania: Shadows over Riva recently and immediately saw some really poor design there.

Naturally, this interview is part of Guido's attempt to bring Deathfire closer to its funding goal.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Also pinging tuluse who should watch the video around 21:20.

 

[nikolokolus]

It's a goddamn shame this thing isn't going to fund. Maybe Indiegogo next time? Then again, maybe the pitch just isn't good enough ... bah.

 

[Smejki]

(Spoiler: German games tend to focus on gameplay.)

Love that bit about nation famous for producing and consuming countless shitty adventure games and simulators of pointlesness.
Sure, depends on each person and company and generalisation is !ewühl! but when someone says Germany and videogames, hysterical censorship and generally weird gaming taste come to mind first.
But I can thank them for Gothic, Anno, Settlers and Spec Ops: The Line, that's for sure.

 

[HiddenX]

Not to forget Realms of Arkania triology, Amberstar, Ambermoon and Albion.

Incubation, Battle Isle, Spellforce, Ankh, Darkstar One, Crysis, Far Cry, Schleichfahrt, Aquanox, Risen, Drakensang, Anno xxxx, Venetica, Desperados ...

 

[thesheeep]

Landwirtschafts-Simulator 2013
Thousands of "Wimmelbildspiele", no idea what that is in English or if this is a Germany-specific thing.
Browser-Game-Nation #1. Seriously, the number of browser games produced here and the sheer number of companies doing it are ... shameful.

Yeah, Germany is definitely a weird gaming nation. I guess you could say the games produced here are as varied in genre and quality as Japanese porn.

 

[V_K]

I don't know about games in general, but concerning RPGs it's the French that always struck me as the weird bunch.
And anyway, "focused on gameplay" doesn't necessarily mean that gameplay is good, just that mechanics take a priority over story and stuff - which is certainly true for the German RPGs I've played.

 

[the_dagon]

concerning RPGs it's the French that always struck me as the weird bunch

Err, which french RPG ?
I'm french, but can't think of a single "weird" french RPG...

The only french RPGs which come in mind for me are Silver, Darkstone, Arx Fatalis, Mars War Logs, Of Orcs & Men, but I don't think they are weird.
Dishonored may be considered as weird, but it's hardly a RPG at all...

 

[V_K]

Maybe it's something lost (or gained ) in translation, but Arx's story and setting seem pretty weird to me (plus the magic system). The same can be said of Silver, although being weird is about the only thing that I remeber of that game . Darkstone is the more sane of the bunch, but stone me if I get the point of having a two-strong party in a Diablo-clone. And then there's Ishar series with the party members gleefully robbing and murdering each other and outvoting the player's decisions.

Now, we can have a 100-pages discussion on the subject of difference between weird and original, of course, but I'd rather not.

 

[theSavant]

Landwirtschafts-Simulator 2013
Thousands of "Wimmelbildspiele",
Browser-Game-Nation #1. [...] ... shameful.

Yeah, Germany is definitely a weird gaming nation.

I kinda agree. I don't get it, how these simulators are so successful. Not only that, are these also very very poorly made and totally bugridden. Worse than X : Rebirth. And yet - here comes the punchline - they are one of the top sales every single fucking year. But whatever... the more shit is produced the more chances appear to stand out from the crowd (if you are a developer). About the "Wimmelbildspiele" - I had to google what type of game they are, and oh my god... I've seen them every once in a while but always ignored them without wasting a second on them. I don't know, maybe parents buy such things for their children...

 

[Smejki]

Thousands of "Wimmelbildspiele", no idea what that is in English or if this is a Germany-specific thing.

Googled only images so I might be wrong but it looks like "Hidden object games". I wanted to mention these too but I wasn't sure if they were mostly German, so consider it being a subcrap of category "shitty adventurre games".

 

[SuicideBunny]

Not to forget Realms of Arkania triology, Amberstar, Ambermoon and Albion.

Incubation, Battle Isle, Spellforce, Ankh, Darkstar One, Crysis, Far Cry, Schleichfahrt, Aquanox, Risen, Drakensang, Anno xxxx, Venetica, Desperados ...

darkstar one was a big fucking stinking turd, though.

 

[Infinitron]

Crysis and Far Cry, German? :racist:

 

[Crooked Bee]

Not to mention Whale's Voyage 1 and 2, the epitome of gameplay-focused RPGs

 

[HiddenX]

Crysis and Far Cry, German? :racist:

?

-> Crytek

 

[Smejki]

Crysis and Far Cry, German? :racist:

I wonder what's your message. Crytek is Germany based company.

 

[m_s0]

Crysis and Far Cry, German? :racist:

I wonder what's your message. Crytek is Germany based company.

His message is that he confuses Croteam (whose first Serious Sam(s) is/are better game(s) than Far Cry and Crysis anyway) with Crytek.

 

[Infinitron]

My message is check the names of the founders of Crytek.

 

[Kane]

The beer reads

Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier

which is probably

Echtes Schlenkerla Rauchbier

in real German (Schlenkerla is the name of the brewery)

Which roughly translates to

Real Schlenkerla Smokebeer

Explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-tyqtSiz2s

 

[HiddenX]

My message is check the names of the founders of Crytek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cevat_Yerli

Cevat Yerli is a Turkish-German computer game developer. He is the founder, CEO and President of Crytek, one of the largest video game developers in Germany. Yerli is the son of Turkish immigrants in Germany. He founded Crytek in 1997 and formally turned it into a company in 1999. His brothers, Faruk and Avni, joined Crytek in 2000 and 2001, respectively.[1][2] The company developed games such as Far Cry and the Crysis series.[3] Cevat Yerli has been the director and executive producer on nearly all of the company's games.[4]

 

[Smejki]

My message is check the names of the founders of Crytek.

Thought that. Yep, founders are of Turkish origin.
However can you judge a company with hundreds of employees by its founders? If not, even then it gets broken quickly. Can you consider a huge multiculty company to be "national"? I'd bet at least half of the people there are not German.

Pointless discussion thou because we talk about high quality games

Now seriously. I consider all post-Crysis1 Crytek games to be mediocre but goddammit I finished the campaign of Battlefield 3 yesterday (Humbe Bundle - all went to charity, suck it EA!). Crysis 2 and 3 are flawless diamonds compared to it. The shit was designed by somebody who hates games! It is so mindblowingly bad everybody should try it.

 

[Kane]

Germany is a particularly shitty plaster to do game development. If you are an aspiring game programmer move to America. Or at least to France or UK.

 

[dragonbait]

Great interview. + Guido is superlative. Really interesting to see that he had smashed through each consecutive computer system in terms of making his games better and more developed. Just some fascinating stuff there. Thanks for posting.