TGS05: Kameo Q&A session

• BlimBlim
• Saturday, September 24, 2005 | 7:24 PM
• 15 comments

Xbox 360

I'm quite sure you all already have seen at least in part my video of Kameo, what you actually missed so far is the full Q&A session we did with the game's lead designer afterwards. Well, here it is now, for your reading pleasure. Thanks to Rob for the transcription !

Question: When you have a lot of characters at the same they don’t have any shadows will they be added for the final game?

The close ones will have shadows, and the ones way off in the distance you wouldn’t see shadows anyway.
For the moment the shadows are about ten metres away even big characters don’t have shadows.
The big characters will have shadows, but when you have so many characters together you have all sorts of issues and problems to avoid. So the big characters will have shadows and the ones close to you will have shadows.

Question: How many polygons maximum are you using at any one time in the game?

Well to give you an example, if we take the Enchanted Kingdom as a level you are looking close to a million polygons on that one background. If you obviously then take the battlefield that’s getting close to double that amount. So depending on what kind of level it is depends on the amount of polygons there. But it’s getting to a stage now where the polygon count is almost irrelevant because of the visual fidelity, the HD effect as well. Polygons were this thing that everyone spoke about when we had few of them. But now I think the polygon count isn’t such a big thing these days.

Question: How easy or hard was it to realise your vision for the game on the Xbox360?

Well as you guys probably know some of the history of the game. The game initially started on the Gamecube, over 5 years ago and we went through a development process. We got a demo done for Nintendo very very quickly, because they needed a product for E3 of 2000. That game was only really in development for the best part of around four and a half to five months worth of development. So to actually get a game on the show floor in that short development period was the big thing for us. We then obviously got acquired by Microsoft and we then had to convert every thing over; and in that process we then looked at the game and thought ok what are the bits that we can really evolve even further and what are the bits that we could probably lose at this stage. So we kind of over the time that we spent on the game we kept evolving and refined the product really. And so we got to a stage where we got to around 80% complete on the Xbox towards the end of last year and then Microsoft came in and we sat down to discuss the possibility of moving Kameo over to the 360. Initially we were kind of like “Oh no” because we had come so close to finishing and we wanted to finish. It wasn’t rocket science really to sit down and say well 360 really needs broad reach games and Kameo is one such product like that. It’s very important for the 360 at launch to have products that not only cater to for hardcore but also cater to the broader audience and so we sat down and decided that’s the best thing to do.

Question: The game seems much darker now than when the game was first presented on Gamecube is it a choice you have done with Microsoft or your own choice?

It’s our personal choice; the development teams personal choice. I mean going back to the question about how close is it to the final vision. With the extra time that we had to going over to the 360, that gave us the opportunity to really flesh out the game to what we wanted it to be. We got to a stage where something like the battlefield for instance that was a part of the original plan on the Xbox and when we started doing some preliminary work on that we found that it was virtually impossible to push the amount of characters we wanted this kind of epic feel and vast landscapes to get as many characters on screen as possible but that was not possible on that machine. So then when we moved over to the 360 one of the first things we said was right quick get the drawings back out of the design folder and lets see if we can realise that and the great thing is we’ve superseded where we wanted to be in terms of that particular section so we’re really happy with it.

Question: You have a distinct look with the characters, were there any inspirations behind the look of the characters?

Depending on what kind of character is I kind of touched on the pummel weed character earlier on like I said I’m a big boxing fan and so wanted to get a boxing character in there. We wanted to create very unique looking characters that looked different, felt different, controlled different and offered something different to the player. For a game such as this to have so many different playable characters that offer so much diversity is really as far as I’m concerned is a first for this type of product. We wanted the characters to be the main focus of the game and then we built the worlds around the characters to then submerge them in a fantasy setting; and almost the characters dictate how the game world looks like as well to a degree. So it was characters first and then evolving the world around them.

Question: How much complete is the game at the moment?

At the moment were well over 90% percent. What we have here isn’t the latest build we have the guys back at Rare at the moment beavering away whilst I’m swaning around Japan and they’re not very happy about that (laughs). I wish I could show you a lot more today there’s a lot more in this build and a hell of a lot more back at Rare which were hoping to introduce over the next few weeks.

Question: How long will the game take to finish?

If you’re an average player or someone not used to playing these kinds of game I think your looking around 30-35 hours it’s a big game. For a hardcore player I think your looking at the best part of about 20 hours from start to finish it’s a big game! One of the other cool features that we’ve got since we’ve moved over to 360 is co-op as well; which is something we haven’t been able to demonstrate to you guys today. So we have co-op over system link and co-op over split screen. For me that transforms the game, it adds another element to it when you are playing with somebody else on another machine and you have your own telly. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with those old style beat em ups like Final Fight and those scrolling Double Dragon style action games; but it has that kind of quality to it when you’re playing it so you can’t help hitting your friends when you’re running around trying to defeat them. It’s supposed to be co-operative but obviously, invariably leads to arguments and sorts of things in a fun kind of way. So going back to the original question about how long does it take to play, that is as long as you want it to be!

Question: Is this (the co-op) over Xbox Live as well?

The Xbox Live features of the game have not been announced for the game yet so we just have a little bit of time to let you know just to make sure you get something exciting to talk about down the line!

Question: Can you tell us a little more about the rewards in the game because the points obviously feature quite heavily and allow gamers to experiment with combos and whatnot?

The scores effectively they can unlock all sorts of different features in the game and one of the features they unlock are different looks, different skins for all the characters as well so pummel weed can have a different unique look depending on how well you score on certain levels; Kameo can have a different skins as well. We have loads of cool unlockables and other features; some old Rare bits and pieces in there as well for the traditional Rare fan as well. So the scoring is a really cool thing. We can’t talk about (looks at colleague and laughs) There’s something else I’d like to talk about but we will in the future kind of attached to the scoring. And that’s another thing with action adventure games in the past when you finish the game you put it to one side and you don’t play it again that’s it, it’s done. With Kameo we’ve tried very hard to make sure the game has longevity so when you do finish the one player you can then play co-op and when you do play co-op you can then score attack, you can unlock different things with the scoring system as well. It’s a very complete product and offers so much more replay ability. Which is something I always found very frustrating when playing action adventure games I couldn’t go back and redo this and redo that and do better at doing these things but we are fortunate we’ve had enough time to implement these kind of features.