28 July 2008

Interview with Nokia's Scott Foe
A Member Of The Reset Generation Team

Folks over at Gamasutra has posted up an interesting interview with Nokia's Scott Foe - A Member Of The Reset Generation game team with lot of info about development process, and how games get made at Nokia.

The game is the dream project of producer Scott Foe, who has been bandying the idea around since his teen years. Reset Generation is scheduled for release in Summer 2008 for the PC and N-Gage platform, had been known until now by the codename "Project White Rock."

Nokia, and Finnish developers RedLynx, have spent the last two and a half years on Reset Generation, and the result is a mash-up of puzzle gaming, turn-based strategy, and tongue-firmly-out-of-cheek fanservice. Reset Generation is an unfairly addictive action-puzzle title which is both cross-platform and multi-platform; furious online four-player action.

As Foe puts it, Reset Generation is "a game about video games," and that description applies not only to its schizophrenic but effective gameplay blend but also to its art and music design, which is sure to inspire waves of 8-bit nostalgia among long-time gamers.

The score was provided by chiptune band 8 Bit Weapon, and the pixel art characters are based on designs by well-known artists such as Dan Paladin, Scott Kurtz, and Feng Zhu.

Gamasutra sat down with Foe at Nokia's offices for an in-depth discussion about Reset Generation's formation and influences, its development, and - in notable detail - what Foe thinks about Scrum.

What was the genesis of this project? It's unusual for the mobile space in some ways.

Scott Foe: Well, the genesis really goes back to before there was even a mobile space. I mean, I've been thinking about this title since I was seventeen years old. I wasn't even in college yet when I started fantasizing about this. I cannot describe it, I recommend it to everybody, the experience of doing that thing you've been telling yourself you're going to do for so long.

So that being said, people always ask, because the term "producer" is so flexible, “What do you do? What do you do?” I'm kind of like Hannibal from The A-Team. I collect this amazing virtual network of amazingly talented people. We've got the character designers, we've got 8 Bit Weapon, and of course we have RedLynx and these fantastic people, and you know, I love it when a plan comes together.

So, it takes a village. Everything that we have is because everybody contributed and brought their A-game. And so, seeing all of that come together, and all of that cooperation - at the end of the day, companies don't make games. Nokia doesn't make a game. RedLynx doesn't make a game. People make a game. And we've been working with some amazing people. And because of that we have this amazing game.

So that's the short genesis version. The long genesis version is, of course, we are investing money in the N-Gage platform. It's mobile, it's connected. You need something that really flexes the platform, you know, a flagship title which is going to basically show off every feature that the platform has, and even features that the platform doesn't have.

At the same time, it's going to be the lighthouse, you know, the beacon - plant the flag for other people to look at and say, “Wow, mobile gaming isn't just this 64k experience that was in my phone in 2001.” It's now come into its own right as this very special form of entertainment, at home or on the go.

That's a very first-party console publisher mentality - trying to light the way for other developers.

SF: Set the bar. Yeah, and being at a first-party console publisher, or mobile publisher, as it were - a platform - that's definitely the way we went.

For those of you with premium accounts on FilePlanet, the file downloading service of IGN/Gamespy, you have a unique opportunity for the next seven days to be the first to play Reset Generation.