Adventure Gamer interviews Steven Hill
Conducted by Adventure Gamer - October 1998
Steven Hill is the new producer of Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. The continuation of one of Sierra's best adventure series.
What other projects have you worked on in the past?
The first two projects that I worked on were Rama and Red Baron II. Both
developed at Dynamix. I moved to Sierra Studio in June of 1998 to start
work on some prototypes, and was asked to help out on GK3.
Why were you put on the Gabriel Knight 3
project when it was already in development?
Creating a new adventure game engine from
scratch has its share of technical hurdles.
Between my programming experience and my
gaming experience I can help the team focus on
the important features we really need in the
game engine. I am also a huge Gabriel Knight
fan as well as adventure game player.
Do you know yet what your next game might
be?
No, I have no idea. Several prototypes are in the works that look very
exciting. I would like to work on any one of them.
Did you speak with Arthur C. Clarke [he wrote the sci-fi book Rama]
before or during the production of Rama?
I did speak to him on a conference call once. He was calling after
reviewing one of our prototype and was very excited about what he saw. I
wish I could have gone to Sri Lanka to meet him that would have been a
once in a lifetime experience.
The current release date for the game is sometime in early '99 isn't
it? What caused you to make the decision to push it back?
I was put on GK3 at the end of June. To make Christmas we would have
had to ship by mid October. This gave us a little of over 3 months to finish
the game. This is just not enough time for me to come up to speed and
complete the game on time. It is also very difficult to plan for problems
when you are creating a new game engine. With SCI, most of the
technical hurdles could be planned for at the start of the project because
the limitations of the engine and the styles of the games were well known.
Creating a new engine and a new style of adventure games have
compounded the technical/game play issues.
What is the team currently doing with the game and what is yet to be
done?
The programmers have been focused on creating a game engine that is
easily customizable and rich enough to tell Jane's story. This is something
they will be working on until the end. We have a few programmers
working on game content and puzzles. There is a lot of animation
required to fill up the 3D world making it feel like a real environment. Most
of the animators are working on new animations. A few animators are
polishing parts of the game that have already been scripted. We also
have a group of environment artist that are methodically going through
each room and rearranging object, cleaning up textures, and recreating
the light maps for different times of the day.
What are some options in gameplay/puzzles that making the game
3-D has given you?
It has made the spatial and proximity puzzles more interesting. There are
several puzzles that require the player to move Gabe or coax a NPC [Non
Playing Character] into a certain position within a certain time window.
These are much more interesting in a 3D environment.
What do you feel is the most unique or interesting feature added to
the game?
The free-floating camera is probably the most interesting feature allowing
the player to completely move around the room without moving Gabe. It
has also created a lot more work for the artist and animators.
How does GK3's length compare to that
of the previous installments?
It should be similar in length if not longer
than the previous installments, but it is hard
to tell until we can play through the entire
game.
How GK3 will connect to the previous 2
games?
The relationship between Gabe, Grace, and
Mosely will be explored further. At times,
there will be references to the first two
cases, but the mystery is completely
unrelated.
Do you know what Jane is planning to
work on next?
GK3 is taking most of Jane's time up right
now, but she has plans to continue to do
games and books.
When is the GK3 novel planned to be
published?
It hasn't been decided if there will be a GK3 book. We'll see after the
game is finished.
Have either you or Jane though yet about the possibility of the next
game returning to FMV [Full Motion Video]?
Jane's stories really lend themselves to FMV, but FMV has a stigma
attached to it. So I don't see us returning to a 2D FMV style game, but I
can see us using Video capture technology in a 3D environment in future
games.
Will the emotion and storytelling capabilities that FMV provided still
be capable in a 3-D environment?
I hope so. The story is the game when comes to the GK mysteries so it is
very important that we do not lose the story in the technology.
What has been your most favorite
moment in the production of GK3?
Hard to say since I haven't been on very
long, but I will let you know once we ship.
Has 3-D any problems you've had to
overcome along the way?
We haven't overcome all of the problems
yet. Sierra has done so may 2D adventures
that the initial design was constrained by
our experience with these earlier games.
3D opens up the world requiring use to
approach a lot of things differently. For
example, something as simple as moving
Gabe around didn't need to be design in
previous installments, but with this game, it
has become a huge issue. Also moving to
3D has created a new entity in the world,
the camera. We've been trying to resolve
the relationship between the camera (the
player) and Gabe. By moving the camera
around the corner, can the player know
things that Gabe doesn't, and how does
this affect the story line.
Is a demo planned to be released?
No, not at the moment.
I'm sure choosing between Dean Erickson and Tim Curry for the
voice of Gabriel was a tough decision. What made you choose Tim
Curry? Availability?
We liked Dean in GK2 a great deal, but GK3 is a voice-over only project,
and we made the decision based on what we thought would work bets as
voice over.
Why are a lot of the voices in Gabriel Knight done by big stars, like
Michael Dorn, John de Lancie and so on?
We are working again with Stuart Rosen as director, and he has worked with
most of these people and is able to get them interested in the project. The
GK series is also easy to sell to big names because of the rich stories.
Will the game feature any more livestock besides the chicken?
We are really trying to make an immersive an environment so we are
adding animals to different scenes for atmosphere.
What about Easter Eggs?
Can't give any of these away yet. These have a tendency to creep in as
the game comes to completion so I don't even have a complete list yet.
Thank you for your time and good luck with the game!
Last update: October 30, 2007
Delicious 
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
StumbleUpon