Supreme Commander

• Platform: PC
• Published by: THQ
• Developed by: Gas Powered Games
• Release Date: Q1 2007
• Genre: Strategy
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Online: Yes

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Chris Taylor Interview Continued..

Shack: If you don't mind going back a few years, how did you get involved with Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island) and his company Cavedog, or Humongous?

Chris Taylor: That's an interesting question. When I started in the business eighteen years ago this past May, I worked at a little company called Distinctive Software in Burnaby, [British Columbia,] and my first title ever was called HardBall II. That was the sequel to the very successful HardBall! by Bob Whitehead. I was of course very excited and thrilled to be able to work on the sequel, however, the point of the story is that Shelley Day worked at Accolade. She was the producer of HardBall II. She went on from Accolade and moved around, went to Taito for a while--remember Taito? The arcade company that made Arkanoid?

Shack: Yep, they made Space Invaders.

Chris Taylor: Did Taito make Space Invaders?!

Shack: Yeah, and Bubble Bobble, and a bunch of other stuff.

Chris Taylor: I did not recall that, that's great. Anyway, she went to LucasArts, and she met up with Ron Gilbert there and she worked on some of his titles. Well, they got a thing going, and they left, and they started Humongous. I called Shelley up, and said, "Hey, what's going on?" and she says, "Hey, well we've got this kids' company but Ron wants to get into non-children's titles." More traditional entertainment, older games. We struggled with the exact way to phrase it, because we'd say "How about adult games?" And I'd say, "They're not adult, they're just not children." So anyway, that's when Cavedog was formed, in mid to late 96.

Shack: Did you pitch the idea of this big epic strategy game to him? Obviously he was an adventure game pioneer but he wasn't really a large scale gameplay kind of guy, how did you...?

Chris Taylor: I played Dune II from Westwood, and I fell in love with it. And I tracked the development of Command & Conquer, and I remember seeing it at E3, and drooling, and going, "I can't wait for this game!" I was so freaky about it, and when I finally got it into my hands, I said to myself, "That's it, this is what computer games are all about. We've been missing the boat. This is the future."

So I quit my job at EA. I'd been there eight years because EA bought Distinctive and it rolled into EA. So after eight years, I quit. [Ron and Shelley] were in Vancouver visiting on business, and I went downtown to Vancouver because I lived in Burnaby--actually, I lived in North Delta, details. Anyway, I went up to Vancouver and I sat down for dinner with Ron and Shelley, and I told Ron this idea that I had for Total Annihiliation.

I said, "Here's what's going to happen, the turrets are going to rotate independently, and then they're going to elevate when the barrel fires, and the barrel is going to recoil and there will be a gout of flame at the tip of the barrel, and everything's going to be simulated and accurate, and everything's going to move with fluid 3D, and there's not going to be any prerendered 2D bitmaps, and it's all going to be in real time!" He said, "Wow, that guy's got passion!" I guess, you can ask him what he thought, and that's when he said "Why don't you come down to Humongous and build the game?"

Shack: What led to Dungeon Siege? It's totally different, obviously, from your other projects.

Chris Taylor: Well, I'd always loved RPG games back from Wizardry on the Apple II, playing with my friend until late into the night on the Apple II. But I felt they were too hardcore, but when the first Diablo came out, I played Diablo all the way through until the end, and I thought, "These guys have got it right." Action, and so on and so forth, and despite the fact that I did want to make another RTS game, I did want to try something different. Just one of those artistic things.

I don't know, you're pretty knowledgeable about the business, you know how cynical the business can be. You don't just get to make original games. You have to go in and say, "I'm going to make a game that's like another game," and unless the other game that you're trying to make your game like is a top seller, nobody wants to hear it. So it makes you feel kind of terrible sometimes, when you look back and feel like you've made a lot of derivative games, but the reality is that nobody wants to do anything highly original in this industry. In fact, I don't think that's changed much today. It's like, you say, "James Bond meets Terminator," and everyone says "Yeah!" because they get it, they can see it in their minds. So here, you take Diablo, and you go into 3D, and you make multi-character parties, and you don't pick your class, and there's a skill-based class system where you grow the character--those are the hooks. Those were the inspirations, taking RPGs games to the next level. Then if you say, we've got this game like Diablo and it's really successful, that supports the notion that we can make a successful business.

Shack: What led to you getting into games? What made you want to make games?

Chris Taylor: I loved games since my mom brought home the Sears Pong system. I was absolutely intrigued. But of course when you're that age, when you're eleven or twelve, you don't think you can have any kind of a future there. You don't immediately jump up and say, "Mom, I'm going to make Pong!" and she goes, "Great idea, son! Great idea, go get 'em!" She's got a little bag with a sandwich and an apple, pushes you out the door, "Go do it! Make your dreams come true! Not like your father and I, destined to work in a fish cannery for the rest of our lives!" Sorry. [laughs]

Shack: Your parents didn't actually work at a fish cannery, did they?

Chris Taylor: No, they didn't. [laughs] The point is, when I was walking into arcades, and I saw the early Space Invaders, Asteroids, Battlezone, they were so awesome. It was just pure mystery to me, and I knew I wanted to do work on those system. But when you're that age, the people who make those games are in a far away land. We don't know where they live, what they eat for breakfast. Do they even sleep?

Shack: It depends which company you work for, I guess.

Chris Taylor: Yeah, good one. [laughs] The point is, when you see all of that it's intriguing, but it wasn't until my wealthy friend started getting personal computers. I realized, "They're playing games on their computers! I have to get one of these computers!" I had a friend who had an Apple II and another friend with a Commodore PET, and I begged my father, so he got me a TRS-80 Model 1 from Radio Shack, and I immediately went to the task of learning how to program so I could make my own games. I wrote all sorts of stuff in BASIC and it was lousy, and I had to learn assembly to get the graphics to move around on the screen fast enough, and have the inputs be crisp. I was fourteen years old. I pretty much knew, from when I could get my hands on a tool to make these games, that it was for me, and I never looked back from them.

Shack: Thanks so much for talking to us.

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