Interview with Sam Barlow and Mark Simmons (Official Nintendo Magazine)Date published: 2010.01.26 Shattered Memories may be based on the original Silent Hill game but as Climax's Mark Simmons (Game Director) and Sam Barlow (Lead Designer) told us, it completely reinvents the original. Over the course of an in-depth interview, we asked them what possessed them to make a horror game without weapons, whether there is an audience for this type of mature game and if it is difficult to scare modern audiences. This is what they had to say... ONM: Why did you decide to remake the first Silent Hill rather than create an original horror game?
Sam Barlow: After Origins we'd been talking about making another horror game so we talked about what we liked about that and ways we could make a better horror game. We had lots of ideas and at the same time the Wii had just come out and that seemed like a really good time to speak to a broader audience. There's lots of evidence of more casual gamers watching their gamer friends playing Silent Hill but not actually playing it because it was always too hard. So we knew there was an audience who would be really receptive to something that told a really strong emotional story. At the same time, there was a strong feeling within Konami that it would be time to revisit the 10th anniversary of the original game. We had lots of discussion about that and obviously we had done Origins which was a prequel to the original game but shared a lot of the gameplay, the characters and the setting. So we felt that there was limited room for doing something really exciting if we were to revisit that title again. So we looked at a lot of the ideas we had about horror games with this idea of remaking Silent Hill. The more we thought about it, the more crazy ideas we had and the more excited we got about those ideas and we started talking about using that game as a kernel of those ideas and taking that in a very different direction. If it had just been Silent Hill 7 or 8 with a new story I think people would have just seen it as a long line of iterations but by saying 'let's rewind and go back to the beginning,' we're saying 'What was Silent Hill really about?' Silent Hill was the game that blew everyone's minds at the time, that was really fresh and exciting at the time so we wanted to really recapture some of that excitement by coming up with these new ideas and treatments. ONM: Did Silent Hill need reinventing?
Mark Simmons: Yeah, because we felt that survival horror had got a bit stagnated and was reproducing the same formula. Certainly we thought people were starting to get a little bored with the clunky combat, the lumbering zombies. With Resident Evil, their (Capcom's) take on it was to move it towards being a pure action experience and away from the pure horror experience that it previously was. ONM: Do you think that made Resident Evil better or worse? Mark Simmons: I don't know. That was their take on it. For me, it made it less of a horror game so people looking for a tense, thrilling experience were going to get less of that in the future with Resident Evil. Sam Barlow: It's about being true to the franchise. Resident Evil had always been a bit schlocky and B movie - they really built on that and Resident Evil 4 was the ultimate action adventure with gory B-movie overtones. It was big budget, it ripped things from Indiana Jones and threw it all together into one package. What was cool about Silent Hill? It was the stories that the game told and the atmosphere. It was really memorable and that's what people have an appetite for. Storylines in games are even bigger than ever. People are waiting for games to really step up and be a story-telling medium that really competes with others. So I think we saw an opportunity to build on that, to hone in and focus on that area of Silent Hill. ONM: There aren't any weapons in the game. Was that a brave move on your part? Sam Barlow: The decision was never to remove weapons or combat. We knew that an encounter with enemies was a clunky element (from past games). We knew that every survival horror game had always based those elements on the first Alone In The Dark and Resident Evil and their inspiration was from zombie movies. So the mechanic of slow moving, dumb enemies that took a lot of damage was a genre staple but actually if you look at movies or books with horror or thriller themes, it's only the zombie movies where that's the rule. Most slasher movies have a single, powerful antagonist who's actually unbeatable and much faster and stronger and cleverer than the protagonists. We looked at that and thought if Aliens came down from Mars and decided to make a survival horror game and didn't know about all these other games, they would probably think 'what's the action element here? Well it must be feeling vulnerable and fleeing.' In 99% of horror movies the structure is relaxation, a bit of plot exposition and an intimate moment; then the suspense starts, night falls and a girl is alone in this house at night. That suspense builds and builds and builds and then it's released in a short sequence of adrenaline in which the character is chased and it's very intense and exciting. Usually that character is dead and you move onto another character or there's a protagonist who just gets away every time. We also talked about nightmares and what nightmares people have. Everyone remembers nightmares from being a kid where you're running and then you can't run any more and something's chasing you. So we thought let's focus on that. That was our basis and we slowly assembled the idea of 'if you're running from things the enemy need to be clever and they need to be faster than you.' If that's the case and I'm not able to fight back, how do I deal with that? Okay, let's create a game world that has multiple paths and routes, that has multiple tiers that you can physically interact with. You can crawl under, climb over, and jump across things. You can try and take routes to lose your pursuers. We analysed 40 or 50 chase sequences from movies - not just horror movies. What actions does the protagonist take in those? And we played around with that. At one stage we had a version of the AI that was so damn clever you could never out run it! So there was never a point where we thought 'We're doing something really ambitious here by removing the combat.' We just looked at it and thought 'This doesn't make sense in this story.' ONM: You've mentioned films a lot. Are you inspired by horror movies rather than games? Sam Barlow: Not in the sense that we want to make a game that's just like a film. There's a bit of a blasй attitude amongst games developers where they think telling a story in a film is completely different. 'We are a medium where the player is acting out the story so it's completely different. We have nothing to learn from films. We are creating a new language.' Yet whatever medium you're looking at whether it's theatre, writing or film, the structure of how you tell a story is the same and a lot of the more complicated aspects between the reader and the protagonist or the viewer and the protagonist in a film are actually very similar in games. So I think in terms of creating suspense, creating a story and characters you believe in, plus the twists and revelations within that story - these are things we've taken from great films and books. I bored everyone with Hitchcock and talking about his techniques and his ideas of suspense. ONM: Is it more difficult to scare people these days because people are so used to horror films and playing games like Resident Evil? Sam Barlow: It's really easy to scare people in a videogame because you have such a focused attention. Anyone can make a game where you're walking down a corridor and make it very dark, the fog's pulled in so you don't know what's there and then out of nowhere - bang! Something jumps out of the window and you're going to jump. You can do that two or three times but if you make a whole game like that it stops being scary and starts being annoying. What we focused on here was getting under your skin, creeping you out and creating something that you worry about and think about after you've finished the game. Something we did with the scares in this game was to make the nightmare sequences completely dynamic. They're run by the AI. There are so many choices for the player that they'll happen differently every time. A big issue with horror games in general is that they are very linear and scripted - you walk down this corridor, the dogs leap out, you jump and you die. You go back and the dogs jumping out isn't as scary and the more that happens and the more you die, the less scary that gets. What we're trying to do with this game is still have the risk so that being stopped and caught by the AI is a real possibility but the next time you run through the mare sequence the AI won't be in the same places. If you go down a different route they might pick up your scent and track you down to a different location. Maybe the first time you see an AI he'll be right in your face when you open a door and you'll jump but when you respawn, maybe you won't see an AI for the first ten or twenty seconds and you'll be thinking 'I know they're there because I saw them last time'. The suspense is building and you think 'I'm getting away' and as you're walking across an open courtyard suddenly you hear screams and suddenly there are three guys coming for you. You can never relax. ONM: Are Capcom and Sega within their rights to complain about the sales of mature games on Wii? Sam Barlow: Without badmouthing people, a lot of the games they've been complaining about are rail shooters and a rail shooter wouldn't have sold no matter what platform you put it on because it's a rail shooter and that's a niche genre that had its heyday back in the Dreamcast era. Ultimately the way we looked at it was that there's a huge audience who own Wiis, we own Wiis and we know that amongst that audience there is a sub-sect who love dark stories, thrillers, mysteries and horror movies and so the development was all about removing the obstacles to those people enjoying this game. If they really enjoy a good horror story, they should enjoy this so we've tried to create a product that has broad appeal but does something really good and unique. ONM: So would you say it's up to developers to make better games and stop moaning? Sam Barlow: To be honest making a game that sells on any platform is hard and there are countless examples of great games on huge budgets that haven't sold and games that have been runaway hits that no one saw coming and I think making a sweeping statement about the Wii is maybe a bit of a cop out. ONM: Are you thinking about sales when you're making a game? Sam Barlow: We're thinking 'is there a market for it?' To make any game that costs a million pounds to make, if you make it knowing that it's only going to appeal to a certain amount of hardcore strategy/RPG fans in Denmark, you're basically stealing money. You're saying give us all these millions of pounds and we'll give you nothing. So at the start when you've got your initial idea and direction you've got to be thinking 'this is something that people will want to play' and often as a developer that's because you know you want to play it and the reason you want to play it is shared by lots of other people. After that you just have to remain true to the tradition and hope that people respond well to it. ONM: Are you expecting Shattered Memories to sell well? Mark Simmons: Hopefully. The critical acclaim has made us proud of what we've achieved. Particularly some of the stories we've read online from people who've played the game. Some people have admitted they've been brought to tears, others have admitted to going downstairs and hugging their Dad! ONM: What's next For Climax? Would you like to make another Silent Hill game? Mark Simmons: Absolutely. We've always loved working on the series. Since Origins we've spent a lot of time with the series. For us we feel we've put our stamp on the series with Shattered Memories so we'd love the opportunity to do another one. So everybody go and buy it! Sam Barlow: I think this is the first Silent Hill since one or two where people are saying it has its own identity and people are responding to it really well so it would be great to take that further. |
