ShadowElks interview

 A great game currently in developent is The Shadow of Time which is
losely base around monkey islands. We grabbed a quick interview with
the programmer to tell all the juicy gossip.

CS = Chris Seward (AIO Editor)
HS = Henrik Smiding (TSoT Programmer)

CS : Firstly can you tell us a little about the ShadowElks team,
who you are and what you do.
 
HS : The team consists of:
Henrik Smiding - System 3 programmer. When not at his computer, he is
currently studying computer science at Lund university in Sweden, or
spending time with his wonderful girlfriend :)

Mikael Pettersén - Main graphics artist. When not spending time with his
girlfriend, or attending some sporadic lessons at Lund university, he is
making some great graphics and music for the game :)

Johan Forsberg - Additional graphics. When not absent or otherwise vanished
from the face of the earth, he also makes som great graphics for our
production. :)

 
CS : When did you start using the Amiga and why was it you did pick
the Amiga over another computer? The Amiga is obviously the best
computer but why did you stay on it as the chances of a get-rich
quick game are slim?

HS : We didn't start this game in the effort to make a huge load of cash.
We love working on the Amiga and want to help restoring it to it's prevoius
position, as the leading media- and gamemachine.
The software market for other computers is controlled by big
corporations while the Amiga is supported by its users. Therefor you can
say that the Amiga is kind of a computer liberty-symbol. The computer
that refuses to die.
Unfortunately the Amiga market today is somewhat unstable and is up to
todays Amiga owners to save it.
You don't have to make games to help the Amiga, just by paying for a couple
you are helping it more than we are by making it.

 
CS : When did you start work on The Shadow of Time and what was your
inspiration for it?

HS : On an late 1990 summermorning I was visiting my new-found friend at
his home. He's a big fan of adventuregames, and showed me an adventuregame
called 'MonkeyIsland'. I was quite impressed, and we began discussing and
comparing the different systems around.

After this I went home and began coding on an adventure system. In short of
any decent name, I called it AGS, short for 'Adventure Game System'. This
was soon dropped to just 'System' along with the rest of it, and after a
while 'System II' was started.

I made the unfortunate choice of programming it in AMOS, Although it's a
great language (I still use it to make the game editor), it's just to
limited and buggy to make anything serious with. :(
Even so, I continued on 'System II', to make it perfect. But I started
noticing a growing disapprovement from my graphic artist on my choice of
programming language. I got less and less graphics, and eventually I had to
terminate the 'System II' project.

After this I made a 'Walker' clone in AMOS. Once again I found the limits of
AMOS disturbing, and due to speed problems, it was scrapped at the end of
'93. Then, at the start of 1994, I started learning assembler language, and
began coding on various routines to make life easier. At approximately the
same time I started planning the structure of what was to become the 'System
III' code.
After making the most basic routines, I (once again) noticed that I wasn't
getting any graphics, so I started on a 'Dune II' clone instead. This was
the first project in which I drew all the graphics myself. For this reason,
and the fact that the game was to complicated, it was scraped. :)

After this, I felt it was time to re-open the 'System III' project, and
We've worked on it for almost three years now.


CS : Do you currently have a publisher for TSOT? if so who is publishing
it and when can we expect it to be released?

HS : Yes, we are signing with Epic Marketing as we speak, and the game will
hopefully be ready at the first quarter of 1999.


CS : Are there any set release prices for TSOT?
 
HS : No, not yet.

 
CS : What do you think of the annoucement made by Amiga Inc?

HS : The one about OS5.0 and stuff?
It's sad that it won't be backward compatible, but that's normal when you
get a new CPU and I don't think it will be long before all the great
applications are ported to the new Amiga computer.

 
CS : What are your dreams for the Amiga in the future? and what spec
machines would you like to see be used?
 
HS : Have you ever seen the computers in Star Trek? :)...Naa.. just
kidding. Well, obviously the Amiga needs much more CPU-power, like from two
or four PowerPCs, and something equaly fast as a sound and graphics engine
to keep up with other computers on the market today.
 
CS : Why Shadow Elks ;)?
 
HS : We couldn't come up with a name we both agreed on. Mikael wanted
something with the word 'elk' in it to show our swedish background and
Henrik wanted something else which we can't recall right now. Then suddenly
we had to came up with a name quickly as a swedish computer magazine was to
write a small piece about us, so we combined our suggestions and came up
with the somewhat weird 'Shadow Elks'. :)

 
CS : Any comments for anyone who is thinking of making an adventure
game in the style of TSOT?

HS : Make sure you plan the specs so they will still be adequate in
two-three years when the game is finished, and get ready for some very hard
work and long hours. :)
Huge animations seems fun when you are writing the script, but not as fun
when you realize how long time it will take to animate them .
When you write the script try to think of all possibilites so you don't
end up with problem in the end of the game which can't be solved cause
you forgot to pick up a stupid coin in the begining.
If you want music in the game, make sure you have lots of tunes,
otherwise they will really get on your nerves after some hours of
play.
Much planning, a tad planning and some additional planning.
And most important, have fun doing it! :)

CS : Thankyou for your time!

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