NWR: You've said that Silicon Knights is an iterative company and you learn lessons from each publisher that you work with, and you've talked a lot about the lessons you've learned from people like Miyamoto and Kojima and even Iwata. So my question is, how are those lessons that you've learned from the people at Nintendo over the years, how did those manifest in Too Human in a way that might call Nintendo fans to want to play this game even though it's not on their Nintendo system?

Dyack: I think that's a really good question. The bottom line for a lot of the stuff is, a lot of the gameplay and a lot of the things that we learned from Miyamoto-san have gone into Too Human. I felt when we worked with Miyamoto-san and when we worked with Kojima-san, it was like going to school. The controls and where we're at with that, we've just spent so much time on that and so much focus testing, that I think when people play it they would feel quite comfortable and at home, that it qualifies for something that would be coming from Nintendo. I think the gameplay is there and, you know, it'll speak for itself when it's out. Going to Kojima-san, when I first spoke to him, we also talked about Eternal Darkness a lot, and I also consider Eternal Darkness kind of our Blade Runner, tremendously critically acclaimed but not a huge box office hit, but the fact that many people in this industry-- we still have people in the games industry coming up to us saying "I wish I could make a game like Eternal Darkness." When I talked to Kojima-san about it, his biggest criticism was that there wasn't action in the first 20 minutes or half an hour. So we've taken all the lessons that we've learned from Kojima-san and man, there's a lot of stuff happening in Too Human right away. I think that the production value in the cinemas, we learned so much from Kojima-san. Imagine combining that with sort of the gameplay with Miyamoto-san and sort of the traditional storytelling content direction that we come from-- I think people will really be excited. It's taking all the eastern philosophy that we learned by working with those masters, and using it in something that I think is digestible for people anywhere around the world. I just can't be more excited about that, and I think if we really, really have succeeded, time will tell. I really want to get your opinion of it once you play it, but I think it's going to be a fusion like no other game we've ever made and I think it wins in all categories. You probably remember Henry Sterchi. Jonny, do you remember him? He was at Nintendo of America for a long time. He was the producer on Eternal Darkness.

NWR: I probably met him. I’m not sure of the top of my head.

Dyack: He worked on a ton of games. And anyway, he’s the design director here. And you know, he left Nintendo several years ago and joined us after Eternal Darkness. And man, you know, he’s worked directly with Miyamoto for years on gameplay. He’s a control master, and I think people are really going to pleased with what they see in this. It’s going to be some strong stuff. So yeah, that’s how I’d answer that question.

NWR: Okay, and do you feel that a release of a game like Too Human, which has these influences from Nintendo dating back several years in the development process, do you think this is the kind of game that may have the possibility to further the so-called "Wii60 Movement", in which consumers basically have a Wii for certain kinds of experiences and 360 for certain (other) kinds of experiences? Do you think this is a game that may enable pull that kind of crossover where hardcore Nintendo fans may consider going out and buy an additional platform?

Dyack: Yeah, I gotta tell you, I think that for people who are hardcore Xbox players, they won’t see it so much and recognize it, they’ll just see it as something new. But I think that a lot of people who are from the Nintendo world who play on the 360 will recognize it right away as "wow, this is like a Nintendo game." We’re big believers in the toolbox approach to game design, not being over-the-top with tutorials or anything, you just get in and play and have fun and explore and play with the mechanics. They’re all pretty tight, and they all should work around a central focus and build from the core. These are things that Miyamoto-san taught us and, you know, we’re huge believers in those philosophies, and that’s never, never going to change. When it comes to game design, Miyamoto he's pretty much the master, he’s very, very good and there are few equals to him, I’ll say that, so I think people will say "whoa, this looks like a 360 game but plays like a Nintendo game." It looks like a Microsoft game but plays like a Nintendo game. I think a lot of the philosophies from Nintendo really have influence us, and, quite frankly, a lot of people we’ve worked with at Nintendo…were working with Microsoft, like Ken Lobb, who is from Nintendo, obviously, he’s one of the big champions at Microsoft. He’s one of the major reasons why it’s with Microsoft, because he knew the project, he knew us and we talked right away as soon as he heard we weren’t going to be with Nintendo.

NWR: Since you mentioned Miyamoto, I wonder, did you get a chance to play Super Mario Galaxy last year?

Dyack: No, I did not, not inside the show. I had no time to play any games at the show at all!

NWR: That’s too bad, because I think you would be . . . I’m not sure how much you know about the project, but it has an automatic, game-controlled camera. The user doesn’t do anything with the camera, has no control over it whatsoever. And when I played it, the first think I thought of was Eternal Darkness, because that’s the first game I thought had a dynamic, automatic camera system. And I understand that you guys have really taken that to the next generation in Too Human. I wonder if you could explain a little more, not only too learn more about Too Human, but for our Nintendo-only fans, perhaps this might give them an insight into how Mario might play. As far as I can tell it uses a very similar system.

Dyack: Oh, really?

NWR: Yeah, absolutely, and I really hope you get a chance to play it, because I think you’ll be impressed at the way they’ve taken what you guys have done with the camera in your past couple games and applied it to Mario, which is the game that pioneered the user-controlled camera, and then made it a little too user-controlled in Sunshine, and now they’re going completely in the opposite direction, more towards the kind of stuff that you guys are doing. Could you tell us more about that kind of camera system and what it adds to a game like Too Human?

Dyack: Certainly, I can tell you a little bit of history that’s very interesting. Miyamoto-san and I had weeks, months, lots of discussion on camera systems. And certainly our philosophy is when we move from 2D to 3D, when you look at something like Mario 64, when a 3D camera was introduced, suddenly gamers went from just playing the game, concentrating on the control of their avatar, to having to worry about the camera plus play the game. So they do combat, make sure everything’s on-screen, and you know, Miyamoto-san was very concerned about that, and had huge concerns about third-person cameras because they’re just so hard to do. So we’ve taken the philosophy, and we want to speak the language of film, and do it dynamically, in a sense that all of the production values and all of the things where we have an up shot to down shot, those same things, to the player, they speak a language that people just intuitively understand. When you look up at something, it’s very powerful, look down on something and it’s very small and negative. And these are the kinds of things that really can have an impact on your game, and it’s all towards the goal of making the game more accessible. So it doesn’t surprise me that those guys would be moving toward that because we had discussions endlessly about that, and anything that we can do to make a game more accessible is a win, because I’ll tell you, I’m frustrated by some games where I control the camera and fight. I’d rather just fight. Or I’d rather just focus on what I want to do, like jump on the right thing. I think that’s the future of gaming, quite frankly, and it’s just simply easier to do a camera that follows behind and you can adjust it with the right stick . . . it’s just very cumbersome and the interface is very difficult, so what we’ve tried to do is automate that, make it completely dynamic. It really adapts to what the user needs to do and needs to see, and however we can do that, to make that intelligent camera system is our goal. So we want people to forget about the camera—we just want them to have a good time. And yeah, I do look forward to looking at that project and I’d love to talk to Miyamoto about it in the future, I’m sure I’ll bump into him, and we can talk about those things.

NWR: One of the problems that I see with having a game-controlled camera is in a game that focuses heavily on exploration, and maybe you can tell us if whether or not that’s the case in Too Human, but certainly it is in Mario, and also to some extent, it is in God of War which also has a crude version of an automatic camera. And for me, playing these games sometimes when you’re trying to search all the nooks and crannies and find secrets and just experience the entire environment, it becomes difficult to do that when you don’t have any control over the camera. You end up trying to position your character in an odd location just so you can get the camera to show something off in the distance. How do you deal with that kind of thing?

Dyack: Yeah, there’s a free look in Too Human.

NWR: Oh, okay.

Dyack: I think allowing a person to look around, that’s not a big problem, but when it gets to the point that it’s interfering with regular gameplay and your experience, then it becomes a problem. So really, what we’re saying is here in midst of combat you shouldn’t need to do it, but if you want to and you want to look around with the free look, that’s an option. That’s not a difficulty with the philosophy. As a matter of fact, we do believe in free look.

NWR: Would you say that, in Too Human, the free look, is it used in an exploration sense, or is it mainly so you can look around and admire the graphics?

Dyack: Probably for both.

NWR: Ah, okay.

Dyack: And I think each has its role, actually. Does that make sense?

NWR: Yeah, I think so. What are your final thoughts on the Wii? What sort of potential for this new type of control will there be in hardcore games, and not just the general mini-games likes we’ve seen a lot of recently?

Dyack: Well, I think that the mini-game is where the Wii excels, quite frankly, and I think easy access… those types of games will continue to excel, and those types of games are where graphics aren’t critical, and I think that the potential for the Wii is very, very strong, and I think that’s being illustrated by the sales. I think it does serve a different market than the types of games that we’re trying to make. So from a standpoint of … if you want to look at the genre, and you want to look at video games as art, if you look at the art in the film industry, there’s all different things that people may or may not consider. You know, there’s pornography, there’s just simple shorts, there’s documentaries, all different types of genre within that, that people may or may not consider "art," and I think this is just a different type of need that it’s fulfilling. Now can there be there be epic games? For sure. And I think, right now, there aren’t a lot of games that are taking advantage of the controller well, and I think the controller is very unique, and I would love to see more specific games tuned to that, and I look forward to playing those. Because right now, it’s all very rough. Does that make sense? It doesn’t seem very finite in the way that…it seems like the controller is being under-utilized, and I wish the developers would do more with it, from that perspective. But I think there are some really great games with it, and I think what Nintendo’s been very, very successful at, which I applaud, and I think is awesome for the industry, is that they’re starting bring in gamers who don’t game. I think that’s tremendous. And I’m looking forward to—as a game designer, a person who makes games—to reap the rewards of that, because the more gamers the better, and the broader the base for the industry, the better it is for everyone, for all those that play games and enjoy games. So I think it’s a great thing.

NWR: You said in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz that a lot of gamers don’t want to play very long games, and you’ve also commented that there are too many games on the market.

Dyack: Yup.

NWR: So, what sort of balance do you propose developers strike between the two sorts of ideas?

Dyack: Well, what I think you’re going to look at is more compressed experiences, where people can actually finish games, and there needs to be less games. Quite frankly, there’s just too many. I think it’s reasonable to say, I think it was last November, maybe the year before, I’m not sure, I should look at the statistics from last year to be positive, but last November or the November before that, there were like 250 games released. Yeah, I know they’re all on different platforms, but even if you played a new game every day, you would not be able to get through all those games. Not even close. And the chances of you finishing all of those are essentially zero. So if we’re trying to create true experiences, first of all, we need to make games digestible, and the first way to do that is to make them not 120-hour experiences. Legacy of Kain was a 120-hour experience, if you were hardcore and wanted to visit everything, but that’s just the type of game I just wouldn’t want to play myself now, and I think that games that are between 10 and 15 hours are really hitting the sweet spot right now, and that’s not including replayability and sure, online co-op, which is what we’re doing for Too Human, it’s going to give you hours and hours and if you want to get up to level 50, there’s probably hundreds of hours you could put into Too Human that way and still feel good about the game. But at the end of the day, sort of the single-player story-driven experience, where you’re getting the content, I think anything about 15 hours is really pushing it for most people. I think, if we’re going to hit a mainstream audience, I know, me as a person, if I want to play a reasonable amount of games that come out when I’m excited about them, but more than 15 hours is pushing it for me. And I guess I can relate it to myself, but I think the statistics prove that too. Most people don’t finish games. And, you know, I want them to finish our game, so how do I make a game that I know they’re going to finish? And that’s essentially the conundrum that the industry faces right now, and hopefully it’ll work itself out, as well.

Lusty: I’m going to add to that, too. Gamers are getting older, and what that means is that they have less disposable time.

Dyack: Yep.

Lusty: When the industry started, it was predominately teenage boys or younger or early 20’s. College guys. All of those guys are now dads that work, etc. And they don’t have as much time to play, but they’re still that audience of gamers, and they still play a lot of games.

Dyack: Yeah, the average age of a gamer now is 33.

NWR: And, following up on the question about the Wii, since Silicon Knights is an independent developer, and you’re contracting with multiple publishers, currently Microsoft and Sega, do you think there is a point in the future where you might consider doing a project on the Wii? Or is the technology of the Wii such that you really couldn’t consider that possibility until Nintendo announces something like a Wii 2.0 that would have more advanced graphics capabilities?

Dyack: Well, to answer the first question, we’d consider working on the Wii today, we’d consider working on the Wii immediately, and is there a possibility of us working on the Wii, yeah, absolutely. I think that it depends on the type of game we’re trying to make, but I'd say the possibility is very high. I think from a perspective of "What’s going to happen?" it's the timing and the project and how we feel about what we’re working on, does it fit? If it fits, we’ll do it without question. The Wii is clearly very successful and it’s a great console and it wouldn’t make any sense for us not to consider it. We would always consider it. And, you know, time will tell in the future, if and when we have something to announce on the Nintendo, you guys will be one of the first we come to.

Thanks again to Denis Dyack and Susan Lusty of Silicon Knights for participating in this interview.

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