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Breathing Life into Brute Force
By Alex McLain
Games do not drop, finished and bug free, from the sky (although, that would be cool). They begin with an idea, be it some haphazard scribbling on a cocktail napkin by an inspired game designer or the work of a team's brainstorming sessions. The genesis for all games share a common bond: they all begin their journey as nothing more than a concept, a twinkling in a company or designer's eye. Brute Force is no exception; it took its first shaky steps as a proposal for a "shooter with tactical and roleplaying elements." The game has since evolved and become something more than the original vision could encompass.
Ingenius, original, addictive.
From conception, games follow very similar steps and milestones, but the time spent on each area of development can change drastically, depending on the game. For example, some games may spend months and months languishing in the concept stage, as a team tries to pound out an exacting outline of what it wants to accomplish. Brute Force was not one of these; instead, the concept period was surprisingly short (three months). The game moved very quickly out of concept and into the prototype cycle (described by Producer Erin Roberts as "proof of gameplay"). It can be good to get cracking on a game in a hurry, but it comes with its share of challenges as well. Digital Anvil, the development group behind Brute Force, found themselves doing a lot design on the fly. The prototype cycle for Brute Force was no insignificant period of time (two years), as Digital Anvil had to write every piece of code from scratch.
It's all about the multiplayer.
Games shed and add features as the course of the development moves on. One of the features that seems so completely integral toBrute Force is System Link; however, System Link was not originally intended for the game. Roberts explains:
"System Link was very difficult to implement because we never meant to put multi-box multiplayer in the game when we first started working on it. We had to take a code base that was not built to support multiple boxes, and, in five short months, make it playable over a LAN. Gameplay balancing was also tough, when taking into account the four different squad characters, 20 odd enemies, and all the different weapons and equipment."
I think we can all say that we're quite glad that the folks at Digital Anvil took this challenge and conquered it head on.
Digital Anvil's work paid off.
The development lifecycle for a game is rarely smooth, but it's the diversity and scope of daily problems and challenges that allow a stellar team to rise up and really shine. Genius and innovation aren't born from smooth sailing; they come from the need to imagine solutions to unforgiving problems. This, in part, is why Brute Force comes to us as the polished and unique product that it is. Long live conflict in development, for that is how innovation in games shall continue. |
