It seems hard to believe, but over five years have already passed since the release of Interplay’s Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel. To get some insight into the development of the third Fallout title to make its way to store shelves, we tracked down lead designer and associate producer Ed Orman. Read on:
GB: How did you get involved with Fallout Tactics?
Ed: I did some design on Micro Forte’s previous title, Enemy Infestation. After EI, the team in Canberra worked on a demo for an unpublished game with the hopelessly-generic title (Chimera Project). Although Chimera didn’t go anywhere, Interplay saw the engine and approached us to make Fallout: Tactics. I was a fan of Fallout 1 (not so much 2, although I did play it through) and I got offered the opportunity to be Lead Designer.
GB: Could you talk about your role during the game’s development and what exactly was involved in that process?
Ed: I was Lead Designer and Associate Producer. Although I had some responsibility as the Associate Producer, our Producer (Tony Oakden) was in charge of scheduling and the overall project. I only really had to wear my Associate Producer hat before we had Tony (we went through one other producer before Tony came on board), or when Tony was out of the office visiting Interplay in the U.S.
As for Lead Designer, that meant I was responsible for all the usual designery things: pitching ideas, liaising with the publisher, creating game mechanics, documenting the design, writing story and dialogue, communicating the design to the team, creating levels, providing briefs to the artists, editing entities, balancing, etc. But as it was my first Lead position, I think it’s fair to say that I relied heavily on the other leads and the team to get stuff done.
GB: What is your most stressful memory from the development of FoT?
Ed: The most obvious one that springs to mind is the day half the development team was retrenched, right after we went gold. The whole thing was handled very poorly and it just sucked to see the people who had worked so hard be let go.
But here’s another one. A few months into the development process, myself, the lead programmer Karl and our producer at the time went with John DeMargheriti (head of Micro Forte) to visit Interplay and discuss the project. Only once we got there did John realize how violent Fallout was and John didn’t like violence. So the night before we meet Interplay, it’s suddenly starting to sound like the whole thing will fall through. Keep in mind that contracts have been signed, staffing plans submitted and recruitment begun. Anyway, the meeting went ahead, and somehow the project kept going (although it was because of this meeting that children were removed from the game).
Finally, for one that was all my fault, when we put together the first demo there was this realization that it just wasn’t any fun. It was one of those points in a project where all the pieces have been built, but it’s not gelling at all. We had a series of very intense meetings (in particular, I remember essentially redesigning the tactical combat with Karl), and got back on track.
GB: Are there any particular design choices that you feel worked well (or didn’t work well) in Fallout Tactics?
Ed: From a designer’s perspective, I’d have to say the implementation of Continuous Turn Based mode. It was totally experimental, but I still think it was a reasonable solution to bringing a turn-based game to a real time audience, part of what Interplay had asked us to do.
My least favorite part is the dialogue. I was never really happy that we’d captured the spirit present in the previous games. Too much toilet humour.
GB: What are some of your favorite memories from working with the FoT team?
Ed: It was a great team, and I’m glad that I’m still working with some of them. We had a lot of fun.
With that said, we were a pretty accident prone group. And violent. I hit Parrish (Lead Artist) on the shoulder with a hammer. I meant to do it lightly ( ? ), but I hit his collar bone and it made a nasty (clunk) sound. Musta hurt.
I broke both my wrists early in the development, but I was so keen to keep things going that I went in to a team meeting the next day. I was whacked out of my mind on painkillers I don’t know what I said, but I’m pretty sure I looked goofy while saying it.
We had a lot of general shenanigans where we’d throw shit around the office, and somehow Lorne (Senior Artist) always managed to get hit right in the open eye. And Blaeghd (artist) used to like to somersault through doorways – I never did find out why. Most of the time he’d tumble into an obstacle like a filing cabinet or a desk and clock himself.
Good times…
GB: Were there any plans for a sequel? Or was Fallout Tactics meant to be a standalone title in the franchise?
Ed: I don’t know if there were plans officially, but if I recall correctly we (Micro Forte) had documents outlining an entire new campaign, a new enemy type – I think it was Tony that came up with an awesome idea for a baddie – a description of the opening cut scene, possibly even staffing plans. It was reasonably advanced before I resigned.
GB: Any insight as to why the FoT team ultimately split up?
Ed: If you’re referring to the retrenchments, you should be asking that one to the people that made the decision.
GB: What lessons were learned during the development of the game?
Ed: First, to have a clear, concise vision for the design from the beginning. I learned this because we didn’t have it for Tactics, and I think the initial lack of focus meant that the end product wasn’t as good as it could have been as a result. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still extremely proud of what we created, but it could have been even better if we’d just embraced the (tactics) part of the game instead of also attempting to recreate the previous Fallout games at the same time.
Second, to do more with less. There’s just so much _stuff_ in the damn game. We could have managed with a lot less (less weapons, less items, less missions) and put in more polish.
GB: Finally, what was your favorite role when creating a character in Fallout Tactics? (My character functioned mainly as a skirmisher/ambusher, for example.)
Ed: I had pretty much the same character for my main guy as yourself, with the (small frame) and (finesse) traits. But it was a squad-based game, so I always had a sniper or two standing off at a reasonable range and I’d coordinate their attacks to start at the same time. Then I had a decent medic/lockpicker, and a couple of short-range bruisers to put through doorways if I couldn’t sneak into a room.
And I never personally used drugs . well maybe I tried some Voodoo, but I didn’t inhale?
Thanks for your time, Ed!
