Interesting Podcast – Irrational Interviews
Thanks to Mordi Peshkess for bringing to my attention (through comments here) a recent Irrational Interview with Ken Levine and Amy Hennig about their roles as Creative Directors.
I found this quite an interesting interview, with them discussing various issues and processes, from writing to management to dealing with feedback. Definitely worth checking out if you are curious about this aspect of game dev.
Brent Knowles
Former lead designer at BioWare (Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights). Creator of Raiders of the Serpent Sea.
6 Comments
Mordi Peshkess
Oh wow. Thanks for the mention. Kinda blushing here. If you like this one then check out the rest of Irrational Podcasts. They are kinda short but because they come so few and far in between that each one of them is gold.
Anyways, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Did you find their process close to yours or do you have your own method?
Also, I’m sure everyone here who follows you would love to hear you on their podcast, or any for that matter. Food for thought.
Finally, I wanted to recommend a book to you. it’s called Carnival of Fear by J. Robert King and is set in the Ravenloft world which I’m sure your familiar with. Very unique book. The least DnD themed book in the DnD universe.
Brent Knowles
Yeah, I’ll definitely look into past episodes, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I suspect that both of them have a lot more control than I ever did but parts of our process seem similar. Delegation is really important, knowing you can’t do everything. Where we were quite different I think is in regards to story; I really had very little to do with story design at BioWare, other than at a very high-level (my focus being more technical and on the game design aspects). They on the other hand seem to be really involved with the writing aspect.
And I’ll check the book out. Used to be a big Ravenloft fan.
Mordi Peshkess
Ravenloft was very underrated by most players, like Planescape. Me and the guys that played it always felt like the outsiders. The good thing about it is that even though the portion of players who got into it are smaller compared to Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance or even Greyhawk, the people that got into it were extreamly passionate about it.
Come to think of it, no one really made an RPG outside of Faerun, right? Well Black Isle made Planescape: Torment, but other then that it’s mostly Forgotten Realms.
Brent Knowles
Yeah, I don’t think there was a lot of interest in the other properties, just Forgotten Realms, I suppose because it was the most popular.
Mordi Peshkess
It’s because of Drizzt. That damned Dark Elf…Tee Hee.
Brent Knowles
:)