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- Tell us a little about yourself, what have you accomplished in life?
Tony Oakden, Age 42, Married with a little girl (Grace aged 8 months). Started working on computer games in the 80s and designed, programmed, produced art and QA’d the titles -games for the Acorn 8 bit range of computers. Worked at Reflections on Driver 1 and Driver 2, Emigrated to Australia in 1999, was producer on Fallout Tactics, then moved to IGA and I am now producer on Tribes
engeance.
- What are your favourite computer games/board games and why?
I like adventure games with plenty of puzzles and mental challenges rather than games which rely on fast reflexes and repetitive learnt behaviour. I liked ICO, I like RPG. I do like some FPS, I enjoyed Max Pain 2 and Call of Duty. I love card games and I am currently still trying to beat Astral Tournament.
- What hobbies do you have besides computer games?
I enjoy riding horses – I like to get out of the house and into the country side when not at work. In the evenings I watch movies (LOTR, Fight Club, The Alien series (probably most good SCI FI), and Musicals (The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady are favourites), looking after my little girl takes up a lot of my spare time but it’s a joy to do.
- What are your favourite bands/artists (music) ?
I’m getting out of touch with the rock combos of today! I like Underworld and New Order. Quite a lot of the club stuff I like but I’ve no idea who I am listening to these days. I really enjoyed Michael Buble’s last album which probably makes me very old!
- Tell us a little about your role in the making of Fallout 1/2/3 (Van Buren)/Tactics ?
I was producer on Fallout-Tactics. Most of the fans seemed to feel this was not a proper Fallout Game. I kind of disagree I felt most of the important elements where there (compared for example to the PS2 Fallout Game that came out!). We faithfully recreated the SPECIAL system, Perks and as many of the weapons that we could. WE took out the speech stuff as we just didn’t have time to fit it all in with the squad based combat. However I admit the story was pretty linear in our game compared to F1 and F2. As producer my role is mostly project management but I did also advise on some of the design issues and I did some programming too.
- What’s your favourite Fallout memory?
Coming in to work one morning and finding every surface in the studio covered in small beatles! Someone had left the windows open and it was the season for Christmas beatles who all hatch in the same night.
- What specifically inspired Fallout for you? What were the biggest influences?
I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic fiction.
- Pop Culture played a big role in Fallout, what pop culture influences you?
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- How was it to be a part of the Fallout team?
Great! It was a great team at MF. I was very sorry to see it disband
- Were there things that you wished you had added to either Fallouts?
Stability and higher production values. In all the games including ours!
- What were you favourite places in fallout and why?
The branching story with multiple endings in the earlier games.
- What is your hope for future Fallout games? Would you like to be a part of a future Fo team?
I’m kind of over the whole RPG thing. They are very demanding games to produce and play. I don’t play them anymore as I don’t have time. I worry that production costs for good traditional RPG are going to get so high that they are no longer viable for most studios to do.
- Who would you bring with you in a future Fallout team and why?
Ed Orman – He can draw the best Pip Boys!
- In your opinion, what are the key ingredients that every RPG should have?
Logical Stats system where ever stat has a purpose and is orthogonal to the other stats. Huge variety of equipment to collect and experiment with. Carefully crafter progression system which rewards players for exploring but does not prevent a player from going straight through just playing the key encounters.
- Where do you see computer RPGs going?
The main stream titles will be smaller and more linear with higher production values. I hope there will still be independent studios producing more traditional RPG but they’ll have lower production values and so won’t sell to the main stream audience unfortunately.
- How does the fan base hinder/help the projects that you’ve worked on?
I was known as “The man who tore the soul out of Fallout!” by the fans. But I do believe that the fan base is very important as a guide to the way the game should go.
- When planning the story how do you go through the process of integrating themes and story with the constraints on software?
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- If you could make any computer game that you wanted, which would it be and why?
Something like ICO with intricate puzzles, beautifully detailed environments and characters people empathise with.
- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Still producing games. Hopefully producing one of my own designs.
- Any last word to the Fallout fan base?
Keep the home fires burning! Maybe someone will eventually pick up the franchise and do something decent with it. Please be gentle on them though.