Video Essays

Morality in Games

April 12, 2021 by arcadology Leave a Comment

Games that create morality systems tend to develop moral dichotomies.

These dichotomies are typically something along the lines of good or evil, as in Fable, or Hero and Anti-Hero, or even as simple as some sort of friendly vs. mean scale.

In Mass Effect, these were called Paragon and Renegade. In Star Wars games and media, the Light side of the force and the Dark side. This binary makes the gamification of moral decisions simpler by treating them as basically an “either-or.”

The problem comes after several choices have been made. For example, in Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic, making moral choices has a compounding effect. Bonuses are offered for leaning into the path that your character has started down.

Because of the compounding effect, the decision-making process is less of choice and more of a foregone conclusion. Why would anyone choose something of a different track when selecting something from the opposite path could detour them from their morality bonus?

This is where these types of gamified morality systems show their flaws. They are huge endeavors, and I am not saying that they are bad or not worthwhile. They can be fun and increase replayability! In fact, the effort of even putting the idea of morality into a game is commendable, especially in a world where some games force the player down the path of violating the Geneva Convention like it’s no big thing. In Mass Effect’s case, numbers showed that even when players can experiment with morality, 92% of players chose to play Paragon. This was according to former BioWare cinematic designer John Ebenger. (Show tweet).

So, if gamification does not work, then what does? The answer is simple. Suppose a developer is looking to give players moments to judge the morality of their actions. In that case, the choices cannot be opposites but as far apart as possible while remaining equally reasonable. As T.M. Scanlon said in his book, What We Owe to Each Other, “… thinking about right and wrong is, at the most basic level, thinking about what could be justified to others on grounds that they, if appropriately motivated, could not reasonably reject.”

By offering players two options, one being a choice that can be justified to others and another that clearly cannot be, players went with the former. But in situations where both options are born out of somewhat justifiable reasons, you will get more exciting variety in how players view their decisions’ morality.

So. What games do a neat job at narrowing the gap?

*Papers, Please Music Begins*

Papers, Please was released in 2014 and has since become one of the most well-known indie games ever. The game is set in a fictional Soviet-style eastern bloc nation of Arostotka. The player acts as a border agent, responsible for checking the documentation of people crossing over in the border town of Grestin. Grestin has only recently been reclaimed by Arastotka after a brief war with the neighboring country of Kolechia. Your character has just won the job lottery and been assigned this post.

The primary gameplay loop works like this: You enter your booth, read the rules for the day, open the gate, and begin checking people’s documentation that steps up to your window. You then either accept their paperwork or reject it. At the end of the day, you are paid for each person you were able to process, and you make a choice about how to spend your money, either heating or food. It if sounds simple that is because, at its core, it is.

Each day the loop becomes more complicated. Additional paperwork is added for the player to check. The paperwork begins to diverge between two paths, one for citizens, one for non-citizens. And also, there is the possibility that the rent might go up for the apartment, eating into the player’s net income for the day and making a choice between food and heat more difficult.

The brilliance of Papers, Please, lies in the moral choices that you must make within that gameplay loop. On one of the days, a man who has his papers altogether steps up to the window. He mentions that behind him is his wife. After stamping his passport, the man continues into Arostotka. His wife steps up, and it is immediately apparent: she does not have the required paperwork. There is a choice presented to the player, but it is not explicit.

Stamp the wife’s passport at the expense of being fined, thus putting your family at risk.

Or: Deny her entrance and split a wife from her husband.

There is no color coding and no hint of renegade or paragon meters. What is the more “moral” choice here? These are the exact type of situations that moral philosophers were imagining when postulating the Trolly problem.

The Trolly Problem, a philosophical conundrum beyond meme or parody at this point, is still somewhat practical at illustrating the difficulty of weighing moral choices. Traditionally, it goes like this: a trolly is speeding down a track which will eventually fork into two. If the trolly continues its current path, it will hit five people. The listener is standing at a switch that will divert the train, but it will still kill one person on the new track. The problem is whether killing one person to save five outweighs the inaction of letting the trolly kill five people. The trolly problem is flatly unrealistic. However, it still presents an example of a moral dilemma.

In this specific instance, the player must weigh which choice is more reasonable than the other to get to the core of what is “right” or “wrong.” The greater good is protecting the members of your family. However, if you have been good at your job up until that point, the player may only get a warning, meaning giving the free pass will not do any harm. Unless the player messes up again.

As the opportunity to make a choice eventually passes and time moves on, the only person who is aware of that choice is the player. The consequences, potential fine or separating the wife and husband, are only left lingering in the player’s mind.

Several other choices can be made along the way in Papers, Please push the player’s judgment of what is right or wrong into question.

Papers Please developer Lucas Pope followed up this game with The Return of the Obra Dinn, which contains some moral decision lessons to be made, although even less noticeable. The Return of the Obra Dinn is set in the early 1800s. The player takes the role of an insurance adjuster investigating the return of the Dutch East India Trade Ship, the Obra Dinn, which has been missing for years. Upon arriving at the ship, the player opens a recently received parcel containing two items. One is a book with information about the boat. The second is a strange clock called a Memento Mortis, which allows the player to view a person’s exact time of death.

Using the crew manifest, the bits of information already present in the book, and the Memento Mortis, the player sets about discovering each of the 60 crew members’ fate. For each person, the player must fill out their name, cause of death, and who or what triggered the death. The last detail is where the gray areas come into play. Upon completing the game, the player is given an update on what the Dutch East India Trading Company paid out in insurance to each crewmember’s family. Now, some crew members were killed by accident, and if you are naive on the ending, you may list that the accident was caused by another crew member. It doesn’t matter that it was unintentional. By recording the other crew member as the cause of the accident, the accident causer’s family gets no insurance company payout.

This did not sit well. After some investigation, I discovered that the player could change the way the fate is written so that it is not clearly an accident at another crewmember’s hands. This spares the family the ignominious fate of losing a family member and not receiving the insurance payment they are entitled to.[GU3]

There is a notable difference between how the two games handle morality. In Papers, Please, the result of the player’s choice is evident, from the approval of would-be border crosser to the payout at day’s end. There is only one point in The Return of the Obra Dinn where the player realizes the consequences of their choices at the end. Papers, Please is therefore much better at simulating the immediate pressure that making a choice based on what is weighed as right or wrong. Still, the Return of the Obra Dinn reinforces that the repercussions of choices made may not be felt for a while and may also not be felt directly by the player. Either way, they demonstrate how moral decision-making is compromised by the constraints of acting within an institution like a government or company.

When looking for games that force players to make a legitimate moral calculus, then both Papers, Please, and The Return of the Obra Dinn are highly recommended. Beyond that, they are simply great games with solid gameplay loops that leave the player wanting more. Games above almost all other media types are perfectly positioned to let players interact with decisions of morality than any other. They can exhibit the trolly problem writ large across interesting and dynamic worlds with grounded and real characters. Experimenting with this may even help players understand themselves and the world around them better by sharpening their empathy.

This is all very hopeful. But I can see how these systems and choices in games can have a memorable and lasting impact when delicately handled. I’m curious to see how game developers continue to tackle moral dilemmas in the future. What games do you think offer a unique experience regarding defining your character’s own sense of morality? Let’s talk about it in the comments down below. I’d like to thank my script editors, Kat from Pixel a Day and Lee Keeler, for helping me out today. Any sources, references, and other material can be found in the description below. If you are interested in my work, please subscribe, and consider joining my Patreon. Thank you for watching.

My name is Kevin, and you’ve been watching Arcadology.

The New York Pinball Ban

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

Did you know that New York City banned pinball for over 30 years?

Surprising as it may seem, there was a time and place when pinball was not a welcome site across towns and cities in the United States.

It was dangerous. It was something Vile. It was corrupting the youth. It was a panic.

On today’s episode, we are going to talk about a moral panic that predates video games, heavy metal, and Dungeons and Dragons.

Today we take a look at when pinball was banned, for 30 years, in the Big Apple.

Watch the episode on YouTube

Pinball Panic: The New York City Pinball Ban

Why did New York city ban pinball? Well, let’s talk a little bit about the political landscape first, and the man who facilitated the ban, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Prof. Greaney: There’s a difference, in my opinion, I think most people would agree, between a politician and a public servant.
And I think someone like La Guardia, and even the Roosevelts, both of them, were public servants before they were politicians.

Joe Greaney is a professor of history at Lynn University.

Prof. Greaney: 99th mayor of New York. He was born in New York City. His father was Italian. His mother was Jewish.
From that, he had picked up fluency in Italian from his father and Yiddish from his mother, along with Croatian, so we was a linguist, too.
Prof. Greaney: When he was a young kid, he had to move to Arizona, where his father was a band leader at Fort Whipple, which is in Prescott, Arizona, so he got a lot of his education there.
Prof. Greaney: … he worked in the United States State Department in a number of different posts where he served at the Consulate in places like Budapest, which was part of the Austrian Hungarian empire at the time. [Twist 00:00:55], where his mother was actually from.
Prof. Greaney: He was elected to the United States Congress in 1916. So he got inaugurated on, or sworn in, as a Congress member in March of 1917, but the month later, the United States entered World War I, so he resigned from the Congress and served as a major, eventually as a major, in the United States Army Air Corps, which was the precursor of the United States Air Force.
Prof. Greaney: …he went back to the United States after the war, served in Congress for about eight years. Eventually he was defeated in 1932, obviously because of the depression and things like this. Most Republicans lost in that election year. And then decide the next year to run for Mayor of New York, which he won.
Prof. Greaney: So a progressive Republican sort of like in the theater Roosevelt tradition and the number one thing Progressive’s wanted to do was they wanted to reform city, government, especially machine politics.
Prof. Greaney: Also, Progressives felt at an important part of society of the time because of a large number of immigrants coming to the United States at that time, the importance of assimilation. And how do you assimilate people into American culture? Education. So that’s why people like La Guardia, Theodore Roosevelt, later on Franklin Roosevelt, really pushed for education, especially at younger ages.

LaGuardia was elected mayor in the midst of the great depr

ession, which hit New York especially hard.

Photo showing bread line in New York during the great depression. — Bread line in New York during the Great Depression

Prof. Greaney: When he became mayor, the United States was right in the midst of the Great Depression, so you probably had everything that went along with that, things that you’ve seen, like kitchens and bread lines and all kinds of things like this, and literally millions of people out of work.
And New York City has always been the important commerce center of the United States since they built the Erie Canal in the 1820s, it’s been the number one city of the United States and now the world and stuff like that.
Prof. Greaney: So all the problems the United States had during the Great Depression were magnified in New York.

Pinball, Burlesque, Vaudeville, these were all past times that the people of New York use to distract from the Great Depression. Bagatelle was a precursor to pinball that dated back centuries. By the early 1900s, the game looked very similar to pinball, to the point that in some news articles the terms pinball and bagatelle were used interchangeably.

Concerns over bagatelle, pinball, and their relationship to gambling pre-date LaGuardia. For example, in 1933, a Harlem man named Bejamin Chester was arrested for gambling on bagatelle. However he was able to escape punishment in a demonstration in front of the court to show that bagatelle was a game of skill, not chance. An officer of the court set a high score, and Chester beat the score.

A similar story happened the following year, when a shop keeper had to beat a high score set by an officer of the court.

A few years into Laguardia’s first term, a man named Arthur Ryan, the chief of the Dyker Civic Association, wrote a letter to Mayor Laguardia asking for help in protesting the “evil” of pinball.

Ryan wrote the letter after collecting the complaints of mother’s who were worried that their children were spending too much time playing pinball and losing their lunch money.

Three days later, LaGuardia and Commissioner Moss banned pinball and bagatelle games that give prizes to save the nickles and dimes.

Game owners scoffed and pushed back, filing to the court for a writ of mandamus against the comissioner.

Prof. Greaney: He had to Make sure that people were doing things that he felt were appropriate.
Prof. Greaney: Any time you try to regulate behavior, you usually end up having these problems. It sounds like such a silly thing, but what parent in the United States today can be happy thinking that their kids spending 10 hours a day playing video games? It’s the same thing.
Prof. Greaney: Now we’re not going to pass laws, obviously, about that. But I guess some people at that time thought because it was a public place, the pinball was in a public place, you can’t put a pinball in a bedroom.
I guess you could, but most people can’t, that they wanted their children to be doing things… Remember I told you before. Education. Things that are important. Things that are going to help them grow.

Pinball was quite lucrative at the time. In this article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle it mentions that the pinball industry in Brooklyn took in about 20 million dollars in 1935 across 16,500 machines. That is approximately 350 million dollars in today’s money.

The ban spurred was upheld in the Manhattan Supreme court in February of 1936. The scope of the decision left the operation of pinball machines were lawful as long as no prizes were given an no amusement was sought.

In August of 1936, LaGuardia, Police Comissioner Valentine, and the District Attorneys made a big event of taking a tug boat out to the Long Island Sound, where they dumped confiscated weapons, and gambling devices including pinball machines, into the water.

By the end of 1936, police officers were arresting any pinball machine owners that had not acquired an amusement license.

Six years later, LaGuardia got what he sought. In December of 1941, LaGuardia had asked the city council to pass a law, banning pinball outright. Ultimately though he wouldn’t need any legislation. Magistrate Ambrose Haddock banned pinball in late January of 1942, by ruling that:

“Even if the player does not get paid off for winning…the machine is designed for gambling, therefore the possibility for gambling is always present. Second, even if the player’s amusement is the only motive for playing, that amusement is a thing of value which is being exploited.”

In short, amusement was enough of a prize for New York to ban pinball.

At noon, under the orders of Mayor LaGuardia, on the day the ruling was made, plainclothes police officers drove around the Bronx in trucks grabbing every pinball machine they could find and issuing summonses to the owners.

Pinball operators attempted to collect any machines they could off the street, because at the time, Pinball machines were not in production so that the supplies could be used to support the war effort.

About 647 candy and cigar stores were raided in Brooklyn as well and within a week, $3000 were collected from the pinball mahines were taken and added into the police pension fund. That’s the equivalent of $50,000 in today’s money.

Within two weeks nearly 3200 pinball machines had been confiscated. Approximately 1 ton of them had been scrapped, and court summonses had been issued to 1624 store owners.

Unlike other panics, where the waxing of morality by politicians often didn’t lead to much, this one did. The people of New York took notice.
There were two letters to the editor published in the New York Daily news the following week.

The first was written by a man named Victor Eshreff, who sarcastically congratulated the police in their efforts, and mentioned that they should now round up the people catch all the outlaws who toss coins or play gin rummy.

Another letter was written by a pinball operator, who had lost his job because of the ban. Then, a few months later, another letter is published, this time by a candy shop owner, who feared he would have to close down after the absence of his pinball machine dried up all his foot traffic.

In October of 1942, LaGuardia gifts the Commandant of the City Patrol new batons made out of the legs of confiscated pinball machines. More than 2000 clubs were made.

LaGuardia would then state to the press that pinball was, “A real larceny machine, brother of the tinhorn… the main distributors, wholesalers and manufacturers are slimy crews of tinhorns, well-dressed and living in luxury from this penny thievery.”

LaGuardia was proud of his accomplishment, toting it several times on his radio show. In May of 1942 he said: “Police Department announced with pardonable pride that it had cleaned up the pinball racket. Yes, sir, we cleaned it out. Thousands of those larcenous gambling machines were seized and destroyed and some, yet to be destroyed put in the custody of the Police.”

In October of 1942, LaGuardia gifts the Commandant of the City Patrol new batons made out of the legs of confiscated pinball machines. More than 2000 clubs were made.

While the New York City ban on pinball machines wasn’t undone until 1976, it’s important to point out that it was no sooner than the next administration that enforcement on the ban started to be relaxed. In 1947, during the O’Dwyer administration, there was already talk of lifting the ban, and the news paper article mentions that people had already started to be more brazen in the placement of pinball machines.

In April of 1976, Pinball historian and GQ writer Roger Sharpe performed a demonstration in front of New York City Council. The demonstration show ed as Benjamin Chester demonstrated in 1933, that they were indeed games of skill, and not games of chance. The following month, New York legalized pinball.

Even then it wasn’t unamious. Councilman Leon Katz, leading the dissenters said:

“Mobsters and racketeers will use the profits of these machines to launder dirty money from prostitution, drugs, and gambling.”

Well you can’t please everyone.

The pinball panic wasn’t just n New York at this time, but happened in cities across the country. I believe though that this is an example of a moral panic that just happened in a perfect storm of moralistic leaders, and the great disruption of World War II.

By the following year, in 1977, nearly 10,000 new machines could be found around the city and to this day, most of the arcades that are still around feel incomplete without a pinball machine.

The Development of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

What if?

It’s a compelling question, especially when discussing Resident Evil. What if the original Resident Evil ends up as a remake of Sweet Home. What if Capcom never reboots Resident Evil 2? And in the case of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, what if we ended up with Hunk on a cruise fighting plant monsters?

Kazuhiro Aoyama mentioned in an interview that he and other developers are gun-shy about sharing the anecdotes that lead to these what-if scenarios. I understand his hesitation. Peering through unfinished work, even its creator is daunting.

Today, we’re going to take a look at how a small game, never intended to be a mainline Resident Evil title, became the third entry into the series. Welcome to Aracadology, Resident Evil 3.

After Resident Evil 2

After Capcom released Resident Evil 2 in January of 1998, General Manager Yoshiki Okamoto greenlit several projects in the proceeding months. Resident Evil 3 for the Playstation, Resident Evil: Code Veronica for the Sega Dreamcast, as well as Resident Evil 0 for the Nintendo 64.

“The idea was to keep numbered games on Sony, and use different names for games made for Sega and Nintendo” -Yoshiki Okamoto, “An Itchy, Tasty History of Resident Evil.”

Masaaki Yamada was named the director of Resident Evil 3. Yamada was a system planner on Resident Evil 2. He had also worked on the first Resident Evil, and the Director’s Cut as an Event Designer.

Yamada worked with RE2 director Hideki Kamiya to rough out a story. Capcom canceled the project, but the idea was to set it on a cruise ship with Resident Evil 2 mini-game hero Hunk as a potential protagonist, fighting his way through plant monsters. This concept art has been circulating for several years, sketched by concept artist Satoshi Nakai.

Photo of a plant monster from an abandoned Resident Evil 3 concept — Plant monster concept art by Satoshi Nakai

Yamada ceded the role of director role to Kamiya, and they threw out the cruise ship scenario. Yamada would stay on the project, however, as a systems planner.

While this was happening, Okamoto had greenlit a smaller Resident Evil project intended for the Playstation. He intended this little project to be a Gaiden, or side story, from the Resident Evil franchise. Shinji Mikami, the head of Studio 4, assigned Kazuhiro Aoyama as director, and Yasuhisa Kawamura as the scenario writer.

Kazuhiro Aoyama Background

Before his time at Capcom, Kazuhiro Aoyama was considering going into Professional Wrestling. Unfortunately, an injury he suffered meant he had to give that up, and instead studied acting at university.

Photo of Kazuhiro Aoyama holding a copy of Resident Evil 3 — Kazuhiro Aoyama

After graduation, he took a job at Capcom. There he worked as a system planner on both Resident Evil 1 and 2. His role on the sequel was to ensure that the gameplay was balanced. He also designed the sewer levels and the mini-game, which featured Hunk, titled the 4^th survivor.

Before Capcom, Yasuhisa Kawamura was working for Yukito Kishiro, in the development of the manga series Battle Angel Alita, and would eventually go on to write the novel version of the manga. He took a job at Capcom when they were looking for writers, despite thinking he failed the interview by being too passionate.

When Mikami assigned Kawamura to the Resident Evil Gaiden project, he did not have much experience as a game writer. His only previous role at Capcom was working with Shinji Mikami to tighten up parts of Dino Crisis. Most of the FLAGSHIP staff, the subsidiary which employed Capcom’s scenario writers, were tied up, including Noboru Sugimura, the writer of Resident Evil 2, who was deep into the scripting for Code Veronica.

As Aoyama and Kawamura began to hash out the project, they were assigned a development team of mostly rookie developers. Management had split up most of the Resident Evil veterans amongst Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil Code Veronica, and Resident Evil 0.

The game’s working title was Resident Evil 1.9. The story they had come up with was set immediately before the events of Resident Evil 2. The story featured three umbrella mercenaries, trying to escape Raccoon City. To simplify development, Resident Evil 3 would use the same engine as Resident Evil 2, as well as some of the same assets.

There were a few changes made to the engine to give the game more action. They tweaked the zombies to move faster and in larger groups. Gunpowder combos were able to make different types of ammo.

They added an automatic 180-degree turn feature as well as a dodge mechanic. The player’s running speed was increased. There were a few additional items that were discussed but never added to the engine, including the ability to attack while moving, and barring doors.

One of the main hooks of the game was an antagonist that would pursue the player through the course of the game. The creature known as Nemesis did not start development as a hulking brute. Instead, the early concept for it was a slime monster, similar to The Blob.

It was a hideous creature that could squeeze through any opening and kill with an acid touch. However, it became apparent to Aoyama that the creature’s appearance had no distinguishing features. He decided this made it nearly impossible for the player to grasp that they were fighting the same monster throughout the game and not just fighting different incarnations of the same type of monster.

They ended up switching from a blob-like monster to something more along the lines of the Tyrant or Mr. X. from Resident Evil 2. Aoyama has mentioned that part of his inspiration for the Nemesis creature was the scenes in Day of the Dead, where researchers are trying to train zombies.

Throughout the game, players are offered decisions as to how to deal with Nemesis. Aoyama’s team designed it this way to enhance the replayability of the game.

No matter what the player chose, it would advance the plot. However, making a choice, or not making one at all, usually dictated whether the player had to faceoff against Nemesis. In some instances, it led the player to areas that would have been not able to be reached otherwise. In others, the choice would simply dictate which entrance the player took to access a new location.

Partway through the production of Resident Evil 1.9, things were shifting on the Code Veronica project that would have a significant impact. Let’s rewind a bit. During the voice recordings for Resident Evil 2, Hideki Kamiya asked the voice actress for Claire to record an additional line that was not in the original script. The line was, “Chris, I have to find you.”

Noboru Sugimura, the writer for both Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica, called call Kamiya, angry. It meant that the story-line for Jill Valentine he had in Code Veronica should now be re-written to include Claire instead. This plot change left Jill being unused in any of the games that were in development. Management informed Aoyama, and the team got to work on folding Jill Valentine in as the main character while adjusting the mercenaries’ role in the game.

As Kawamura fleshed out the game, the name Resident Evil 1.9 became a bit of a misnomer. He developed some additional plot that would take place after Resident Evil 2, and so internal production used the title Resident Evil 1.9+2.1. This Kingdom Hearts-like title, though, would be removed in favor of the subtitle, Last Escape in Japan, and Nemesis in North America and Europe.

In March of 1999, Sony officially announced the Playstation 2. Hideki Kamiya, who Capcom had given great authority over his Resident Evil 3 project, was determined to produce the game for the new console.

“I think Resident Evil 2 represents everything I would be able to achieve for a Survival Horror game on PlayStation. My vision for the next game was to make something brand new and more provoking. As a result, I decided to make ‘Resident Evil 3’ for PlayStation 2.” -Hideki Kamiya

Kawamura has stated that Sony’s announcement of the Playstation 2 caused Kamiya to scrap his project and refocus it in favor of developing for the new system. This shift, in Kawamura’s estimation, is what caused Capcom to elevate Resident Evil 1.9. Aoyama recounted the events in a different context. He stated that he believed it was not only the initial announcement of the PS2 but the PS2’s delay from December 1999 to March of 2000 (as well as much later in North America).

“If I remember correctly, Capcom wanted to become a publicly listed company during the fiscal year 1999. Capcom needed a hit title to gain investor confidence. They thought that a new, numbered Resident Evil game could help achieve them achieve their goal easier.” –Aoyama

Either way, Aoyama was called into a meeting with Shinji Mikami and Okamoto to discuss this change in plans. Capcom decided to retitle Kamiya’s game to be Resident Evil 4, and to move Resident Evil 1.9 to be Resident Evil 3.

Nailing down the timeline of these decisions has been difficult. However, the game was branded Resident Evil 3 on tape shown at the Tokyo Game Show, which took place from March 19-21 of 1999. If Kamiya decided to switch his game to the Playstation 2 after the official announcement on March 1, this means the decision to promote 1.9 to a mainline title happened in the intervening weeks. Aoyama and the team would now be on the hook for additional content.

“This game was supposed to be a spinoff, so I stuck to that framework during development. I was not expecting it to become Resident Evil 3 at all.” -Kazuhiro Aoyama

The game needed to have its playtime extended. Originally it was meant to end after the encounter in at the clocktower. Additional content included the Raccoon City Park, as well as the Dead Factory. The team added extra rooms to existing areas.

By Aoyama’s estimation, the additional content lengthened the playtime by about 30. As with Resident Evil 2, the developers added a mini-game as a bonus. This one was titled Mercenaries and designed by Kawamura.

Capcom released Resident Evil 3 on September 22, 1999, in Japan, and November 11, 1999, in North America. The game was a tremendous financial success for Capcom. Not only was it one of the best selling Resident Evil titles, but the profit on the game was also substantially higher than usual. This was due to the smaller team and shorter production cycle it took to create it.

The other games mentioned all deserve videos of their own. But as a coda, I’ll state that Resident Evil: Code Veronica was released only a few months later, in February of 2000, for the Sega Dreamcast.

Resident Evil 4, famously strayed so far from the Resident Evil formula that it became a completely different game, Devil May Cry. Capcom released it ultimately in August of 2001. Resident Evil 0 had its development halted for the Nintendo 64, and moved to the Nintendo Gamecube, eventually releasing in November of 2002.

As for Resident Evil 3, it had tremendous impact making Jill a fan favorite and also introducing Nemesis, one of the most notorious enemies the franchise has ever seen. Capcom released a remake of the game in March of 2020. If you’d like to see a video on the production of the remake, let me know down in the comments below.

If you like videos like this and would love a way to support me, please consider joining my Patreon at patreon.com/Arcadology. Patrons are eligible to receive bonus content as well as watch video early and gain access to the channel discord.

Anyway, that’s all I have for you today. My name is Kevin, and you’ve been watching Arcadology.

The Development of Faith

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

The Development of Fallout

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

The Sumerian Game

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

Today’s strategy games owe a lot to The Sumerian Game. If you haven’t heard of it, don’t worry. It didn’t even have a Wikipedia entry until Video Game historian Critical Kate started tweeting about it in early September 2019. On today’s episode, we are going to talk about The Sumerian Game’s place in video game history. Welcome to Arcadology.

On September 9^th, Kate Willaert tweeted about The Sumerian Game, one of the first educational mainframe games. Mabel Addis, a fourth-grade teacher at Katonah Elementary School, developed the game and IBM employee William McKay programmed it. The game was a multimedia experience and employed tape decks, slide projectors, and of course, computer terminals to be played.

These computer terminals did not have monitors by the way. When we say text-based, in this case, a hard copy terminal printed the text onto paper. The players typed responses to the prompt that the terminal printed.

The game came to be from cooperation of IBM and the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services in Westchester County, New York. The goal to see how computer simulations could be used to educate students. Initial development took three years, and in 1965, the game was played for the first time by twenty-six sixth-grade students from Mohansic Elementary School in Yorktown Heights.

To start the game, the teacher played a 20-minute lecture that introduced the history of Sumeria and the concepts of the game to the players. The role the players took was that of Laduga the First, the priest-ruler of a Sumerian city-state.

The first turn would present the player with a problem that read: “We have harvested 5,000 bushels of grain to take care of 500 people. How much of this grain shall be set aside for the next season’s planting, and how much will be stored in the warehouse?” Players would then determine what to feed the people, what to plant, and what to store.

As the game progressed, it became more complex. For example, there might be a complication with the crop, or the player would have to account for and deal with a growing population or lack of water and irrigation. Here is the flowchart the game used to determine crop failure or disasters which included locusts, floods, or the wrath of god.

The initial phase of play would be focused strictly on managing agricultural issues. In the second phase, the player takes the role of Luduga II. The game gives the player the option to use the surplus grain to develop new crafts. Think of the tech tree in Civilization. The third and final phase of the game introduced trade and a changing economy.

As the gameplay evolved, so too did the calculations used to determine what result the player’s actions had. For example, once the player gained access to fertilizer, the equation for the Harvest would change from H = 4S to H = 5S, or the Harvest would equal five times the amount of seeds planted.

In 1966 Mabel Addis put the second phase of the game through a massive revision. This is like the first content patch for a game, ever. She rewrote the script for Luduga I to clarify objects and remove generalizations. The game was reduced to 30 turns. Prompts were rewritten and condensed to reduced repetitiveness. More use was made of the AV component with the introduction of mid season court bullitens and tape recorded cabinet discussions for the student to react to. This took the honus off the printed word, and made the visuals more important.

She removed the agricultural component from the second phase because she believed that once the player showed mastery of it in the first phase, they should be allowed to focus on the phase 2 elements of gameplay.

One of the game’s primary goals was to teach students, basic economic principals. Some examples from the list of principles are “Disasters require redistribution of resources” and “Specialization tends to increase efficiency.”

The reach of the Sumerian Game was not broad, mostly because of the investment required to play it. It did catch the attention of those that were interested in the future of education. In 1968 the John Hancock Demonstration School in Philadelphia had a computer system installed and were using the Sumerian Game to teach problem-solving. The Demonstration School was used by the Philadelphia Board of Education as a laboratory for new education techniques.

A 1969 article in Parade Magazine mentions that at the time the New York school system had a mainframe and terminal infrastructure to support approximately 6000 of their students, many of whom would play The Sumerian Game. The article speaks about the cost-prohibitive nature of this type of education but held out hope for cheaper solutions in 5 to 10 years.

The Sumerian Game would serve as a direct inspiration for Hamurabi programmed by Doug Dyment in 1968. It was a text-based strategy-simulation game that prompted players with similar problems as the Sumerian Game. Hamurabi is notable though not for its originality, but because a BASIC version of it would be published in David Ahl’s BASIC Computer Games. I’ll discuss Hamurabi more in another video.

Mabel Addis passed away in 2004 at the age of 92. She is rightly remembered in her obituary as a pioneer. There isn’t much left of the game itself; however the Strong Museum of Play has preserved some of the printouts that were produced by the game.

Anyway, that’s all for me today. If you want to read more about the Sumerian game, be sure to check out Kate Willaert’s Twitter thread and article listed below. Additionally, check out the game’s entry in the book A History of Video Games in 64 Objects. Additional sources can also be found in the description below. Take care.

The Development of Half-Life

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

Introduction

20 years ago this month, in 1998, a startup named Valve released Half-Life, and it would change the face of gaming. The game, inspired by Doom, another FPS that turned the hobby on its head, would make Valve a power player in the industry. And none of it would have happened if it weren’t for the era of the Microsoft Millionaires. Welcome to Arcadology: The Development of Half-Life.

Part One: Microsoft Millionaires

Gabe Newell is a Harvard Dropout who went to work for Microsoft. However in the early 80s, when he started, the company was not nearly the powerhouse it is today. His story of starting at the company is very reminiscent of others in the early days of the software industry. He was constantly at the office visiting his older brother who had gotten a job there, to the point of aggravating Steve Ballmer. According to Newell, Ballmer finally said to him one day: “Well, if you’re going to be spending all your time hanging out here, you need to do something useful.” Soon, Gabe was working for the company.

“[I]learned more in three months with those guys at Microsoft than I did the entire time I was at Harvard. In Harvard, I learned how to drink beer while doing a handstand in the snow. Which, ya know, is a useful skill – but not nearly as useful as how to actually develop software.”

-Gabe Newell, Co-Founder, Valve Software

So it’s understandable, from Gabe’s point of view, why trading the Harvard crimson for a job at Microsoft made sense. He spent more than a decade at the company, working on early versions of Windows. This period of time in Microsoft’s history is known as the era of the Microsoft Millionaires. In the early years, employees received stock options as part of the compensation packages. Not just the programmers and salespeople, but all the way down to the janitors. The company would generate nearly 10,000 millionaires, all living in the Seattle, Washington area. In a Washington Post article on the topic, Roberta Pauer mentions:

“It knocked our economy out of kilter. You got really high levels of consumer spending — houses, cars, boats — that were not sustainable. You got all kind of investments that were predicated on a fantasy that this flow of money would go on forever.” Roberta Pauer, Economist, Washington State Employment Security Department

This is not totally related to the history of Valve, except that Gabe Newell, and co-founder Mike Harrington were part of this wave of Millionaires. And inspired by fellow Microsoft alum, Michael Abrash who left to work on Quake for iD, they decided to start their own company in 1996.

One of the first things Newell and Harrington did was pay Abrash a visit at ID software. According to Abrash in an interview with GameSpot, the ID guys were none too thrilled to have the meeting:

“Let’s put it this way: It wasn’t like when Nine-Inch Nails came to visit – that was a cool thing. These were guys that worked on stuff like Microsoft Bob and Home Automation. You’re not going to walk into the coolest game company on the face of the earth and have the guys say, ‘Wow, nice to hang out with you!” – Michael Abrash

The idea was to learn what they could from Id, and built upon the hard work that Carmack and tean had already put into the engine, rather than starting from scratch. They were trying to be realistic about their prospects.

“When we sat down and looked at it, the areas that we wanted to be innovative in for first-person action games did not require us to be innovative in the areas where John [Carmack] had already done a lot of work,” says Newell. “It would have been too much to go from 0 to 25 people and have a stable team to build an engine at the same time.” – Gabe Newell

Harrington and Newell went back to Seattle and incorporated the company, on the same day that Newell was set to be married. They settled on the name Valve because it wasn’t overtly “extreme.” Which is a good thing, because if there is one thing about the 90s, is how extreme everything was.

The first two people hired at Valve came from a list of names that Gabe and Harrington had acquired at ID. Steve Bond and John Guthrie were Floridians who ran a Quake fansite and had also a deep knowledge of the Quake engine. The newly formed Valve flew them up to Seattle and offered them a job. The rest of the team soon followed suit with Newell and Harrington prying programmers and developers away from companies like 3DRealms, Shiny, and Microsoft.

Newell and Harrington had been working feverishly through their checklist. With the company formed, the game engine acquired, and a team built, the next thing they needed was a publisher. In present day, through Valve’s Steam platform, game developers have the ability to self-publish, but back in the 90s, finding a publisher to defray the costs and help produce the physical copies of the game was mandatory for and sense of large scale success. The catch-22 however was that publishers were wary about working with companies that had no past work to show, or, at this point even a demo.

After many fruitless meetings, they finally found their partner in Sierra On-line. Ken Williams, the founder of Sierra, received the email himself, and it was perfect timing. Sierra had been looking to get into first person shooter market when they were contacted by Newell.

It rarely snows in Seattle. But the day that Valve was to meet with Sierra, the city was covered in snow. Most places were closed, but the Valve team was determined, and drove over to Sierra’s office Mike Harrington’s four-wheel drive car. Ken Williams was the only person to make it into the office that day at Sierra, and 20 minutes into the presentation he was sold.

Williams wasn’t going to be at Sierra for much longer however, and Scott Lynch, the person who took over the Valve relationship at Sierra, wanted to be very clear with what the expectations from Valve were:

“What we all wanted to see was Valve take the technology as a foundation and add something new. When they started talking about telling a story and creating a persistent world, it was pretty obvious they weren’t going to do a mission pack with the Quake engine.” – Scott Lynch

Part Two: Development of Half-Life

During development, Valve’s first game would be known as Quiver, most likely a nod to the Quake engine that it was being built on. During early development, the idea was to get a game out as quickly as possible. Newell and Harrington had received that advice from their visit at ID, because otherwise they could end up bankrupting themselves.

The team was initially inspired by the Stephen King story, “The Mist” and refined the concept until the story was about Gordon Freeman and the Black Mesa Research Facility. (More needed here) Newell wanted the company to really focus on providing a more story based exploration, rather than straight action:

“For a long time, 3D action games seemed to keep treading down the same path – an increasing focus on a narrow definition of gameplay and a focus on the rendering [graphics] instead of the gameplay.” – Gabe Newell

Valve would hire novelist Marc Laidlaw to shape the story into what it would ultimately be. The big first person shooters of the day were usually flimsy on plot and character development. John Carmack famously said, “Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not important.” For the same of game design, this is a pretty common opinion. The systems are the most important part when looking at the game through the lens of the actual player’s experience. However, that being said, that does not mean that those same gameplay systems cannot be used in service to a story. And if the story is going to be there, why not try to make it a good one? Laidlaw put it like this: “In a lot of shooters, for all you know, you could be a weapon walking around a level. It’s pretty clear in Half-Life that’s not the case.”

Much of what they had planned for the game would not work in the Quake engine out of the box. The engine had been designed for characters to be able to speak. To rectify this they model the characters using skeletal animation. Ken Birdwell and Kelly Bailey worked secretly to design a way to get the characters mouths to actually move, and floored everyone when they did.

As the game continued development the gaming public started to become more aware of it. The first screenshots of the game were released in May of 1997 and they didn’t show a whole lot. Then at E3 1997 a gameplay trailer was released. And although the team received positive feedback, they were not totally happy with the product. They did not feel that it would be able to released by Christmas of that year, and upon further inspection, decided that they needed to break apart everything they had done, take the pieces, and start over again.

Part Three: Take Two

On a post on Gamasutra, Ken Birdwell outlined what they felt about that original version, and the process by which the new version of the game was designed. What they came to realize was that Half-life, as it was, was no better than a Quake Total Conversion. Basically Quake with different graphics. They knew that adding just a few more months to the development cycle would result in a game that was more polished, but not any better.

One of the first steps after deciding to scrap the original version of the game was to see what worked, and what didn’t. The team designed a single level that had all the design elements and technology that they had created over the previous year for the initial version of the game. This allowed them to see what worked, and what didn’t. Once that exercise was complete, they moved on to the next version of the game, with a design led be a committee.

There was no lead game designer on Half-Life, or Director that many present day games have. Instead what they had they referred to as The Cabal. The Cabal was cross-disciplinary team team that would spend several hours a day, several days a week working out the high level details of level design, as well as scripted events. This team included three engineers, a level designer, a writer, and an animator.

“It wasn’t clear that egos could be suppressed enough to get anything done… the opposite was true; the people involved were tired of working in isolation and were energized by the collaborative process, and the resulting designs had a consistent level of polish and depth that hadn’t been seen before.” – Ken Birdwell

The main Cabal would have a rotating membership to ensure a cross-section of the company was represented, and to prevent burnout. According to Birdwell, collaborative teams sprung up in other departments to solve smaller problems once the success of the Cabal became evident. After the first month, they had compiled a 200 page design document, and appointed someone to manage it.

Play testing started in the third month of the re-do. Sierra handled pulling in players from the area and during each session, a member from the Cabal, the level designer, and occasionally an engineer would sit and silently observe the player and take notes. Ultimately there were over 200 play-test sessions, with each session giving the team on average 100 action items. That is about 20,000 action items that were generated from the playtest sessions alone!

The use of data in the design of the game was fascinating. According to Birdwell they began tracking every data point as players played through the game and graphed them. For example when they saw that a player would go through a level with too much health for too long, they made the determination that the level was too easy, or if there was too much time between encounters, too boring.

As they fine tuned the levels the collaborative process common for the level designers as well. Although each level had a lead level designer, the other level designers would ultimately make tweaks and edits as well. Birdwell mentions this worked particularly well because each of the designers had a particular strength they could bring to the table, whether that be enemy placement, or the geometry of the level.

At the risk of opening old wounds, this quote from Ken Birdwell made me chuckle the more I thought about it. “The net result is that we threw out just about everything. All the AI was gone, and we gutted the levels. In reality, Half-Life got delayed because of Half-Life. [The game] is really Half-Life 2. It’s an incredible game.” So with THAT logic, then Half-Life 2 WAS Half-Life 3.

All kidding aside, the development of the first Half-Life game can show just how easy it is to let games slide down the calendar. With an initial expectation of Spring, 1998, the game quickly found itself being pushed out the door finally around Thanksgiving for 1998. Back then, however, Valve was working under the pressure of being a startup as well as managing the relationship with Sierra. There’s little external motivation for present day Valve to rush anything they don’t want to.

But enough present day talk. At the 1998 E3, Valve demoed a brand new version of Half-Life, and once again, expectations went through the roof. It would take the dreaded crunch though and scrapping parts of the game in order to make it to its final release in November of 1998.

The opening of the game became somewhat famous, with the player-character, Gordon Freeman, riding the tram on his way into work. We see the Black Mesa research facility before any sort of disaster has occurred. According to writer Marc Laidlaw, the idea came when him and level designer Brett Johnson were reviewing the opening level. Marc was curious to see what the level would look like without the destruction. The result was the opening sequence we all know today.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a whole lot of records of Half-Life’s development process. Everything that I’ve mentioned so far are the anecdotes and recollections of people that worked on the project. In 2017, Erik Johnson revealed in an interview with Gamasutra that the VSS, or the shadow copies of the previous versions of the development, had been lost. These things happen, of course, and when one is making history, they are often not aware of it. In the same interview, Gabe Newell mentioned from his days at Microsoft that they couldn’t rebuild version 1.0 of Windows, due to hex code editing that had been done source copy of the software. For the sake of gaming historic preservation though, the source code for the Half-Life engine, GoldSrc though as still available.

Part Four: The Game

Half-Life’s game play seems familiar for those who have played first person shooters recently, but in the mid to late 90s, the control schemes for first person shooters were not quite solidified. For example, early First Person shooters, like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D released only a few years earlier, used the direction arrows. Even Quake, which added mouse support, still used the direction arrow for motion. Half-Life used the WASD controls that are probably the most common shooter control scheme today. According to an article on PC Gamer, WASD was popularized by Quake player Dennis “Thresh” Fong.

“I’m certainly not going to take credit for the creation of [WASD]. I stumbled across it. I’m sure other people started using it as well just based on what was comfortable for them. I definitely think I helped popularize it with a certain set of gamers, particularly the ones that played first person shooters.”

While Quake II added a standard keyboard configuration file that allowed to quickly bind the controls to WASD, it still was not the default configuration. It wasn’t until Half-Life’s use of it as the default, followed by Quake 3 using it as the default the following year, that the control scheme became the standard by which shooters operate today.

The game’s story, as mentioned above, focuses on Gordon Freeman, a young scientist working at the Black Mesa Research facility. During an experiment he is involved in, a portal to another dimension filled with ghastly and aggressive creatures is opened. Soon, Black Mesa is under assault from these beings, and Gordon, wearing his HEV suit and a crowbar, has to find a way to survive. Unlike other shooters of the era, much of the plot is relayed to Gordon by way of encounters with NPCs, such as other scientists who have managed to survive. Gordon’s journey through the game evolves.

At its starting point, he is simply trying to survive the invasion. Then as it becomes clear that the government is attempting to cover up the incident by sending int he Marines, Gordon takes it upon himself to find a way to end it, ultimately being teleported into the other dimension to destroy the creature that is keeping the portal between the two worlds open.

Sales for the game went way beyond expectations. Newell mentioned in an interview in 1999, that they had only expected, and budgeted for around 180,000 lifetime units sold for the game, but within eight weeks of it’s release the game had eclipse the half-million mark. In terms of critical reception the game received incredible reviews and since has been recognized as one of the greatest games of all time. Much like the game that inspired it, Doom, Half-Life had tremendous support from the modding community. Perhaps the most famous Half-Life mod is Counter-Strike. The mod, developed by Jess Cliff and Minh Le, was eventually acquired by Valve, and the duo were hired as game developers. Counter-Strike, however is a big enough topic that it deserves a video of its own. Team Fortress has a very similar story, starting as a mod developed for Quake, which was ported to Half-Life after Valve hired the development team. Over time, it had been tweaked enough to be referred to as Team Fortress 1.5.

The base game would have several expansions developed by Gearbox Software. Opposing Forces put the player in control of a marine, while Blue Shift featured a security guard named Barney Calhoun. The name, by the way, is derived from what the Valve team referred to the security guard models as. This itself was a reference to the Don Knott’s character from the Andy Griffith show, Barney Fife.

When Half-Life 2 was released, Valve released a new version of the original game called Half-Life: Source. It used the new engine, the Source Engine, to render the game. The re-release didn’t blow anyone away, but it got some enthusiasts to consider what it would be like to fully remake the game. The overhaul, called Black Mesa, has been in development for years, and has switched engine versions several times in order to keep up with Valve’s= releases. In 2015, an early access version of the game was released, and recently the team behind the game, known as the Crowbar Collective, have announced that Black Mesa: Xen will be released in 2019.

Part Five: Closing

We all all aware of the current standing of Half-Life. After the second episode of Half-Life 2, we’ve seen scant news about any further development in the series. Meanwhile games like Counter Strike and DOTA 2 have taken the lead for Valve, as well as the money they earn from their Steam platform. As I said earlier, Half-Life 3 has no external motivating factors, the drive to create it has to come from within.

Additionally, shortly before I started putting this video together, there were rumors that Valve was working on their own Virtual Reality headset, and possibly a Half-Life game to go with it. The nature of this game though is still unclear, but consensus is that it would be a prequel to Half-Life. Given Valve’s history, and the internet’s ability to read into things just a bit too much, I would take any rumors with a grain of salt, until there is some sort of official announcement. In the meantime, let’s lift a crowbar to Gordon Freeman’s original adventure, and celebrate 20 years of Half-Life. That’s all for today, if you enjoy this content please like and subscribe. My name is Kevin and you have been watching Arcadology. Take care everyone.

The History of Super Mario Bros. 2

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

The History of Starcraft

July 1, 2020 by arcadology Leave a Comment

The History of StarCraft

If you were a PC Gamer in the mid to late 90s, chances are you spent some time playing a Real-Time Strategy game. Otherwise known as an RTS, the Real-Time Strategy genre had a broad selection of games in that era. There was Command and Conquer, Dune 2, Total Annihilation, to name a few.

Yet, there was one that dominated them all: StarCraft. Today on Arcadology, we will discuss StarCraft’s rise to the top. And, by extension, the history of Blizzard and the RTS. Welcome to Arcadology, a History of StarCraft.

The Founding of Blizzard: Silicon and Synapse

In 1990, Frank Pearce, Mike Morhaime and Allen Adham graduated from UCLA. They were college friends and alums of the engineering program. Upon graduating college, Adham received a gift of $10,000 from his parents, meant for a trek across Europe. Instead of a European vacation though, Adham had grand plans for the cash.

He spent the next year trying to convince Morhaime to join in. Mike, at the time, was working for Western Digital on chip design. As the months passed, Adham’s pitch finally convinced Morhaime. Mike would receive $10,000 from his parents to invest in the company. Frank Pearce would round out the trio with matching investment. Silicon and Synapse was born. Despite the three being listed together as co-founders, Pearce firmly stated in an interview with Polygon that Adham is “the founder” of Blizzard.

The earliest contract work came from Interplay. Company President Brian Fargo had known Allen Adham for over a decade. Adham had experience in high-school and college doing contract work for game studios. The Interplay contract gave Silicon and Synapse the momentum every early studio needs.

The name, “Silicon and Synapse” graced the cover of their earliest work. This included titles such as the puzzle-platformer The Lost Vikings and Rock ‘n Roll Racing.

Sale to Davidson and Associates

In early 1994, the name of the company changed to Chaos Studios, Inc. Allen Adham said in a video celebrating Blizzard’s 20th Anniversary the name change was because “[Silicon and Synapse] was kind of confusing, nobody really knew what it meant, people misspelled it all the time.” In March of 1994, Morhaime, Adham, and Pearce sold the company to Davidson and Associates for the sum of $6.75 Million. The deal gave Chaos the autonomy they needed to continue their creative streak.

A few months later, in May, the studio would change its name once again. The reasons for the final change were two-fold. First, to better align with Davidson. Second, a holding company in New York already had the name, and licensing it would be too expensive.

The company moved forward under the banner of Blizzard Entertainment. Meanwhile, development had begun on the what would be the studios first big hit.

WarCraft: Orcs & Humans

In 1992, Westwood Studios released a game called Dune 2 as an RTS. Dune 2 was a video game sequel to epic Sci-Fi story written by Frank Herbert, and adapted for film by David Lynch. The game laid much of the foundation of the RTS’s that followed and had many fans in the Blizzard office.

“Along with the other folks at Blizzard I exhaustively played Dune 2

during lunch breaks and after work, playing each of the three competing

races to determine their strengths and weaknesses; and afterward

comparing play-styles, strategies and tactics with others in the office.

While the game was great fun, it suffered from several obvious defects

that called out (nay, screamed) to be fixed.” -Patrick Wyatt, Lead Programmer and Producer of WarCraft: Orcs and Humans

“Along with the other folks at Blizzard I exhaustively played Dune 2

during lunch breaks and after work, playing each of the three competing

races to determine their st

“Dune 2 only allowed you to select one unit at a time. That felt like a

crippling limitation when you were trying to manage tactical combat

for a bunch of units. Maneuvering them one at a time was a real drag.”

“We started out trying to make things more realistic. But in the game, the

realistic stuff was thin and tall and just didn’t look powerful. So we started

squashing the characters so they looked better from the camera angle, and

it turned out they looked cool and mighty. So we just stuck with that look on

all our games.”

-Samwise Didier, Artist, WarCraft: Orcs and Humans

-Patrick Wyatt, Lead Programmer and Producer of WarCraft: Orcs and Humans

There was a lull in the RTS market in 1993, and inspired by Dune 2, Blizzard took to creating one. The initial concept behind the title WarCraft came from Allen Adham. He wanted to create a series of RTS games that had a variety of settings, such as Ancient Rome and Vietnam. They wanted to be able to control shelf space with this idea. Patrick Wyatt mentions on his blog Code of Honor, that SSI’s Dungeons and Dragons Goldbox games inspired the idea.

Wyatt tackled the early effort himself. He used graphics from Dune 2 to stand-in until the programming had progressed enough. During this time he worked on control improvements, such as multi-unit selection. Dune 2 only allowed for selecting a single unit at a time.

A team soon joined Wyatt in creating the game. According to the book about the development of Diablo titled, “Stay Awhile and Listen,” Bob Fitch joined the team to help Wyatt with programming. Mike Morhaime and Jesse McReynolds wrote the networking code for multiplayer. Stu Rose was the first artist to join the project. He was responsible for creating a design document for the team. Sam Didier joined the team and it was his fantasy art style that influenced the look of the humans and the orcs

“We started out trying to make things more realistic. But in the game, the realistic stuff was thin and tall and just didn’t look powerful. So we started squashing the characters so they looked better from the camera angle, and it turned out they looked cool and mighty. So we just stuck with that look on all our games.” -Samwise Didier, Artist, WarCraft: Orcs and Humans

The art of Warcraft is bright and colorful compared to the games released in the same era. The reason for this was two fold. First, the Blizzard artists previous experience was with console games. And second, Allen Adham wanted the art to read well in bright environments. He felt this was where most people would be playing the game.

Development started in September of 1993 and continued until November of 1994. The game’s self-financed nature was the biggest cause of delay. Ports and contract work that kept the lights on at Blizzard took priority over Warcraft. Many team members rotated in and out on the project over that time frame. When the game shipped though, it received solid review scores. And of greater importance, the game’s sales secured the company’s finances for the time being.

WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

Chris Metzen was a fresh hire during production of the first WarCraft game. According to the book, “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” Metzen spent a night at the office writing a backstory for the WarCraft universe. One of his colleagues took the backstory and sent it around the office. The result: leadership gave Metzen the role of writing the story for WarCraft II. The sequel would go into development soon after the release of the first game.

WarCraft II was an improvement to the original game in every way. It had improved AI, and a more immersive story. The game received more critical acclaim than the original. Ultimately it would sell over 2 million copies. The engine, updated from WarCraft seemed primed to be used again and again. Yet, by late 1995, a shift was happening in Zeitgeist of PC Gaming. One that would take hold and prove difficult for the development of the next game in the “Craft” series.

StarCraft

StarCraft was a huge success. But getting there was no certain feat. Chris Metzen and James Phinney led the design of the game. The core of the team came from a cancelled project called Shattered Nations.

Blizzard rushed the development of the game to have a demo ready for E3 1996. This was not long after the release of WarCraft 2. Using the same engine as the WarCraft games and a new art style the team created a game that people derided as Orcs In Space. The press and attendess considered the version of StarCraft shown at that E3 to be “more of the same.” The top down perspective looked tired and the competitors were joining the RTS fray. Westwood, developers of Dune II, had released Command & Conquer, and many other RTSes were in development. Blizzard could not rest on their laurels.

Happenstance put the game on hold for several months. Condor Studios, a recent Blizzard Acquisition, needed help putting the finishing touches on Diablo. For a very detailed story of Condor and their road to Diablo, I recommend the book, “Stay Awhile and Listen.”

Most of the StarCraft team would end up working on Diablo for the rest of 1996. Diablo delayed WarCraft lead Patrick Wyatt from returning to the StarCraft team. Bob Fitch took on the duty of rewriting the engine by himself.

The rewrite, was beneficial in providing the features that would make the game successful. But it was painful in the short term. Wyatt outlined on his blog that the decision to write it in C++ was problematic. The reason being: the dev team did not have much experience with it. This led to constant efforts to bug fix. It also explains why StarCraft was more prone to crashing than either WarCraft I and II were.

On the art side of the team, things were a bit fast and loose.

“When we made these races, we just threw a bunch of crap at the

wall and saw what stuck. We knew that our Terrans were going to

be rough and dirty. We knew we wanted the Protoss to be—not

savage, exactly, but primal, and powerful. And we knew we wanted

the Zerg to swarm.”

–Sam Didier, Blizzard Art Director

Blizzard intended the protoss to be a ‘roided out version of the stereotypical gray alien. They wanted the terrans to be a cross between mafia, rednecks, and mad scientists. And the Zerg were all over the map. Each design team, the concept artists, the game artists, and the cinematic artists, had different takes on what the zerg looked like. Blizzard completed the cinematics well in advance of the rest of the game.

In the game itself the art style took on a very “chunky” appearance. Now known as a hallmark of Blizzard’s style, this was initially done due to hardware limitations. The initial models were photorealistic, but they did not look good on screen. By making them thicker, they read easier to the eye.

The game coalesced over time, although a bit slower than many would like. A project manager would most likely blanche at the way it came together. But despite the rock and roll dev cycle, as well as a missed ship date, critics and fans loved the game. And THEN, things started to take off.

StarCraft and Korea

In 1997, a massive economic downturn hit Asia. A crisis which began in Thailand would go on to eventually effect Indonesia and South Korea, and several other countries as well. In South Korea There were many workers that had lost their jobs and needed to find new ways to create income. For some, the solution was to invest in opening Internet Cafes known in Korea as a PC Bang. (pronounced Pi Shi B-ah-ng).

There were two main reasons for this. First, a PC Bang was not a restaurant, and thus did not need to follow a stringent health code policy. The second reason was because of infrastructure. Several laws passed between the late 80s, and the late 90s, and the de-monopolization of Korea Telecom, allowed South Korea to develop an internet system that would become the envy of the world. The result was that South Korea benefitted from terrific internet speeds. PC Bangs would grow in popularity. As they grew from single storefronts into chains, the chains began to merge. One of the side effects of this would be standardized offerings across all locations.

To be honest, calling PC Bangs Internet Cafe’s is not quite accurate. According NCSoft analyst and PC Bang expert Jun-Sok Huhh, PC Bangs are more akin to Arcades of the late 70s and early 80s than internet cafes. They are popular because they provide kids and gamers a third place to be other than home or school. They also create the camaraderie and physical connection that arcades created. A unique sensation that is really only felt when gaming with others in a public space as opposed to in the privacy of your own home.

So why StarCraft?

From post-World War II to June 2000, the South Korean government had banned Japanese media. This included video games. In the 80s there were bootleg arcades in South Korea where people could play pirated versions of Japanese arcade games, but gaming was far from entering the mainstream. This means in South Korea, most of the foreign games for sale would be from the United States or Europe. This put StarCraft in prime position to end up on many PC Bang computers.

After StarCraft’s release, the quality of the game was enough to catch the attention of PC Bang owners who installed it on their computers. This was the spark that started a craze. As I mentioned a moment ago, large chains would standardize their service across all locations which often included StarCraft being installed on the computers across all locations.

This led to the game being seen as “extremely popular” by enterprising television executives. Basing a network around a game was not a new concept in Korea. The traditional game, “Go” had a large televised following in the country. Televised StarCraft matches only increased the broad appeal of the game. Ultimately, of the nearly 10 million copies of StarCraft that had been sold around the world, almost half of that was in South Korea alone!

Mike Morhaime ended up taking a trip to Korea during the surge and popularity.

“I hadn’t really seen anything like that until I took a trip out there.

When we hit two million copies sold they held this big celebration,

and this auditorium was completely packed. That was the first live

esports event I ever went to…The other thing that was surprising

was that everyone there knew StarCraft. You could talk to people

at the hotel or even people on the street, and StarCraft was a

household thing.”

-Mike Morhaime, Co-Founder, Blizzard Enterntainment

StarCraft II

StarCraft took a long time to get a sequel. Blizzard released the original game in 1998 and the sequel was not announced until 9 years later, in 2007. Blizzard had grown in the intervening years. They were no longer the small upstart founded by three UCLA alums. The company had been acquired by Vivendi after a series of mergers and acquisitions. Allen Adham had left feeling burnt out and wanting to focus on family. World of Warcraft, the MMO based on the WarCraft series, had taken the world by storm. StarCraft and WarCraft III had become massive draws in the esport scene. Especially a WarCraft III mod called Defence of the Ancients.

In 2007, Blizzard rented out the Olympic Park in Korea to host a WorldWide invitational event. It was at this event that they announced StarCraft II. At the time of its announcement, rumors had been swirling what the next game from Blizzard would be. According to a contemporary article from Gamasutra, many were speculating that it would be either StarCraft or Diablo. And those that thought StarCraft were not sure if it would be an RTS or an MMO like WarCraft.

Unfortunately, it would take another three years from the announcement for the game to be produced.

“I think with StarCraft II we were a little bit late, coming 12 years after the original. If we were a little earlier, it would’ve been better for the game. But I think [it] has a permanent place in the history of esports because StarCraft II, at least in the very early years of Twitch, was the game of choice, and a key reason they decided to start the company in the first place.” – Mike Morhaime, Cofounder, Blizzard Entertainment

In a Gamasutra interview Project Lead Chris Sigaty suggested several reasons for delay. One was the continuing development of content for World of WarCraft. Another was the creation of WarCraft III expansion ‘The Frozen Throne’. Another was a lack of clarity about the direction of the single player campaign.

Additionally, it was difficult to balance the game so it could appeal to both hardcore gamers as well as newcomers. World of WarCraft had attracted a large amount of casual gamers to Blizzard products. They wanted to make sure that someone who played WoW could hop into StarCraft II and not be scared away.

“…It’s a really tough tightrope walk, a balancing act, to get both parties. I think we’ve got the hardcore pro gamer side better accounted for. We just need to be aware of the new player, because we definitely anticipate having a group of people who come from World of Warcraft, who have played World of Warcraft and are gamers now, and want to try this new Blizzard game… we’re trying to be conscious of both groups and make sure we cater to both.” -Chris Sigaty, Project Lead, StarCraft II.

StarCraft 2, when it was released in 2010 had widespread critical acclaim. Much like its predecessor, it had high popularity in the esports. But there was also a shift in what it meant to be a professional gamer happening around that time. SC2 contributed to the launch of Twitch, which at the time was a gaming dedicated spin-off of the Justin.Tv platform. In an interview with Forbes in September of 2011, only six months after the creation of Twtich.tv, StarCraft II player, Steven “Destiny” Bonell had this to say:

“Before streaming, the only reliable source of income was a salary from a sponsored team. Tournament winnings are nice, but they aren’t very reliable to count on if you’re trying to pay a mortgage.”

-Steven “Destiny” Bonell

StarCraft II unfortunately did not rise to the same relative highs as its predecessor. I say relative because in the 8 years since its launch, the prize pool for StarCraft II tournaments has reached a total of $26 Million. StarCraft in its entire lifespan, only ever reached $7 Million. Yet, StarCraft reigned supreme for such a long time, whereas StarCraft IIs popularity was eroded by League of Legends and DOTA 2. To give a sense of scale, the 2017 International tournament for Dota 2 had a prize pool of 24.6 Million Dollars, almost as much as StarCraft II in its entire run.

StarCraft: Remastered

In 2017, Blizzard returned to the well. Starcraft Remastered was released to update the classic, and simultaneously attract new players to the game. According to Pete Stillwell, the game’s producer, the goal was to remain committed to the original gameplay style. The worked with the original artists to update the graphics to a 4K resolution.

The Remastered edition of StarCraft unfortunately launched with bugs. A PC Gamer article from the time noted that there were those in Korea who felt the controls were not exactly the same as the original. The article also noted that despite the launch, StarCraft’s share of time in PC Bang’s did not rise noticeably. The game would go on to receive solid critical reception, with an 85 overall rating on metacritic.

Legacy and Closing

In the early years of Silicon and Synapse there were constant releases of finished product. There was an internalized thought process that the longest a game can and should take is about a year. One of the most important lessons learned from the long development process on StarCraft, and something that can be seen on Blizzard’s products afterwards, was a focus on letting a game take as long as it takes, rather than crunching until the end.

“Sacrifices are necessary, we had all been roped into this idea that we just had to get it done. We were kind of powerless to be more reasonable about the whole process … We felt passionately about building this game. We wanted it to be awesome, but at the same time there was just an enormous amount of pressure that was coming down. It really wasn’t until getting our butts kicked for StarCraft that I think we really internalized that lesson across the whole company…” -Patrick Wyatt, Former Vice President of Research and Development, Blizzard

Starcraft’s impact on the video game industry has been nothing short of legendary, it’s visible every time there is an esports event, or you take a glance on Twitch. Now, I’m not saying these things would not have happened by some other measure, but it’s very difficult to avoid talking about either without giving proper credit to StarCraft.

Anyway, that’s all I have for you today. As always, accuracy matters. If I messed up on anything, please mention it to me pinned fact check comment below the video. All my sources and additional credits are listed in the YouTube description of this video. If you enjoyed, please consider subscribing to my channel with notifications. For the latest news on what I am working on, follow me on twitter @thearcadologist.

Take Care Everyone.

The Development of Suikoden

June 19, 2018 by arcadology Leave a Comment

The Suikoden franchise has a loyal following. It has earned this with scenes of epic scope, as well as touching, personal moments. Suikoden 1 and 2 are my favorite JRPGs on the Playstation 1, outpacing the Final Fantasy games. That’s my opinion, but I daresay I’m not the only one. Today on Arcadology, I’m covering a game that I’ve held dear to my heart for over 20 years. Welcome to Arcadology: Suikoden.

I recall finding Suikoden. I was with my grandma at the mall and we had stopped into an Electronics Boutique. An obsession with RPGs marked my early gaming life. Unfortunately, I had a Genesis, a console not known for its RPG selection. Of course, there was Phantasy Star and Shining Force, but they were not enough. Don’t get me wrong, I love both franchises, but I could only replay the games I had so many times.

The early years of the PlayStation were rather slim as well. The first RPG released for the PlayStation was From Software’s “King’s Field”, but it never made it over to the states. King’s Field II would have that honor but unfortunately, I never got a chance to play it. I had rented Beyond the Beyond, another early RPG for Sony’s system, and found it lacking. Then in that Electronics Boutique, I saw the box for Suikoden. A new RPG for the PlayStation? I had to have it.

My grandmother bought it for me and when I got home and started the game, I was immediately enthralled. The story was epic, yet so personal, and took me on a ride that I had never quite felt before. Before I spoil anything let’s start back at the beginning of how this game got made.

The Development

Development of the game took place at Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. Direction of the game was under the guidance of Yoshitaka Murayama. Murayama graduated from the University of Tokyo with a degree in programming in 1992. Konami was Muryama’s first and only job interview, where he got hired as a bug tester. Yet, he didn’t spend too much time in that position. Six months into his career his manager told him he was being pulled onto a top secret project. The 16-bit generation of consoles was coming to a close. Despite the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo, there seemed to be no clear front runner heading into the next generation. Konami decided to throw their hat into the 1st party ring, and release a console of their own.

Muryama was one of the few employees selected to develop games for this new console. It was on this project that he met artist and Suikoden collaborator Junko Kawno. The two worked on developing an RPG for the mysterious Konami console. According to Muryama, Konami inteded the console to be handheld. It would also run off of ROM carts, and support 3D graphics. Sounds to me a little like the Nintedo Switch, long before the Switch was possible. After about a year, Konami cancelled the console and disbanded the development teams. Yet only a week later management pulled Muryama into another project. This time he they selected him, along with Kawano and others to develop a game for the Sony PlayStation.

Konami assigned only 10 employees to the development of PlayStation games. They kept the rest of the staff focused on the 16-bit consoles. There were five options presented to the 10 designers. A racing game, a baseball game, or one of three RPGs. Muryama paired up with Kawano to work on an RPG, as they had spent the previous year toying with the genre. If Konami had listed action as an option though, Muryama would have preferred that. In an interview with Swedish gaming magazine LEVEL Murayama mentioned a desire to work on a game like Taito’s Metal Black. For Suikoden fans everywhere I’m glad that was not an option.

A wide variety of games fed Murayama’s imagination during development. Dragon Quest V was a genre touchstone. A programming quirk gave Murayama an idea for an intersection between gameplay and storytelling . Each time the priest ressurrected your character in Dragon Quest V, his speech slowed. This was reflected in Suikoden during the gameplay before a particular character’s demise. Murayama said in his LEVEL interview, he made the character more frustrating to play, to enhance their sacrifice when the moment came.

Other influential games include Sid Meier’s Civilization and Taito’s Metal Black. Though, their influences are less obvious. A negative game influence for Murayama was The Black Onyx. The Black Onyx was an 80s crpg developed by Bulletproof Software. Muryama felt the game was too complex and had complicated puzzles. He wanted Suikoden to be a streamlined experience for the player. A fun side-note: Henk Rogers owned Bulletproof Software. The same Henk Rogers who would go on to secure the rights to Tetris for Nintendo.

For plot influences, Murayama took great inspiration from the mangas Captain Tsubasa and Fist of the North Star. Captain Tsubasa is a manga about an soccer team captian named Tsubasa Oozora. Fist of the North Star is a manga about warrior named Kenshiro suriving in a post-apocalyptic world. Yet when he was getting ready to pitch to his manager, the idea that his manager would not resonate with the Manga concerned Murayama. So he decided to lean on a different influence – an ages old Chinese novel called The Water Margin. The Water Margin is about a group of 108 Outlaws that band together to form an army. The government grants them amnesty and co-opts them as a military force.

In the prologue of the Water Margin, translator Edwin Lowe provides a history of the story. Written in the 1300s during the Ming Dynasty, the story follows a group of 108 outlaws who form an army. Scholars consider it one of the, four great novels of vernacular Chinese literature.

Muryama’s manager misunderstood the gist of the pitch. Muryama was looking to set the game in a world like that of The Water Margin. but what his manager took hold of, was the 108 Outlaws aspect. The game would ultimately be named after the Japanese name for the Water Margin because of this. Suikoden. As Murayama fleshed out the world he took inspiration from other literature. such as The Eternal Champion books written by Michael Moorcock.

After six months of tireless work, Muryama and Kawano finally got some help. Management folded the other two RPG teams into the Suikoden staff. It was at a much needed time too. Murayama and Kawano were at their wits end with the amount of work that the project was shaping up to be. They had tested the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation and walked away unimpressed. They decided that sticking with traditional sprite graphics would be best.

Creating 108 Characters was a difficult task for the team. Murayama would have team members pitch new characters every day. There were many that would not make the cut. Murayama mentioned a funny anecdote in his interview with LEVEL magazine. A staffer kept pitching a character that was a that was a dead ringer for the mascot of the Yokohama Marinos, a professional soccer team in Japan. Eventually, they were able to work through all 108 characters, or “stars of destiny.”

Suikoden’s development had many obstacles thrown in its way. The project was lead by a rookie game designer and young artist. Yet with their sheer force of will, talent, and luck they perservered. They guided a project through the collapse of an in-house console project. They pushed through a limited budget, and an over ambitious project plan. And when they finally crossed the finish line their victory was short lived. QA had discovered a game breaking bug in the gold copy of the game. The team returned to their offices, and worked out the bug, before finally taking a break.

THE STORY

So what is it about Suikoden that is so special? The plot and the characters combine to make a fantastic story. I’ll be spoiling the inciting incident of the game, but I will attempt to avoid any of the big twists and turns. The namable player character, who many refer to as Tir, is the son of an Imperial Army General named Teo McDohl. While Teo is off on the border with his army, Tir, his friend Ted, and Teo’s three servants Pahn, Cleo, and Gremio, join the Imperial Army. While off on a mission of their own, a ferocious monster attacks them. Ted reveals himself to be the carrier of a True Rune, a symbol embedded in his hand that gives him tremendous power.

When they return to their home in Gregminster, Ted is summoned to the castle. Windy, the court magician, reveals herself as a villain. She has been after Ted’s rune for centuries. In a fight, Windy deals Ted a fatal would, but he manages to escape. Back at the McDohl estate, Ted bequeaths the rune to Tir. Unfortunately, Pahn betrays the group and tells the Imperial Guards that Ted found his way back. Ted passes away but not before creating enough of a distraction for Tir to get away. While on the run, Tir, Gremio, and Cleo are assisted by a man named Viktor, who takes them to the base of a secret rebellion. From there the game broadens in scope. Through fate and happenstance, Tir becomes the leader of a rebel army based in a Castle in the middle of a lake. He is leading the fight against the emperor who his father has sworn allegiance to. Dramatic stuff!

The castle, by the way, is how they avoided the need for too many combat characters. It opened up the options for characters that could be recruited. Many characters could do more passive things. Some opened shops in the castle. Another managed a storeroom the storeroom or act as blacksmiths. One even lets you install elevators, allowing you to get between levels faster.

THE GAME

Let’s talk about the gameplay. Aside from the 108 characters in the game, the most interesting aspect is the rune system. Murayama said in an interview with the Suikoden Revival Movment, the idea of the rune system came from a card game in Japan. Unfortunately, Collectible Card Games are not my area of expertise. If anyone has any information on which game that might be, please post it in the comments down below.

The rune system allows magic use in the world of Suikoden. For a contemporary comparison, think of the materia system used in Final Fantasy 7. Some runes are generic, like fire, and allow characters to cast fire spells. But the True Runes are one of a kind. They allow the characters to perform unique magic spells.

Magic points were not used in Suikoden. Instead, characters could cast a limited number of spells between rest. According to Murayama, Wizardry, a CRPG series from the 80s, served as the inspiration for this. Sir-Tech software based Wizardry on the Dungeons and Dragons magic system. The developer was also known for the Jagged Alliance games.

There are three phases of combat in Suikoden. The most common are the standard party-based encounters. These happen as random encounters on the world map, or in dungeons. You control up to six characters aligned in two rows of three. Placement of your characters matters. Short-Range must be in the front row, and can only attack the enemy’s front row. Medium-Range can be in either row and can can only attack the enemy’s front row. Long-Rage can be anywhere, and attack anywhere, but should stay in the back row. Characters with lower defense and hit-points are often have long range.

One of the coolest parts of combat were the unite attacks. Certain characters could work together to perform one massive strike. The smallest unite attacks need only two people, and some need three with one allowing up to four characters to unite. It’s a fun mechanic to experiment with during your first time playing the game.

The other two types of combat are Duel’s and Army Battles. Duel’s feature one on one, simplified combat. You have three options during a duel, Attack, Defend, and Desperate Attack. In essence, duel’s are rock-paper-scissors. Attack defeats Defend, Defend beats Desperate Attack, and Desperate Attack beats Attack. It’s not all guesswork though. The combatants will often trash-talk and this will give away their next move.

Army battle’s pit your entire army against another army. As the game progresses these battles become larger in scale. Army battles also had an element of rock-paper-scissors. Infantry beat Archers, Archers beat Mages, and Mages beat Infantry. Reviving certain characters killed during army battles is impossible. Characters that cannot be revived were ones that were inconsequential to the plot. Yet, it still hurt when you lost one that you had made a connection with. This gives these battles a whole different level of treachery.

The music in the Suikoden series has always been a high point. Konami legend Miki Higashino composed most of the music. Higashino joined Konami in 1984 after spending time studying music composition in college. Konami was looking for a part-time composer for their games. Higashino didn’t know much about game music, but took on the job regardless. In 1995, Suikoden provided her the first opportunity to score a game that used recorded music. Higashino said that it was after reading the scenario for the game that she realized the need for a wide variety of world music.

One of the more interesting bits of commentary on the game comes from Warren Spector. Warren Spector’s ludography includes Ultima, Wing Commander, System Shock, and Deus Ex. He says that Suikoden is one of his favorite games, as well as one that has influenced him. He praises the games big moments. He also enjoyed the way the game handled choice. Many choices being illusions, with a few having drastic consequences on the story. The base building was also a favorite.

Upon release Suikoden was a PlayStation exclusive in the United States. In other markets, it was available on more platforms. According to Suikosource, Suikoden was also released on PC and the Sega Saturn in Japan. In recent years, the game has seen several re-releases. In 2006, Suikoden was re-released in Japan on the Sony PSP Handheld. Suikoden 1 saw a re-relese on PSN a few years after that, followed by Suikoden a few more years later. Unfortunately, they are only compatible on the PlayStation 3. Recently there has been a push to get Suikoden released on Steam. The Suikoden Revival Movement has been using #suikodenonsteam to get Konami’s attention. As of right now though, despite Konami acknowledging the movement, there has been no updates from the former video game company.

Suikoden would spawn four sequels, several spin-offs, and other media. The immediate follow up, Suikoden II, is often cited as one of the greatest RPGs of that generation. Story, characters, combat, all became much more interesting in the second installment. Despite this, I still hold a very special place in my heart for the first one, which my grandma bought me.

Thank you so much for watching this episode. Special thanks to Kasper Nowakowski for providing me the copy of an interview he had with Yoshitaka Murayama. All the sources I used are down in the description of the video.

I love this game and I wanted to dig into how it came about. I feel like I accomplished that. But as always, if you have any sources that you find to the contrary please mention it in the pinned fact check comment down below. Additionally, I am now in the podcasting space! I will be releasing podcast episodes every two weeks. Currently, I am re-releasing some of my early videos as podcasts, but will be adding original material and interviews shortly.

Sources:

Interview with Yoshitaka Murayama (2014) – Suikoden Revival Movement: https://www.facebook.com/notes/suikod…

Yoshitaka Murayama Community Interview (2016) – Suikoden Revival Movement: https://www.facebook.com/notes/suikod…

Nowakowski, Kasper; Kudo, Takashi (August 2009). “I goda vänners lag”. LEVEL #41.

Konami’s games console – GamaSutra – https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JohnS…

Gameplay Capture

Suikoden – xRavenXP – longplays.org

Kings Field – Deskawa – longplays.org

Dragon Quest V – Valis77 – longplays.org

Metal Black – Schlauchi – longplays.org

Civilization – Eino – longplays.org

Script Editor – Matt Mckeown