Frederique Gaulbaire on Big Bang
Posted: 2000-01-14
This interview was conducted by e-mail and the questions were answered by Frederique Gaulbaire (RayLand Interactive) about thier upcoming Space Shooter, Big Bang. After playing a demo of the game I thought a little insight into the game would be good, so here goes:
Hi, thanks for taking time out from making Big Bang to answer these few Questions.
GX: Can you briefly explain what Big Bang is about to all those who have not yet seen any information about it?
FG: BigBang is a great action game with unique rendering techniques, real-time 3-D universes full of aliens, asteroids, huge vessels, aggressive fighters and powerful weapons.
Heres a Description of the Game:
At the beginning, the Andromeda galaxy gathers several powerful races around a unique centre of interest, a concentrated energetic ore of huge power: the kha. The Chakkams exploit the kha from asteroids using mining droids called the Kumats protected by the Sekians, an allied race of warriors. This gathering is called the 3 worlds coalition. Unfortunately, the Forgalls, a race of faithless pirates, decided to break the harmony within the galaxy, by seeking the help of the bloodthirsty Ittits. That's why you've been asked to join the defenders of the coalition.
GX: I have noticed that you have created your own 3D engine from scratch, Why did you decide to create you own 3D engine?
FG: Each game is special and using a pre-set 3D engine never gives you the best or even gets you close from what you will need for any particular game. So, in order to maximise the graphic quality and the frame rate we always create a specific engine to match our needs at best.
GX: Judging by the screenshots I have seen, it seems that Big Bang will be a huge game with lots on screen at once and Massive Spaceships, how have you managed to keep everything moving at a reasonable rate?
FG: A dedicated 3D engine is always what maximises a game frame rate. Of course it would have been easier to adapt an older version but we would certainly be far under the current frame rate if we had done so. On the new GE256 video card we can play BigBang in a 1600X1200 resolution and it makes the game look even greater...
GX: Looking at the Graphics in the Game and seeing how detailed they are, this must take up a lot of disk space. Freespace 2 comes on 3 CD's and the installation can be up to 1GB which even these days is huge, What sort of Storage & Installation requirements are you expecting for the game?
FG: Well, we only use 100 Megs of hard disk altogether and less than 60 Megs on the installation CD. Filling up a CD is quite easy but we wanted to move on to DreamCast and we though deeply about the way we had to structure our data to be able to keep all the game on 1 CD and also to reduce CD read access to speed up the whole game.
GX: Sound in this type of game is very important, mainly to allow the player to hear what's going on around them, how have you approached the sound aspect of the game?
FG: Well, we played it and saw that it was very difficult to keep up with some text messages while we were shooting and fighting against other spaceships. It was so obvious that I decided to add in game speech to point out important information to ease up the player attention and to let him focus on the fight. It is also possible to get back into the messages pipeline and so be able to read and holder message at anytime.
GX: Since the game is manly based on a War between The alliance that the player fights for and your enemy's the Forgalls & the Ittits, will we see the odd Flying over planets missions to defend colonies or something similar or is all Space Action orientated?
FG: It is all space action oriented but you can also fight around very large structures and space stations. In fact we have the technology to implement this possibility into our game but development schedule was too short and we decided to keep it for a next game
GX: Will the game feature non-linear missions based on how the player does in a previous mission, for example if the player unsuccessfully defends a space station/convoy, will the next mission have a different scenario compared to if the player defended the space station/convoy successfully?
FG: The game itself offers a variety of missions and 5 different races to fight against. Each race has of course their own spaceships and weapons and some of them are quite tricky to destroy but I cannot say much more on this and better leave it to the players to find out…
In about each mission you find a new weapon and also can increase your shield, life and other ammunition levels. Concerning the weapons we wanted them to be well integrated in the action and so we use a very nice animation system to make them constantly move, spin, rotate or shake differently with flexible parts and physical laws effects applied in real time.
The Bonus system is also tied to the player ability to play and we managed to keep the pressure on the player all along the missions by constantly adapting the enemies number and the types of bonuses the player can get at particular times.
GX: Reading a bit about Big Bang I noticed that all the messages that appear during a mission are saved so the player can re-read any if they miss some or need reminding of what they need to do. This is a great thing to add as I always end up missing some messages. Can you tell us of any other great enhancement like that?
FG: This is part of the overall game and we tried to do our best on menus and weapons selections. The cockpit is also very simple and the various cursors make it easy to understand what is going on during your missions and to target enemies. A lot of different modes are available to select your targets and the minimum information are displayed so the player is not taken away from the action by needless details such as weight of the enemy spaceships or other useless data.
Lots of games give you those type of details just to make themselves look bigger than they really are...!
GX: Obviously a game like this will have some big competition, mostly in the form of Freespace 2, Sinistar Unleashed and any other sequels to these games, How do you feel Big Bang will stand up to the competition?
FG: We think we have the best rendering quality for the space environment and that our game is the most action oriented on the market. Since such games require fast moving objects we also seem to be the best in that category even with a P2 233 and an older 3D accelerate video card. If you try other games on those PCs you may be sorry...Of course playing our game on a P400 and a latest video card is even greater and puts us ahead in the space action/shooter competition.
GX: Just one small thing that's been niggling me while writing these questions, Just how did you come by the name Big Bang?
FG: The year 2000 seemed to scare so many people that it was interesting to use this for a kill them all type of game such as ours. The other reason is more obvious once you have seen our explosion system. It is the best around and you just have to blow up a large spaceship to compare our 3D particle system to other games to be convinced that we are really BigBanging enemies...
GX: Are you planning to Create any Add-ons for the game or Include some sort of Editor to allow people to make their own Multi/Single Player Levels?
FG: We need more financing to make bigger games. We have already proven that we can make games with great 3D engines and impressive graphics in less than a year and with only 6 people on board. The only thing we need is time and ...money, not hundreds of people, just the good ones!
GX: Continuing the Multiplayer levels bit, What sort of Multiplayer levels will there be, Teams, Free for All, etc?
FG: There are 8 levels in Free mode. In Multiplayer you have all the weapons and just have to find the ammunitions. We played it a lot and it is quite devastating.
GX: Finally do you have any plans to bring Big Bang out on other platforms besides the PC & DC?
FG: We plan on bringing BigBang on as many platforms as we can. The DC version is cooking and we are looking for an investor for other platforms.
So from what we can see here the game looks to be a cracker, Look out for it around March 2000 and check back very soon for our review:
The Minimum System Requirements for the game are set at:
- P233 Mhz or better
- 4x speed CD ROM driver
- 32Mb free space on hardrive
Hi, thanks for taking time out from making Big Bang to answer these few Questions.
GX: Can you briefly explain what Big Bang is about to all those who have not yet seen any information about it?
FG: BigBang is a great action game with unique rendering techniques, real-time 3-D universes full of aliens, asteroids, huge vessels, aggressive fighters and powerful weapons.
Heres a Description of the Game:
At the beginning, the Andromeda galaxy gathers several powerful races around a unique centre of interest, a concentrated energetic ore of huge power: the kha. The Chakkams exploit the kha from asteroids using mining droids called the Kumats protected by the Sekians, an allied race of warriors. This gathering is called the 3 worlds coalition. Unfortunately, the Forgalls, a race of faithless pirates, decided to break the harmony within the galaxy, by seeking the help of the bloodthirsty Ittits. That's why you've been asked to join the defenders of the coalition.
GX: I have noticed that you have created your own 3D engine from scratch, Why did you decide to create you own 3D engine?
FG: Each game is special and using a pre-set 3D engine never gives you the best or even gets you close from what you will need for any particular game. So, in order to maximise the graphic quality and the frame rate we always create a specific engine to match our needs at best.
GX: Judging by the screenshots I have seen, it seems that Big Bang will be a huge game with lots on screen at once and Massive Spaceships, how have you managed to keep everything moving at a reasonable rate?
FG: A dedicated 3D engine is always what maximises a game frame rate. Of course it would have been easier to adapt an older version but we would certainly be far under the current frame rate if we had done so. On the new GE256 video card we can play BigBang in a 1600X1200 resolution and it makes the game look even greater...
GX: Looking at the Graphics in the Game and seeing how detailed they are, this must take up a lot of disk space. Freespace 2 comes on 3 CD's and the installation can be up to 1GB which even these days is huge, What sort of Storage & Installation requirements are you expecting for the game?
FG: Well, we only use 100 Megs of hard disk altogether and less than 60 Megs on the installation CD. Filling up a CD is quite easy but we wanted to move on to DreamCast and we though deeply about the way we had to structure our data to be able to keep all the game on 1 CD and also to reduce CD read access to speed up the whole game.
GX: Sound in this type of game is very important, mainly to allow the player to hear what's going on around them, how have you approached the sound aspect of the game?
FG: Well, we played it and saw that it was very difficult to keep up with some text messages while we were shooting and fighting against other spaceships. It was so obvious that I decided to add in game speech to point out important information to ease up the player attention and to let him focus on the fight. It is also possible to get back into the messages pipeline and so be able to read and holder message at anytime.
GX: Since the game is manly based on a War between The alliance that the player fights for and your enemy's the Forgalls & the Ittits, will we see the odd Flying over planets missions to defend colonies or something similar or is all Space Action orientated?
FG: It is all space action oriented but you can also fight around very large structures and space stations. In fact we have the technology to implement this possibility into our game but development schedule was too short and we decided to keep it for a next game
GX: Will the game feature non-linear missions based on how the player does in a previous mission, for example if the player unsuccessfully defends a space station/convoy, will the next mission have a different scenario compared to if the player defended the space station/convoy successfully?
FG: The game itself offers a variety of missions and 5 different races to fight against. Each race has of course their own spaceships and weapons and some of them are quite tricky to destroy but I cannot say much more on this and better leave it to the players to find out…
In about each mission you find a new weapon and also can increase your shield, life and other ammunition levels. Concerning the weapons we wanted them to be well integrated in the action and so we use a very nice animation system to make them constantly move, spin, rotate or shake differently with flexible parts and physical laws effects applied in real time.
The Bonus system is also tied to the player ability to play and we managed to keep the pressure on the player all along the missions by constantly adapting the enemies number and the types of bonuses the player can get at particular times.
GX: Reading a bit about Big Bang I noticed that all the messages that appear during a mission are saved so the player can re-read any if they miss some or need reminding of what they need to do. This is a great thing to add as I always end up missing some messages. Can you tell us of any other great enhancement like that?
FG: This is part of the overall game and we tried to do our best on menus and weapons selections. The cockpit is also very simple and the various cursors make it easy to understand what is going on during your missions and to target enemies. A lot of different modes are available to select your targets and the minimum information are displayed so the player is not taken away from the action by needless details such as weight of the enemy spaceships or other useless data.
Lots of games give you those type of details just to make themselves look bigger than they really are...!
GX: Obviously a game like this will have some big competition, mostly in the form of Freespace 2, Sinistar Unleashed and any other sequels to these games, How do you feel Big Bang will stand up to the competition?
FG: We think we have the best rendering quality for the space environment and that our game is the most action oriented on the market. Since such games require fast moving objects we also seem to be the best in that category even with a P2 233 and an older 3D accelerate video card. If you try other games on those PCs you may be sorry...Of course playing our game on a P400 and a latest video card is even greater and puts us ahead in the space action/shooter competition.
GX: Just one small thing that's been niggling me while writing these questions, Just how did you come by the name Big Bang?
FG: The year 2000 seemed to scare so many people that it was interesting to use this for a kill them all type of game such as ours. The other reason is more obvious once you have seen our explosion system. It is the best around and you just have to blow up a large spaceship to compare our 3D particle system to other games to be convinced that we are really BigBanging enemies...
GX: Are you planning to Create any Add-ons for the game or Include some sort of Editor to allow people to make their own Multi/Single Player Levels?
FG: We need more financing to make bigger games. We have already proven that we can make games with great 3D engines and impressive graphics in less than a year and with only 6 people on board. The only thing we need is time and ...money, not hundreds of people, just the good ones!
GX: Continuing the Multiplayer levels bit, What sort of Multiplayer levels will there be, Teams, Free for All, etc?
FG: There are 8 levels in Free mode. In Multiplayer you have all the weapons and just have to find the ammunitions. We played it a lot and it is quite devastating.
GX: Finally do you have any plans to bring Big Bang out on other platforms besides the PC & DC?
FG: We plan on bringing BigBang on as many platforms as we can. The DC version is cooking and we are looking for an investor for other platforms.
So from what we can see here the game looks to be a cracker, Look out for it around March 2000 and check back very soon for our review:
The Minimum System Requirements for the game are set at:
- P233 Mhz or better
- 4x speed CD ROM driver
- 32Mb free space on hardrive
