Part I of the Turok interview

Josh Holmes, vice president of
Propaganda Games

Dino-mite! Propaganda’s Josh Holmes on Turok, Canada and more – Part II

Here’s Part II of our interview with Canadian Josh Holmes, vice president of Propaganda Games in Vancouver. Below, you’ll find Josh’s take on Turok’s Xbox LIVE multiplayer, Achievements, and where the team drew their inspiration for the game. We also chat about what it’s been like starting up a new studio and how much he loves Vancouver.

Josh’s Vancouver-based Propaganda Games just finished the all-new, completely-reimagined Turok game.

-- On Turok’s Xbox LIVE Gameplay --

Jade: What's the multiplayer going to be like? Anything unique that Turok's going to be bringing to Xbox Live?

Josh Holmes, Propaganda Games: We wanted to deliver a really solid single-player experience, and then carry that over into the multiplayer arena. And the first thing that we knew was that we had to have dinosaurs. All of the different modes and match types that exist in multiplayer involve dinosaurs in some way.

We have seven maps, with five different match types playable on each. Some stuff is pretty standard, like pure Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, and there’s Capture the Flag and Assault-Style Capture the Flag. We also have another competitive, objective-oriented mode called War Games, in which two teams are vying to complete a series of objectives that vary depending on the map. The first team to pull it off, wins. But in all of those match types, the dinos really become that neutral third party. The fastest way through the map is usually taking you through a creature-infested area. In CTF, when you’ve got the flag – the flag is actually a beacon to the dinos. So when you’re going through dino territory, they’re all drawn to you as the flag carrier and it’s really important that your team members are there to support you.

In addition to the competitive Xbox Live play, we also have three co-op specific missions that we’ve created for the game that play off and continue the single-player experience. They let you explore some of the areas that you might have sort of glimpsed – like “wow, I never knew this area existed, I wondered what was at the other side of this base, or over the other side of that hill when I was going through the single-player campaign, and now here I am, I’m engaged in a mission that’s actually exploring this area.” I think it’ll be cool for people who’ve played through single-player, now to be able to go on Xbox Live with three of their buddies and play four-player co-op and take on some of these missions.

Jade: That’s really interesting. I didn’t know there were co-op missions! Why did you decide to include co-op as well? And why make the co-op missions separate, stand-alone missions, rather than just taking them through campaign?

Josh: It was actually after we had multiplayer up and running, and we had the dinos playable in multiplayer, that we thought, wow, this would be a really cool experience to have playable as co-op. And at that time we were looking at some of the other games that were coming out, and one of the ones that in particular stuck out was Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. We were having a ton of fun playing that, and we started thinking, well, we can’t do co-op because it doesn’t really make sense within the story. Turok’s a loner, and there are sections of the game he’s going through on his own. If we did make it a co-op playable experience it wouldn’t be balanced, and it would have some major difficulty issues in it. So we knew that wasn’t possible. If we get some time so we can focus on this, we can deliver some really cool missions in co-op that would allow people to go online and play with their friends and experience a whole different experience within multiplayer.

Jade: What are some of the Achievements we can look forward to?

Josh: There are some that are specific to single-player that are “knife a certain number of dinos” or “win a certain number of mauling sequences with dinosaurs.” Then there are some that we’ve put in there that are specific to multiplayer: “kill a certain number of enemies,” “get a certain number of headshots.”

There was one achievement in particular that kind of drew the ire of fans everywhere. Which was our Grab Bag achievement. This was an achievement that was a tongue-in-cheek Achievement that we put together when we started watching all the first-time players come in to the game. You can’t actually kill your teammates using standard weapon fire, but you can with grenades. So if you throw a grenade, and you’re not really paying attention, you can blow up your team-mate. We noticed that the first time someone would play the game, inevitably, there would this situation where one of their enemies would be having his face torn off by a dino and the first-time player would be so excited that they’d throw a grenade to try and take him out, and end up taking out the dino, the enemy and their team-mate. We thought that it was hilarious! I mean, it was happening so consistently.

Little did we know that everyone would think that we were somehow condoning team-killing as a great behaviour in our multiplayer. So we’ve gone back and adjusted that. We are releasing a patch for Day 1 so that the team-killing portion of the Achievement is no longer in there, based on all the feedback that we received from people.

Jade: Really? I’m surprised they couldn’t just enjoy it in the spirit of fun that it was meant.

Josh: I’m surprised, too, but I think there were some good points made on both sides of the debate, and at the end of the day we really didn’t want to alienate anyone or prevent them from having fun with the multiplayer. And we know that if there is something that’s driving people crazy, it could be the thing that prevents people from really getting out there and seeding the community. Multiplayer depends on the support of the community. That’s something that we wanted to make sure was there.

Jade: It’s wonderful to hear that you do actually listen to the forums, and listen to the fans.

Josh: Yeah, we’re constantly reading feedback and we do whatever we can to try and respond to it.

-- On Propaganda Games --

Jade: What was it like leaving EA to strike out on your own?

Josh: Terrifying. *laughs* It was definitely an exciting challenge, and it was scary at the same time. The founding group had been with EA for so long ... so the prospect of going out and doing something on our own was a little bit daunting. But it was something that we had always wanted to do and we leapt at the opportunity to do it. And we were lucky enough to establish a relationship with a powerful publisher like Touchstone that gave us an opportunity with the Turok franchise to do a really high-profile, high-quality game right out of the gate. Which I think is a pretty phenomenal opportunity for a new developer.

Jade: That is pretty incredible. Did you expect your first game as a studio would be a AAA title?

Josh: We’d set our sights pretty high, would be the way I’d put it. So when we set up what was originally Revolution Interactive and became Propaganda Games, our goal was to come out and make a really top-quality product that made a major splash on next-generation consoles. When we were looking around for a partnership with a publisher, that was one of the major considerations that we were taking into account. Who would give us the opportunity to do this. I think we were naive and confident enough to believe that we deserved this shot, but looking back, I think we were pretty lucky, as well.

Jade: What portion of your team here at Propaganda is Canadian?

Josh: I would say somewhere in the realm of about 75%. There’s a lot of people that are originally from Vancouver that have either lived here all their lives or come from out east. We have some people who joined Propaganda out of the Montreal development community. We do have a number of ex-pats who have come from the UK, and some people who have come from as far as Texas and other parts of the States, so we are lucky to have a pretty eclectic group. But the vast majority of the people here are Canadian.

Jade: What are some of the benefits and challenges you run into being based in Vancouver?

Josh: The development community in Vancouver is so strong and there’s such an amazing pool of world-class talent that’s based out of this city. In recent years, you’ve seen an explosion in the number of independent developers that have set up here in town. So it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand it gives you this amazing talent pool to draw from, on the other hand it’s also an increasingly competitive marketplace for talent. The net result is that we develop better quality games out of this city than just pretty much anywhere else on the planet because of the talent that’s available here.

The other advantage is that the city itself is a major draw for people. This is, I would say, one of the most desirable, if not THE most desirable city on the planet to live in. With the wealth of different things you can do here in the Lower Mainland, it’s one of the reasons why I’ve never moved. *laughs* And I don’t have any hopes or aspirations to move from Vancouver because it is just such a beautiful place to live.

As a development studio, there are some additional advantages in terms of tax breaks that are available through the Canadian government, but I’d say mainly it’s about the talent and the environment.

-- On Inspiration --

Jade: Did you bring in elements that you liked from other games, movies, comics, etc.?

Josh: One of the things that was both a challenge and an advantage to us as a team was that many of us haven’t worked on a first-person shooter in the past. We do have some people who have experience on franchises like Quake, Battlefield, but I’d say the majority of the team, while they’ve worked on phenomenal titles, they haven’t worked on first-person shooters per se. What that did is it created a learning curve for how we’re actually going to create a first-person shooter and at the same time it let us approach the genre with fresh eyes. I think that, as a genre, shooters have been so done to death that having that freshness of perspective to come in and say, “well, why can’t we infuse this with 3^rd person elements,” “why can’t we have changes in the core gameplay mechanics to reflect some of these situations,” ... it gave us the freedom to experiment and try new things, which was kind of cool.

As far as inspirations for the game and the story, we drew inspiration from all over. We definitely looked at other games, and for the core mechanics and stuff we looked at some of the best examples of that. Those would be like the Call of Duty series, and Halo series – games that everyone’s played. But we also looked at some more esoteric games like Project Breakdown, which is an old, first-person game. But it had some really killer first-person, “in the moment” work that was done. Condemned did a great job of that, too. Outside of games, for story development and stuff, there were some movies that really inspired us, like “Pitch Black,” “Aliens,” and of course “Predator” and “Rambo.” It’s hilarious to have Turok coming out a couple of weeks before the relaunch of the Rambo franchise. It just kind of makes me chuckle.

Jade: Yeah, the game’s release will be right between the release of the new AVP movie and the Rambo film.

Josh: Exactly. *laughs* It’s pretty funny.

Jade: Josh, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me – is there anything else that you’d like to share with the Xbox community?

Josh: I really hope that people go out there, check it out, and give Turok a chance. And that they go into it with open eyes and an open mind ... some of the things we’re doing are a little different from what people have seen in other shooters.

My hope is that this is a game that will appeal to Turok fans, but also to people who have never played a Turok game before. People who are just looking for some really cool dinosaur shooting action. It’s kind of a new idea of how you can play a shooter, and how gamers can use the dynamic AI to their advantage. So just get out there and check out Turok when it comes out.