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Fallout Ships!</center>
I felt like a kid again. Having just turned 25, I journeyed to the mall with a fistful of birthday cash on my trusty beach cruiser. (Ok, it was actually in a car, but that's not the point).
I went straight to the Babbage's, skirting their rows of PlayStation, Nintendo-64, and 3DO games, heading to the back of the store where the real treasures lay: the PC games.
Rummaging through the four bookshelves worth of CD-ROM titles (most either based on movies, Doom rip-offs, or made with Macromedia) a striking rust-colored box caught my eye. Nostalgic thoughts of Wasteland dancing in my head, I gleefully raced back to the office to try it out.
I was very happy with how the story, characters, and world turned out. But more than that, I was amazed at the overall quality level of the game: the animated character heads and Voice Over segments pushed the experience into a whole new place.
It's wonderful to see how Fallout has endured over the years, and humbling to see the die-hard fans it created.
An amazing job from an amazingly talented group of guys.
I'm proud to have been a part of that old team from Interplay, who “just wanted to make the best damn GURPS game we could.”
<center>And now for something completely different</center>
I have been asked several times about certain aspects of the Fallout story – what decisions were made and why. But there are a few questions that keep coming up:
<center>We got nuked by China?</center>
The nuclear Armageddon in the back-story was between the US and China. After shipping several people asked me why China and not the old standby, the Soviet Union. I made the choice when I remembered experiences with Oleg, a Moscow developer I worked with months before when I was assistant-producing a typing game. Once, in the middle of a phone conversation, I heard some muffled bangs, and the phone went quiet. When I asked him what the noise was, he replied, “Oh, it was just the Russian mob firing their guns in the street.” I thought he was joking – he wasn’t. After that, I had a really hard time believing that the once mighty USSR would be in a position to threaten the world any time soon. So I turned to the next major communist country that typifies “the East”: China.
<center>You got your Science all over my Fiction!</center>
Why did we bother with the Forced-Evolutionary Virus and not just say radiation caused the mutations? Unfortunately, science tells us high levels of radiation just kill things. Lower levels can cause mutations, but more than 99% aren’t advantageous, and often lead to early death. I wanted to explain how something like a Radscorpion could have evolved and proliferated in the course of 60 years – and to me, “it’s the power of radiation!” was way-too-obvious junk science.
Because I wanted a plausible game back-story, I wanted explanations that were a little more scientifically plausible (or at least more believable than the plot to THEM!) I also wanted this virus to be part of the main villain’s master plan – making a race of super mutants from human stock by subjecting them to a vat of this refined viral agent.
The history of the FEV went something like this: <blockquote>
A virus was genetically altered to treat and repair DNA altered by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Like all good things, it also had a drawback: it was engineered to alter specific gene segments in living cells, but sometimes it would change the wrong patterns, causing unpredictable and rapid mutations. So, of course, a government agency put two and two together and realized that this virus could be programmed to insert itself into the Human genome, altering it to whatever ends they wished – and with the threat of global war looming over them, they wished for a Captain America-style super soldier. So, as the story goes, the military base – which would become the Glow – was a research facility to create this super virus, and they were on the cusp of great success. I tried to greatly hint that this research had gotten out, and that this information leak is possibly the catalyst that caused the missiles to be launched. That also explains why the Glow is still a smoldering radioactive crater. However, even nukes couldn’t stop this virus. When the bombs hit, some heavily irradiated versions survived and drifted on the nuclear winds all over the world. The virus that was created to manipulate core DNA structures to yield stronger, bigger, faster, and more aggressive people found its way into all life outside of the safety of the Vaults. The virus had mutated so profoundly that it was able to affect mammals and even certain insects. It wasn’t genetic mutation – it was a mutated virus causing genetic modification...</blockquote>Well, it sounded more plausible to me!
<center>Bottle Caps as currency?</center>
I remember my fellow Fallout designer, Brian Freyermuth, asking how much something will cost in a shop. I remember thinking, “cost what?” What was our game currency? We went through a few ideas: <ul>[*]A pure bartering system? Nah, that would be difficult for the player to understand the worth of anything. (Two molerat pelts for a cup of coffee? Is that good?) [*]Bullets as the currency? I gotta admit, bullets are definitely useful in the wasteland. But that idea was shot down (sorry) when we realized that people would be very hesitant to use things like machineguns, since every trigger-pull would directly lower their bank accounts! That level of financial restraint wouldn’t be enjoyable.[*]Credit cards ? – just the hard plastic cards, of course - but most would have probably been melted in the nuclear firestorms. [/list]So, I thought, what shiny token-sized thing would you find strewn around the trash piles? Something common, but not so common as to be everywhere? Bottlecaps, of course! (That, and I liked the idea of a string of caps on a chord that jingled when people pulled them out.)
<center>Two headed cows?</center>
Well, they weren’t initially. Early on, when I was thinking about the Shady Sands farming community, I wondered what kind of livestock they would keep to feed themselves. Just using cows and chickens didn’t seem very post-apocalyptic; we needed a critter that was hearty enough to withstand the wastes, big enough to scare off most predators, and dumb enough to be easily domesticated. Since Shady Sands was to have a Hindi/Tibetan feel to it, I couldn’t get the idea of a yak out of my head. So, the livestock became lumbering mutated gophers with long hair. Gopher meat? Now that’s post-apocalyptic! Since these beasts were what kept the villagers alive, they were considered almost holy – thus the name Brahmin. I was happy for many months – until someone pointed out that my Brahmin looked an awful lot like Banthas. Damn it! I’m not sure who came up with the two-headed cow thing… but at least it wouldn’t get us sued by LucasArts.
<center>Ah, the Brotherhood of Steel! </center>
I do love how these guys eventually turned out, but their origins were not very original. I simply wanted a group exactly like the monks from the Guardian Citadel in Wasteland. This was one of my favorite parts in the original game – an old, isolated stone fortress whose robed monks wielded insane energy weapons and would blast any trespassers. Fantastic.
The Brotherhood was intentionally the same post-apocalyptic religious order that existed to keep the technologies of the old world alive. However, unlike the nihilistic Guardians of Wasteland, I really wanted the player to be able to befriend and join up with this group (and grab all of their awesome gear, of course). In keeping with the medieval monk themes, the Brotherhood became more of a knightly order with a distrust of outsiders rather than a coven of crazy zealots. Although this did make them similar to concepts in Gamma World (the Knights of Genetic Purity) and Warhammer 40K (the Imperial Tech Cults), I just loved the idea of high-tech knights in power-armor wielding virbo-swords and Gatling Lasers. Total fan service to me.
<center>The Deathclaw. The horror of the wastes.</center>
Was it always a big scaly lizard thing? Nope. My initial design for this terrible creature was a the apex predator of the wasteland, a mix of wolverine and brown bear, mutated by the FEV. It could survive any environment and feared nothing; a legendary force of nature that struck terror into the hearts of men! Unfortunately, the artists took one look at my concept sketch and said, “Dude, that’s way too much hair.” It was true. The Wolverine-bear was very furry, and there was just no way around it.
So here’s what happened: the newly formed Black Isle started work on what would be Planescape: Torment. One of the first art pieces was a monstrous creature called a Terrasque. It was sculpted in clay and was then point-by-painstaking-point digitized into a 3D model. As Planescape moved forward, it turned out that the Terrasque wouldn’t actually be featured in its design – leaving that tasty model in disuse…. Thus, the furry wolverine-bear became a hairless reptilian biped. (Take a look at page 339 of the D&D second edition Monster Manual. Holy cats! It’s a Deathclaw!)
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[ Page 1 ] - [ Page 2 ] - [ Page 3 ] - [ Page 4 ] - [ Page 5 ] - [ Page 6 ] - [ Page 7 ] - [ Page 8 ]</center>
Fallout Ships!</center>
I felt like a kid again. Having just turned 25, I journeyed to the mall with a fistful of birthday cash on my trusty beach cruiser. (Ok, it was actually in a car, but that's not the point).
I went straight to the Babbage's, skirting their rows of PlayStation, Nintendo-64, and 3DO games, heading to the back of the store where the real treasures lay: the PC games.
Rummaging through the four bookshelves worth of CD-ROM titles (most either based on movies, Doom rip-offs, or made with Macromedia) a striking rust-colored box caught my eye. Nostalgic thoughts of Wasteland dancing in my head, I gleefully raced back to the office to try it out.
I was very happy with how the story, characters, and world turned out. But more than that, I was amazed at the overall quality level of the game: the animated character heads and Voice Over segments pushed the experience into a whole new place.
It's wonderful to see how Fallout has endured over the years, and humbling to see the die-hard fans it created.
An amazing job from an amazingly talented group of guys.
I'm proud to have been a part of that old team from Interplay, who “just wanted to make the best damn GURPS game we could.”
<center>And now for something completely different</center>
I have been asked several times about certain aspects of the Fallout story – what decisions were made and why. But there are a few questions that keep coming up:
<center>We got nuked by China?</center>
The nuclear Armageddon in the back-story was between the US and China. After shipping several people asked me why China and not the old standby, the Soviet Union. I made the choice when I remembered experiences with Oleg, a Moscow developer I worked with months before when I was assistant-producing a typing game. Once, in the middle of a phone conversation, I heard some muffled bangs, and the phone went quiet. When I asked him what the noise was, he replied, “Oh, it was just the Russian mob firing their guns in the street.” I thought he was joking – he wasn’t. After that, I had a really hard time believing that the once mighty USSR would be in a position to threaten the world any time soon. So I turned to the next major communist country that typifies “the East”: China.
<center>You got your Science all over my Fiction!</center>
Why did we bother with the Forced-Evolutionary Virus and not just say radiation caused the mutations? Unfortunately, science tells us high levels of radiation just kill things. Lower levels can cause mutations, but more than 99% aren’t advantageous, and often lead to early death. I wanted to explain how something like a Radscorpion could have evolved and proliferated in the course of 60 years – and to me, “it’s the power of radiation!” was way-too-obvious junk science.
Because I wanted a plausible game back-story, I wanted explanations that were a little more scientifically plausible (or at least more believable than the plot to THEM!) I also wanted this virus to be part of the main villain’s master plan – making a race of super mutants from human stock by subjecting them to a vat of this refined viral agent.
The history of the FEV went something like this: <blockquote>
A virus was genetically altered to treat and repair DNA altered by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Like all good things, it also had a drawback: it was engineered to alter specific gene segments in living cells, but sometimes it would change the wrong patterns, causing unpredictable and rapid mutations. So, of course, a government agency put two and two together and realized that this virus could be programmed to insert itself into the Human genome, altering it to whatever ends they wished – and with the threat of global war looming over them, they wished for a Captain America-style super soldier. So, as the story goes, the military base – which would become the Glow – was a research facility to create this super virus, and they were on the cusp of great success. I tried to greatly hint that this research had gotten out, and that this information leak is possibly the catalyst that caused the missiles to be launched. That also explains why the Glow is still a smoldering radioactive crater. However, even nukes couldn’t stop this virus. When the bombs hit, some heavily irradiated versions survived and drifted on the nuclear winds all over the world. The virus that was created to manipulate core DNA structures to yield stronger, bigger, faster, and more aggressive people found its way into all life outside of the safety of the Vaults. The virus had mutated so profoundly that it was able to affect mammals and even certain insects. It wasn’t genetic mutation – it was a mutated virus causing genetic modification...</blockquote>Well, it sounded more plausible to me!<center>Bottle Caps as currency?</center>
I remember my fellow Fallout designer, Brian Freyermuth, asking how much something will cost in a shop. I remember thinking, “cost what?” What was our game currency? We went through a few ideas: <ul>[*]A pure bartering system? Nah, that would be difficult for the player to understand the worth of anything. (Two molerat pelts for a cup of coffee? Is that good?) [*]Bullets as the currency? I gotta admit, bullets are definitely useful in the wasteland. But that idea was shot down (sorry) when we realized that people would be very hesitant to use things like machineguns, since every trigger-pull would directly lower their bank accounts! That level of financial restraint wouldn’t be enjoyable.[*]Credit cards ? – just the hard plastic cards, of course - but most would have probably been melted in the nuclear firestorms. [/list]So, I thought, what shiny token-sized thing would you find strewn around the trash piles? Something common, but not so common as to be everywhere? Bottlecaps, of course! (That, and I liked the idea of a string of caps on a chord that jingled when people pulled them out.)
<center>Two headed cows?</center>
Well, they weren’t initially. Early on, when I was thinking about the Shady Sands farming community, I wondered what kind of livestock they would keep to feed themselves. Just using cows and chickens didn’t seem very post-apocalyptic; we needed a critter that was hearty enough to withstand the wastes, big enough to scare off most predators, and dumb enough to be easily domesticated. Since Shady Sands was to have a Hindi/Tibetan feel to it, I couldn’t get the idea of a yak out of my head. So, the livestock became lumbering mutated gophers with long hair. Gopher meat? Now that’s post-apocalyptic! Since these beasts were what kept the villagers alive, they were considered almost holy – thus the name Brahmin. I was happy for many months – until someone pointed out that my Brahmin looked an awful lot like Banthas. Damn it! I’m not sure who came up with the two-headed cow thing… but at least it wouldn’t get us sued by LucasArts.
<center>Ah, the Brotherhood of Steel! </center>
I do love how these guys eventually turned out, but their origins were not very original. I simply wanted a group exactly like the monks from the Guardian Citadel in Wasteland. This was one of my favorite parts in the original game – an old, isolated stone fortress whose robed monks wielded insane energy weapons and would blast any trespassers. Fantastic.The Brotherhood was intentionally the same post-apocalyptic religious order that existed to keep the technologies of the old world alive. However, unlike the nihilistic Guardians of Wasteland, I really wanted the player to be able to befriend and join up with this group (and grab all of their awesome gear, of course). In keeping with the medieval monk themes, the Brotherhood became more of a knightly order with a distrust of outsiders rather than a coven of crazy zealots. Although this did make them similar to concepts in Gamma World (the Knights of Genetic Purity) and Warhammer 40K (the Imperial Tech Cults), I just loved the idea of high-tech knights in power-armor wielding virbo-swords and Gatling Lasers. Total fan service to me.
<center>The Deathclaw. The horror of the wastes.</center>
Was it always a big scaly lizard thing? Nope. My initial design for this terrible creature was a the apex predator of the wasteland, a mix of wolverine and brown bear, mutated by the FEV. It could survive any environment and feared nothing; a legendary force of nature that struck terror into the hearts of men! Unfortunately, the artists took one look at my concept sketch and said, “Dude, that’s way too much hair.” It was true. The Wolverine-bear was very furry, and there was just no way around it.
So here’s what happened: the newly formed Black Isle started work on what would be Planescape: Torment. One of the first art pieces was a monstrous creature called a Terrasque. It was sculpted in clay and was then point-by-painstaking-point digitized into a 3D model. As Planescape moved forward, it turned out that the Terrasque wouldn’t actually be featured in its design – leaving that tasty model in disuse…. Thus, the furry wolverine-bear became a hairless reptilian biped. (Take a look at page 339 of the D&D second edition Monster Manual. Holy cats! It’s a Deathclaw!)
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