Screen Play´s Interview With Chris Mosely

A new Aussie Tune

Screen Play believes that a well-rounded pop culture education for my kids includes access to classic video games‚ plenty of music from the 60s‚ 70s and 80s‚ some noteworthy flicks‚ and lots of Bugs Bunny cartoons.

I can´t think of any "classic" Looney Tunes games I would bother to show them‚ but hopefully that can soon change with the upcoming Looney Tunes Acme Arsenal‚ the debut title from Melbourne´s Red Tribe studio.

The visually impressive game features edgier versions of great characters like Bugs‚ Daffy‚ Foghorn and Taz‚ romping through environments inspired by many of the best Warner Bros cartoons. The action is a familiar blend of platforming‚ puzzle-solving and combat in the style of the Ratchet and Clank series‚ enlivened by plenty of gags and outrageous weapons.

Xbox 360 is the lead platform‚ and will feature split-screen and online co-op play so you can share the fun with a mate. Wii and PS2 versions are also in development‚ with the Wii version featuring motion-based controls.

Screen Play visited Red Tribe recently to play the game and chat with CEO Chris Mosely‚ interviewed below.

Can you start by telling me a bit about Red Tribe?

I started Red Tribe after leaving Blue Tongue about four-and-a-half or five years ago. We´re one of the few Melbourne companies that are fully into next-gen development‚ ie. almost about to release a game. I know there are a couple of Melbourne studios getting into next-gen games‚ but it´s fairly early on. I think we´ll end up being the first Australian developer to release a next-gen game‚ so that´s kinda cool.

Our intention was to build a company that built console games and we wanted to do lots of different styles of game. We didn´t want to be pigeon-holed in one type or category of game. So we started just by building technology and we had a unique approach to that. We had a unique approach to developing the gameplay‚ which is rapid prototyping and worked very well. It had the added benefit that relationships with the various publishers that we´d be dealing with‚ it enhanced those relationships because they were able to see gameplay very early on‚ which is something publishers love.

Of course‚ there are lots of "gotchas" going down this rapid prototyping approach. It doesn´t encourage good programming‚ it encourages creativity and gameplay design. So if you go naively into prototyping thinking that its going to save all of your problems‚ it´ll probably cause you more grief than a more traditional approach. So the key is to have a dedicated team‚ a bunch of people who do nothing but prototyping. This is in addition to the normal numbers you would have on a project.

I hope you feel the same way‚ but the feeling I get when I play the game is that it´s got some soul to it‚ it´s got some depth to it. With the NPCs we haven´t just created an enemy and hoped for the best when we threw them into a level‚ we´ve really thought about how you interact with this enemy‚ the different tactics you can use against it. We cut out a lot of features because they simply weren´t adding to the game or we couldn´t use those feature together with others in a meaningful way‚ so we just took them out of the game. Prototyping allowed us to do that.

Why did you leave Blue Tongue?

I left before Blue Tongue was purchased by THQ. There were many reasons why. I wanted to take Blue Tongue in a particular direction that maybe the other people involved didn´t at that time. I´ve done a lot of that now‚ a lot of these ideas like rapid prototyping‚ a focus on gameplay. I can´t speak for the other people‚ but I thought these things were extremely important.

I changed Blue Tongue´s name from Blue Tongue Software to Blue Tongue Entertainment and we started to set up more than one development team within the company‚ and my vision for Blue Tongue at that time was to have each team with its own vision‚ its own way of doing things‚ its own creativity. And there was a certain amount of thinking that "We should do everything the same" - that was part of the reason why I felt maybe it was time to move on.

How did you score the Warner Bros deal?

It was a very difficult project to secure. It was a next-gen project‚ and we´d just started to put our technology together‚ we had something demonstrable and it was impressive. I don´t feel that´s what secured the deal though. They wanted to know that the technology was in place‚ but I think what secured the deal was that we managed to demonstrate that we had a real affinity for the license that they had. That we really cared‚ we weren´t just going to churn out another Looney Tunes game. It was the first game we were going to make and very important to us. They felt that and wanted something special‚ something different‚ something to reinvigorate the brand. We were able to articulate that‚ describe to them a game and a way of making a game where the quality could stand on its own.

The license should be just another selling feature of the game. It wasn´t like it was a case of there´s a movie coming up in six months time‚ it was a completely original idea conceptualised from scratch‚ which happens to have a license attached to it. There´s obviously a bit of stigma attached to licensed titles‚ but that didn´t really worry me.

Why do you think the Looney Tunes characters are still so popular after all these years?

I think we live in quite conservative times‚ don´t we? If you look at news and movies and TV‚ and the kind of language that is used‚ and then you look at a Looney Tunes cartoon…What can I say? Bugs Bunny dressed in drag‚ what´s not to like? (laughs) It´s indicative of an era where there was a bit more freedom.

The other thing is‚ we all grew up with Looney Tunes. Although the demographic is young‚ I´m sure it´ll appeal to an older audience. We wanted to make the game accessible to the younger audience‚ but have the depth that would appeal to other gamers as well.

Is it becoming harder for up-and-coming developers in Australia?

If you´re talking about people coming into the industry‚ it´s a lot easier. There´s a lot more jobs‚ a lot more openings‚ a lot more opportunities.

But if you´re talking about setting up companies‚ then it´s definitely harder. If you look at the UK‚ they´ve gone from 400 independent developers to 150. I think we´re in the era of the uber-developer. You still have independent developers because they tend to do the best work‚ but they are just much‚ much larger organisations. I think the ones that will survive are the ones that are a little more sophisticated in the way that they structure themselves.

To give you an example‚ we have a dedicated process team here‚ a bunch of engineers‚ and all they do is look at the processes within the company. How we can do things better. Capturing the knowledge of how we created a particular game so it can be duplicated. And not in a superficial way‚ in a comprehensive manner. We try and record as much of the process as we can‚ as accurately as we can. This is the future of game development.

One of the great things about the industry now is that we´re not working on three hours sleep in a week. We´ve got more time to do things properly. The hardware is so much easier to work with and debug on‚ so we get to make games and we´ve got a life as well. We haven´t seen this in the industry before‚ and it´s great.

What were your primary goals when starting on Acme Arsenal?

We knew that we didn´t have the experience at the outset to make a great platform game. We spent a huge amount of time just playing everything we could get our hands on. My feeling was that if we could just copy‚ just reach the same level as a state-of-the-art platform game already in existence‚ that´s a hell of an achievement for any team.

A developer like Insomniac has got ten years-plus experience on you…

Exactly. Just with a modicum of modesty you go into this recognising that these guys have been doing it for ten years‚ they´ve made the decisions that they have made probably for very good reasons‚ we can learn so much from that. So one of our objectives was to learn as much as we could about these games and why certain decisions were made. You´re basically learning from the masters. Stage one is can you duplicate what they have done? If you can´t even duplicate what they´ve done‚ how can you possibly add features to it or extend upon it?

The second objective was to find a set of features that we could add to the mix‚ something a little different. What we came up with‚ and this was negotiated with Warner Bros‚ was very ambitious. If you do a feature by feature comparison of the game we´ve got to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Sonic 360 or even Ratchet and Clank. We have seven playable characters‚ can you imagine the nightmare of play-testing and balancing seven playable characters and still reach the same quality that we want in terms of the number of combos‚ weapons and so on. That functionality had to be duplicated into that character´s unique way of moving‚ and so on. So that was a huge challenge. 23 pick up and playable weapons. So literally every one of these characters has to be able to pick up any of these weapons and start using it. The weapon has to stand on its own‚ work on its own. You can´t attach the weapon to the character so it exclusively works with them in a particular manner. It´s got to work for every character in every scenario.

So the second objective was how do we add to what has already been done without going too far. We had many things on the wish list‚ and still the final list is really ambitious compared to other games. A feature-by-feature comparison looks ridiculous‚ and yet‚ it´s there. Split-screen multiplayer is there. Split-screen co-op is there. Split-screen competitive is there. Xbox Live online is there. Melee and ranged combined is there. Completely free-roaming camera so players can explore any part of the environment‚ that´s there. Advanced shadowing system - even Ratchet and Clank as of right this minute‚ don´t have that in their engine. We didn´t cut any corners.

It´s obviously difficult to attract the hardcore audience to a licensed game and a platformer‚ which some might suggest is a tired genre. How do you go about trying to win them over?

I think all you can do is go and make a really good game. I don´t have any control over the way the game´s marketed‚ but I can try and get my message out there. I think someone who enjoys games will pick up this game and definitely feel the amount of work that´s gone into it. If you like playing games‚ it doesn´t matter if you are eight or 68‚ I think this game will appeal to you. You will enjoy it. That´s what makes me happy‚ that´s what makes me proud. If I can get my dad to play it and say: "This is fun"‚ or my brother‚ cousin or nephew‚ there´s nothing better than that‚ is there?

How has the relationship with Warner Bros been?

Warner Bros is a remarkable company. They´ve got such massive resources that they can draw upon‚ whether they are voice actors‚ or money‚ or just the pure leverage that they have in the marketplace. If you go to Sony and you say you want to do X‚ Y and Z‚ and you have the Warner Bros brand behind you‚ you don´t get hassled at all. They just let you do whatever you want. I´ve never experienced that kind of leverage before.

Are you able to tell me anything about the other projects you are working on? There´s a sci-fi FPS and plenty of whispers about Mad Max…

I can tell you it´s not Mad Max. I can´t tell you what it is but we´re working with a number of film studios. We´re definitely not averse to working on a game that gets released with a movie‚ we´d like to have a mix of different things. I think it´s very healthy for a games studio to do different things and different genres. We´ve got people here who are really interested in science fiction‚ more adult orientated games. We´ve got games that are pure Xbox 360 titles‚ as opposed to Wii and PS2‚ we´ve got a good portfolio‚ a good mix. I can tell you we´re working with Warner Bros and we´re working with Fox. We´re also working with two other movie studios I can´t talk about yet.

How about original games?

I would love to do a purely original title. For us it´s probably about five years off.

Because of the risk?

It costs about US$10 million to make a title these days on average. So the financial risk‚ or the investment in an original title‚ would be huge‚ absolutely massive. The other thing is that the next-generation consoles are really just arriving‚ finding a market for themselves. They´ve still got to find their feet. So it would be very risky to get into the next-gen arena if you weren´t a publisher. Publishers are willing to spend money to buy market share‚ they´re willing to lose a little bit in order to just maintain their market presence‚ to make sure they are part of this next-generation wave. But until you have the install base‚ you´re probably not going to make money. So that´s one aspect‚ the financial side.

The other side is the development risk. If you´ve got an external publisher that you´re delivering to‚ you create a certain discipline within your organisation. It really helps you to build experience and communication within the team. You consolidate the team and its abilities by working with a third-party publisher.

We will definitely do our own titles‚ I´ve got many of my own dream games in my drawer. We´re moving towards that‚ perhaps in a slightly more conservative way. But we´ll definitely do it.

Good luck‚ Chris.