- 9 ore fa
Gli sviluppatori di Bombshell rivelano i dettagli del gioco in una videointervista.
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00:03And welcome, today we've got something a little special for you, with me is Frederic, the CEO and Game Director
00:09at Interceptor, and we're going to take you behind the scenes for a little bit, so tell us about Interceptor.
00:15Yeah, Interceptor is a company established in 2012. Actually, we started as a group in 2010, working on Duke Nukem
00:25Reloaded, which was this unprecedented fan project that was supposed to bring back Duke Nukem in next-gen graphics.
00:34We closed down the project in 2011 and started working on Rise of the Triad, 2013, as people call it,
00:42in 2012. And 18 months later, we released Rise of the Triad, which we're extremely proud of. Hardcore, first-person
00:51shooter with tons of guts and blood, just what we love to play.
00:54Like a step back to the good old traditionals from the 80s.
01:03Well, not that. You're working on something a little different this time. So, I mean, tell us about it. What
01:07are you working on?
01:08Well, you know, we're working on a brand-new IP that we're really excited about. It's a game called Bombshell.
01:17Bombshell is a game that we almost wanted to do at some point. Bombshell was originally part of Duke Nukem
01:26back in the mid-90s.
01:28She was never formally introduced, but there were concepts of a character called Bombshell. And we always wanted to take
01:34that concept and turn it into our own kind of IP thing.
01:38Yeah.
01:39So, yeah, we're working on a...
01:41So, what's her inspiration? I mean, what can you tell us about Bombshell?
01:47Well, Bombshell is inspired by, you know, 80s action heroes. She's a female character, extremely badass, and very different from
01:55other female characters.
01:56Hey, what's up, guys?
01:58Hey, what's up?
02:00Did you mention about her bionic arm?
02:02Oh, yeah.
02:03She has a bionic arm?
02:04Yeah, she has a bionic arm. So, Bombshell's arm is a bionic mechanical arm that she can turn into different
02:11weapons and use throughout the game for a lot of different gameplay elements.
02:14Because of reasons?
02:15Because of reasons. She gave up her life, basically, for a squad of soldiers and lost her arm in action
02:23and got a mechanical black market arm created straight out of Terminator.
02:27It sounds roughly like a Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger movie plot.
02:32Definitely. With a female. And very different from other female characters in games. You know, you have Lara Croft, for
02:38instance. You know, drastically different character.
02:39She doesn't have a bionic arm, for instance. That's a fair difference, right there.
02:44Big difference. And way more rough around the edges. You know, she drinks whiskey and drives a bike. You know,
02:48she's not the sensual, sexy female character, as you would imagine, with big cleavage and such.
02:56Sensing a, I mean, looking at some of the concept art for Bombshell, you're sensing a kind of a return
03:04to the 80s vibe to it.
03:06I mean, what are the inspirations that you've put? What sources have you drawn upon, like, musically or thematically?
03:12Um, thematically... Hey, sorry to intro. You guys are talking about 80s, but can I get Top Gun?
03:19Uh, yes.
03:20I really want to try, uh...
03:22There you go.
03:23Yeah, thanks.
03:24Good luck.
03:24No problem.
03:26Uh, yeah, Bombshell is inspired by a lot of 80s action heroes. You know, primarily the inspiration for this character
03:34is, uh, has an edge of cyberpunk to her.
03:36Uh, she's this rebellious hacker kind of cyberpunk girl that has military training.
03:43Um, so, musing and thematic, it's, it's, it's very, very gritty, dirty, uh, a lot of heavy metal music, uh,
03:51it's mixed with a lot of electronic music.
03:53Uh, so this whole, uh, mixture and fusion of electronica and metal and steel and, you know, it's...
04:01She sounds pleasant.
04:02She, uh, she's not pleasant to be around.
04:04Um, and she does kick some, kick some butt, definitely.
04:08Okay.
04:09Well, I mean, um, getting, getting past that, because obviously, I imagine a lot of the people watching on right
04:14now obviously do this because we love games.
04:17Um, what's, what's it like?
04:18Because, I mean, Interceptor is such, you're not a big studio.
04:22You know, you're, you're working the indie scene, you're doing your own thing.
04:25Um, what, what's it, what's it like?
04:26I mean, can you, can you tell us what it's like to have, like, a small team like this and,
04:30and you're a bit fragmented as well?
04:31Yeah, definitely. Um, Interceptor is a virtual studio.
04:34And, and, you know, we, we want to do, uh, we want to do the, uh, the more triple A
04:39quality games, uh, in terms of the visuals and the production quality.
04:42And that's very hard to do, um, when you're, uh, you know, five or six people, uh, as an independent
04:48studio.
04:48So, uh, the way we solved that was to, uh, to create what we call a virtual studio, which we,
04:53uh, use for Rise of the Triad.
04:54And that allows us to, to hire extremely high talented people from, that work at all the, all the studios.
05:00We, we've had people from Valve and Naughty Dog, for instance, that can actually work from home.
05:04Um, the way we then treat our virtual team is like a family.
05:07We have this big, uh, online virtual tool, which is basically based around a forum structure, where everyone communicates about
05:14everything in the game.
05:15So, we have a system administrator that gives feedback on character art, because why not?
05:20You know, we're one big family working on these games.
05:22And I think, uh, the, um, the flat structure we have in the company, combined with the virtual model that
05:28allows people to work from home, as well as everyone being a family and working on these games together, allows
05:33us to, to create, uh, very high quality titles for very low budgets.
05:38Uh, with, uh, industry legends, you know, we, we have people like Scott Miller on board, for instance, who, who
05:44works on storyline for our games.
05:46So, so it's, it's a very unique structure, uh, that allows us to create very high quality games.
05:51Well, it also kind of, it does show, cause I mean, if, if we look at some of the images,
05:54um, that, that we've seen, the, um, I mean, the, the pixel count is, it's quite high, so to say.
06:01Your, your, your, your, your level of, of detail, uh, considering the game and everything is, is, is actually quite
06:07high.
06:07Your budget is taken into account, especially.
06:09It's interesting to work on, on next-gen titles.
06:11We, we, you know, when we, when we look in an action RPG, like, like Bombshell, we, uh, we have
06:17all comparisons.
06:18We have, you know, the new Diablo 3, Diablo 3, Rebirth of Souls, for instance, where, when you look at
06:23a top-down, isometric game like this, and look at the, the tri count for the characters,
06:27it's still based on tri counts that you would do maybe five years ago.
06:31Oh.
06:32And we're in a unique situation in the industry right now, where we can move into next-gen, where we
06:35can just say, okay, everything previous-gen,
06:37let's screw that, and let's work with, uh, with the hardware of the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and next-gen
06:43PCs.
06:43And that allows us to do, you know, try, higher tri counts, for instance.
06:47The tri counts of our characters is the same as a first-person shooter from two years ago.
06:51So, it's equal to Mass Effect 3 tri counts for characters, that you see, uh, you see from an asymmetric
06:58perspective.
06:58Yeah.
06:59Uh, it doesn't really make that much sense, because you'll never see all this detail.
07:02You mean, the, the, the hours spent on the eyeshadow are wasted.
07:05Exactly. But when, when going to, kind of, uncanny valley of, of the detail, is what we really enjoy about
07:10working with next-gen,
07:11because it allows us to create visually stunning environments and characters and so on in a game you see from
07:16an, from a different perspective.
07:18And it allows us to zoom in, show characters up close, you know, do cool cinematics and all that stuff
07:23without ever swapping out the characters.
07:24So, it's a lot of freedom with working with next-gen.
07:26That's pretty cool. Um, what can you, since we're on character development right now, what can you tell us about
07:32the, the progress of, of the character?
07:35I mean, from the, from the birthing perspective, um, to, to like the development and the finished thing.
07:40How many, how many stages and iterations do you have to go through to get, to end that?
07:44Um, the character, the design of the character itself, the, the physical appearance of the character, um, started out by
07:49the original 3D Realms design from, uh, from 1997.
07:53Uh, 96, 97 was the original concept for Bombshell.
07:56Um, a funny little easter egg kind of thing, uh, Bombshell was actually originally created, um, uh, by 3D Realms
08:03and Apogee, uh,
08:04to be part of Command and Conquer series. Um, she was supposed to be...
08:08She was a better Tanya.
08:09She was a better Tanya. This, this was, uh, this was before, uh, before, uh, around Red Alert, but before
08:14Tanya was, was soon become a popular character.
08:17So, she was supposed to be the, the, um, the competitor to, uh, the Commando, uh, which is pretty funny.
08:22We read through some of the early designs that Bombshell was supposed to be in Command and Conquer, and it
08:26shows they were big Command and Conquer fans at, at, at 3D Realms and Apogee.
08:29That was really funny because with big CNC fans as well. Um, but then their concept turned into, uh,
08:34went into, uh, to Bombshell in its, in its, uh, in its most, uh, popular understanding is that, you know,
08:42when you call a girl a Bombshell, you know, she's often busty and sexy and blonde and so on.
08:48So, um, that was the original concept. Um, we, she didn't have a storyline, uh, per se. She was very
08:57loosely defined. Uh, but we liked the idea of having a female character that was kind of a female action
09:04hero.
09:04Yeah. Uh, that, that, you know, could be the female version of Solid Snake or Duke Nukem for instance. Uh,
09:10but could, could, could, you know, she could play with those guys and she would be a real challenge to
09:14those guys.
09:14Master Chief is another one that she could be a real challenge to. Um, so we decided to, uh, to
09:20bring in an element that would make her unique.
09:22Besides, uh, her backstory, which is a really painful backstory and her journey throughout the game and the storyline is,
09:28it's also a very painful journey for her.
09:30Uh, we won't spoil anything, but there's a, there's a lot of, a lot of...
09:34Well, if you, if you had to, let's be honest, if you had to, what is the biggest spoiler you
09:39can give us?
09:41Um, actually, what's the biggest spoiler there is? Let's just cut straight to this.
09:43All right. Uh, well, the biggest spoiler is that, uh, that's, did not see that coming.
09:52Yeah. Okay. That, that is going to, that is going to upset a lot of people.
09:56It's going to be hilarious.
09:57Once they play the app, I'm looking forward to that. That's okay. Yeah.
10:02But yeah, we, we needed to give her an edge and give her the element of her that, that would
10:07compete with, you know, big, brutal aliens and intergalactic adventures and so on.
10:12Yeah. So, uh, so we decided that, uh, you know, she needs a motherfucking heavy robotic arm that can, you
10:19know, annihilate enemies and turn into...
10:21With, with little consideration paid to how you still walk up straight when that thing kind of...
10:26Exactly. Yes.
10:26That is, uh...
10:27Pure traditional 80s style logic there. Pure badass logic.
10:31Bigger weapon.
10:32Exactly. The bigger, the better.
10:34So, but yeah, it brings in a lot of gameplay mechanics, uh, that, that we really like.
10:37For instance, the way her arm can turn into different weapons is really, really cool.
10:40We have, uh, we have one, uh, one weapon which is kind of like a mini gun.
10:43And, uh, the secondary fire mode is basically where you punch the ground and the, uh, the, the hand of
10:50the arm basically folds into the ground as a stand.
10:53Yeah.
10:53And then she detaches it from her body and it turns into like a sentry gun.
10:56So you can detach that and turn into a sentry gun.
10:58And then you have a pistol in your hand.
11:00And you can use that sentry gun to lead away enemy fire.
11:02That's pretty cool.
11:03Yeah.
11:03It's, it's, it's super badass.
11:05You can use a lot of different things.
11:06There's another mode where you basically launch it in the air and turns into a little drone.
11:10That's called Shelly's little friend.
11:11And it, uh, flies around and basically helps her, uh, defend herself from enemies.
11:15So there's a lot of cool gameplay mechanics where you can use your arm at different things, but also at
11:20the expense of sometimes losing it.
11:22Some puzzles you have to shoot your arm in and, and, and do things for you while sort of ending
11:26up weaker while doing it.
11:28Ending up weaker while doing it for instance.
11:29So, uh, so we're, we're experimenting a lot with how, how we use this in gameplay.
11:33That's pretty cool actually.
11:35Um, but, but speaking, speaking of, of gameplay again, cause we kind of keep coming back to it.
11:39Um, I, I, I would like to point out the similarities to things like, uh, Crusader Nora Morrison.
11:45Yeah.
11:45I mean, you can see where your, your inspiration comes from in that, that era of computer gaming.
11:50Um, sorry, that, that's what you get for life.
11:54Um, but, but when, I mean, obviously for, for those of you who remember the, the era back in the
11:58eighties and the games that we had, there will be a lot of, of very obvious.
12:03Yeah.
12:04Traces, but, but looking aside from that, um, look into things like music, uh, voice acting, sound especially.
12:12It's also a really integral part of it.
12:14Definitely.
12:15How do you, how do you challenge, how do you handle that challenge?
12:17Cause I mean, obviously for a small studio, you don't have the budget to hire an orchestra to do a
12:21symphony for you.
12:21Exactly.
12:22So what do you do?
12:22How do you, how do you get that atmosphere?
12:24So we, uh, we had Andrew do, uh, our composer do all the music for our previous games.
12:28And, um, Andrew does an amazing job.
12:30What, what, what Andrew does best is, is heavy, as we say, heavy fucking metal.
12:35Uh, you know, the Rise of the Triad soundtrack is absolutely kick ass, blasting heavy metal all the way through.
12:40Uh, for Bombshell, we, we kind of need to go in a different direction.
12:43Um, Bombshell is, is, she does have that, uh, Tarantino attitude, grindhouse, uh, feeling over her.
12:51But, um, the game is also epic in scale.
12:55So you need that combination between orchestrated music and, and heavy metal.
12:59Um, it was a big challenge for Andrew to, to put together.
13:02I think we, we, we referenced a lot to Hans Zimmer.
13:06Orchestra metal.
13:07I think you've invented a genre.
13:08Orchestra metal.
13:09There's also a bit of electronic in there.
13:11Cause we want to, we want to kind of symbolize her, her, her arm and the effectiveness of her arm
13:16through, through the music.
13:17So it's a big mixture of a lot of Dish and Strongholds.
13:19There's a, a small little sample of it on, uh, on our website.
13:23And we're going to put up the theme as well.
13:24So you guys can hear the official Bombshell, Bombshell theme.
13:27But, uh, it's, it's been a challenge.
13:29But I'd say Hans Zimmer has been, uh, the biggest, uh, influence on the quality of, of the instruments.
13:35And Andrew is doing one hell of a job.
13:37The, the soundtrack for this game is going to be absolutely blasting.
13:39Cool.
13:40Sounds good.
13:41So what are you doing for, for things like voice acting?
13:44Cause I mean, I hate to draw attention away from it.
13:46We do see some games that, well, should be burnt at the stake for the quality of voice acting.
13:53Uh, I won't get into which games.
13:56It's got nothing to do with you guys, but just, I just don't want to derail it.
13:58But obviously that is a huge make or break factor.
14:01Um, so I mean, what do you, what do you do for stuff like that?
14:03Cause I'm thinking like your funding must be limited and voice acting isn't cheap.
14:07Exactly.
14:08How do you, how do you handle that?
14:09How do you deal with it?
14:10So the voice of Bombshell is obviously the most important aspect of the game.
14:13You know, voice actor brings life to this character.
14:15Um, first of all, we have John St. John on board.
14:18John St. John is a really good friend of us.
14:20He does the villain in our game, which he does amazing.
14:23He does amazingly well.
14:24Uh, absolutely badass.
14:25Um, and then we have a Rachel Robinson, another professional voice actor.
14:30She does, uh, the president in our game is a female president.
14:32And, uh, we have a voice actor called Amy, uh, Amy Naeem doing a Bombshell.
14:38Okay.
14:38And, uh, it's, it's been quite a process finding the correct voice actor to do, uh, to do Bombshell.
14:44But, uh, but Amy is, is doing it one hell of a job.
14:46There's, uh, there's enough, there's enough toughness.
14:50Uh, you get that Sarah Connor from Terminator toughness in there, but also the, uh, the vulnerability,
14:55uh, of, of her character.
14:58And it's, it's, uh, it's a very delicate mix.
15:01And you have to be really careful that it doesn't get too cheesy.
15:04We don't want to end up in that group where she's another cheesy character with cheesy one-liners
15:09with no personality.
15:10You know, we, when, when you, when she sees her dead squad being killed by aliens, you know,
15:16you can hear in her voice that, you know, these people care, you know, she cares for these people.
15:20But also you hear the anger and the revenge in her voice.
15:24You know, uh, so, so it took a lot of time.
15:26Damn you, you know, anonymous grunt number five was my friend.
15:29Exactly.
15:30It's, it's a personal vendetta she has against what you'll see in the story.
15:35But that's an interesting, uh, that's an interesting aspect actually.
15:37Cause I mean, quite often, and obviously running it down slowly here as well,
15:40but quite often you see a lot of these, uh, game universes, especially from that era,
15:45who make the mistake of, of, of being in on the cheese, so to speak.
15:51Instead of taking their own universe seriously, uh, they set up all these criteria
15:56and then they look at it and go, it's a bit silly, isn't it?
15:59And then they start getting self ironic and self aware.
16:01And it might seem like a defense mechanism, but a lot of the time the game suffers
16:04if it does not take its own universe very seriously.
16:07Um, we talked about Duke Nukem before as well, you know, Duke Nukem is a great example.
16:10You know, the, the, the issue, uh, the, what made Duke 3D so genius besides its gameplay
16:14was that the world itself took itself seriously.
16:18It was very dark, very gritty.
16:19Exactly.
16:20Obviously Duke is-
16:21Very scary in many times.
16:21Exactly.
16:21Once you heard the Octobrain for the first time, you're shitting your pants.
16:24Oh, yeah, God.
16:24I did not want to go down those areas.
16:26Um, but it's, it's true.
16:28There was a, there was an element to it for those that remember, obviously,
16:30um, that Duke might've been full of one-liners, but the game itself took, the game was serious.
16:36It was, it was an action movie, but it was an action movie that believed its own premises.
16:41Exactly.
16:41So obviously that's, that's something that, you know, you obviously want to have along.
16:45Um, so, but, but I mean, wrapping it down, if it is from a, uh, from a, from a game
16:52developer
16:52to the fans, really for, for the viewers, is there anything in particular about this entire
16:56experience that you'd like to share?
16:59Yeah.
17:00Um, I'd like to talk a bit about, you know, the, the, the lawsuit of, of, of what's been happening
17:04with us because there's been a lot of questions.
17:06Are you guys making a Duke game?
17:08Are you not making a Duke game?
17:09And, and the reality is once, once something like this happens, you, you have to stand by,
17:16you know, and lawsuits take a long time and it's a long process.
17:20And while we, while we take a break, we can't just sit and do nothing.
17:24Okay.
17:25Um, so we saw a great opportunity that we wanted to grab that, you know, this is, this is our
17:30chance to do our own IP and we grabbed it and we started working on that and, uh, and it
17:36turned out really, really well for us.
17:38Um, so, so that's, that's how, uh, how Bombshell came alive.
17:42We always wanted to do Bombshell, uh, at some point.
17:45So the opportunity presented itself and we really wanted to, wanted to reach out for it.
17:49Um, and you know, about, about the previous game that we worked on, uh, you know, we might
17:55get back to, we might, it all depends on what happens.
17:57Yeah, of course.
17:58We, we, we, we won't really, there's no point in getting into that, but it's true.
18:01It's, it's, it's interesting to see how you, I mean, if anyone out there has aspirations,
18:04if something gets in your way and find a different project and start, you know, keep working.
18:08And it doesn't, it's nothing about who's, who's right or wrong.
18:10No, no, no, no.
18:11It's just the respect for the whole thing.
18:13Uh, we, we, we, we can't, uh, we, we can't respect ourselves working on, on something while
18:19there's a lawsuit going.
18:20Yeah, no, of course not.
18:21It sounds like a really good choice.
18:22And I must admit, I'm sure many of us are actually looking forward to, to having a mess
18:25and see what the game is.
18:27Well, thank you very much for taking the time to us.
18:29Yeah, thank you very much for coming.
18:30Yeah, no worries.
18:30See ya.
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