Lara has many technical fathers, but only one commercial godfather. Besides the game creators Andy Green, Robert Toone, Terry Lloyd, and Chris Shrigley, Jeremy Smith was the single sales and marketing professional in the founding team of Core Design in 1988. His company developed in ten years from a small, ambitious programming studio to become a worldwide entertainment business.

Under the leadership of Jeremy and his brother, Adrian, Core survived the ragged transition from the home computer market of the 80’s to the Sega and Nintendo paradise of the early 90’s. The winning move of Sony’s PlayStation pushed Core right along with it. Lara Croft represents for the Sony and PC market what Mario was for the former market leader, Nintendo: cult figure and commercial hit rolled into one.

This interview with Jeremy Smith, Core founder and President, reveals much about the development of the video game business in the past years, the commercial side of game development, and the meaning of hardware in an industry overflowing with Lara, Sonic, and Mario. Smith explains how Lara was created, how hits develop a surprising life of their own, and how you—against all odds—secure the lifespan of a successful brand.

“She fights with wolves.” —Jeremy Smith, Producer at Core

Prima Games: Does it bore you yet to constantly talk about Lara?

Jeremy Smith: (Laughs) No, it’s hard to get bored in discussions about a beautiful woman.

PG: When I look at the many Lara posters and statues in your office, I ask myself how life before Lara looked for you and Core.

JS: Before Lara? The game industry was still fighting with too many computer and console variations. We also had to program more games. Core developed simultaneously for Amiga, Atari ST, PC, and Mega Drive. We were quite busy. The introduction of Lara came together with the breakthrough of the 32-bit platforms. After that, it all changed. The games got more difficult, and suddenly it wasn’t possible to produce six games for five different platforms. We concentrated very much on the PlayStation, and naturally on the PC. The change from 16 to 32-bit wasn’t just a doubling of power. The devices were suddenly 500 times more powerful than their predecessors, Sega Mega Drive and Super NES. The PlayStation meant an unbelievable step forward for the game market. Then came the 3D graphics cards for the PC. That changed the games greatly, and naturally, the way the games were programmed and produced.

PG: Before the PlayStation emerged, Core was closely tied to Sega. What was special about the relationship between your company and the Japanese giant?

JS: With Sega we always totally understood that it was important for the growth of Core. They helped us when we were still a tiny company that wanted to play with the big boys. I spent a lot of time in Japan to present my technology and my games. Sega went so far as to support all of our projects. We were one of the first English firms to receive a license for the Sega Mega Drive. A small company in Derby, surrounded by huge game concerns, we were very loyal to Sega.

PG: Even as Sega’s first CD console, the Mega CD, totally sunk on the market?

JS: The Mega CD was a disaster! We developed Thunderhawk especially for it. In all of Europe, we sold about 300,000 units. At least for this system, we had a huge hit. Months later the hardware was essentially dead. We were lucky that Thunderhawk was out when there were hardly any other Mega CD games.

PG: Now Sega has a new wonder console with the Dreamcast. Is Core going to support this hardware so zealously too?

JS: We are good friends with Sega and have been using several Dreamcast development systems for months. Our Dreamcast games are going to be done for the European hardware introduction this year. The problem with Sega, though, is that it has to catch up to fifty million PlayStations. Core is now part of a large company that naturally first and foremost wants to develop games for the most popular console, in the long term probably the PlayStation.

PG: Back to Lara: Were you the first one at Core to recognize the charm of the video game heroine?

JS: I was at least the kind that people ran to and yelled, “Wow, you’re great, you made Lara Croft!” (laughs) But naturally I didn’t make it, I just approved it. The working style of Core is simple: The development teams have ideas that they present to me or my brother and we then talk about them. “Yes, that could be it!” or “No, the idea is bad.” With Tomb Raider, I personally wanted a game where you plunder ancient pyramids and burial grounds.

PG: Like ten years ago in your Rick Dangerous?

JS: Exactly! That is still my favorite game; absolutely great! In the case of Tomb Raider, Toby (Gard) came to me with the idea and I said, “Great! Let’s do it!” Toby and the rest of the team played around with this idea of an Indiana Jones-type hero for months. I loved the idea and spurred them on, simply to keep going. When I saw the Indiana Jones hero for the first time, I thought George Lucas would be mad. Toby and his team worked over the hero and after a few weeks, he came back with Lara. I looked at the monitor in disbelief and said something like, “My God, now that’s a woman. You can’t be f***ing serious!” But Toby was enthusiastic and you have to give the creatives their freedom; the freedom to go after what they believe.

PG: So only a little bit of skepticism from your side?

JS: Of course I was skeptical, as was everyone then. But then, that was five years ago, and Lara simply came to life and you could see what Toby was planning. There weren’t any girls in video games at all then, other than in Japanese games. Sure there were a few single women figures, for example in Virtua Fighter, but still no game that completely revolved around a heroine. We had always developed games that were a little bit different, and looked at many to ask ourselves, “Super game. Why wasn’t it successful on the market?” We played with the ideas and finally gave them the missing twist. Tomb Raider was surely the most ingenious and original Core game.

PG: Core is recognized as one the most technically progressive game companies and still hasn’t ever tried an online or internet game. . .

JS: At this moment, we’re playing with this idea. For twelve months we’ve been working with a few things in this area. But as long as we aren’t really sure that we can do it well, we’d better let it go. It’s difficult to get into this sector.

PG: Do you believe you have to use Lara to get a foothold there?

JS: No, I believe that would be easy; maybe too easy. We would rather do something more difficult and not take advantage of Lara too much. I’d be nervous that you would see Lara everywhere, in every shopping store, on every T-shirt . . .

PG: Do you believe that Lara’s success will ever be matched by Core?

JS: Actually, now I’d have to say yes. Though the Lara story surprises me too, and that’s how I stake my trust in Hollywood. Look at James Bond: born at the end of the 60’s, eighteen films later, he’s still as fresh as the first time. We’ve created such an icon, and now we have to give the consumers what they want. Ian Fleming was very smart. He knew exactly what his readers want. Some science, cars . . .

PG: . . . girls, technology, and exotic locations.

JS: Exactly. Everyone seems to love it. But it doesn’t matter if they love it or not, they watch it every time! This is exactly what we’re doing with Lara. The Bond philosophy says, “Give the consumers what they want!” That’s why there will be no Lara role-playing game. Lara is a 3D adventurer. She fights with wolves!

For eight years Adrian Smith has helped Jeremy, his older brother, lead Core. He too comes from software sales, but in comparison to his brother also has a technical background, and is thus the ideal connection between management, development teams, and external partners. As Operation Director, he also takes care of the Lara hype, reviews, offers of potential licensing partners and gets angry about unlicensed Tomb Raider products. We discussed the Lara cult and its growth.

“Jennifer Lopez would be my first choice!” —Adrian Smith, Producer at Core

Prima Games: We just asked your brother this same question: does it bore you to be asked about Lara again and again?

Adrian Smith: No . . . or to be honest, yes. It’s slowly gotten a little annoying. On the other hand, it’s flattering to be addressed as the “father of Lara Croft.” It only got really grating with the reaction of many trade magazines to the third Tomb Raider. In certain circles it really became the fashion to mince up Lara.

PG: Has your “baby” developed through the three parts, like a proud father had imagined?

AS: Yes, in every way. Although all episodes were primarily created for the PlayStation and this hardware hasn’t gotten any better, there still have been significant technical improvements. In 1996, Lara began as a 3D heroine with about 230 polygons, and in the third part she’s detailed and is made up of about 300 polygons. In addition, she develops somewhat further with every gaming idea. For example, as we invented water and flooded caves, we opened a whole new dimension for Lara to explore.

PG: Up until now, all Lara games were created for 32-bit platforms. With the introduction of new game consoles like the Sega Dreamcast and the PlayStation2, do you see a gaming quantum leap for the series?

AS: New game consoles like the PlayStation2 will certainly provide a whole new gaming experience. Videogames are getting more and more similar to Hollywood films, and we anticipate a whole new graphical experience.

PG: Won’t that drastically change the role of the professional game developer?

AS: Yes, definitely. For example, we need better Sony authors than each of the ones we have. Like in movies, games will show up with multiple protagonists with strong personalities and their own character. That requires new talents and will probably further crank up the size of the programming teams. Now only Japanese firms use one hundred or more people for a single game.

PG: The Lara cosmos doesn’t just determine the fate of your games, but also the countless, often even unlicensed, fan items. How do you deal with that?

AS: The fans on the Internet are particularly enthusiastic about Tomb Raider. For us it’s of course great and that’s why we help out with the unofficial (Internet) projects that were created out of the interest of the fans. On the other hand, there are also things that we don’t like as much, like the naked cheat that our team allegedly built into the game. Although the pictures are created through a technical trick, and Lara is simply represented in another color palette, it seems many players get off on this. For us, this is naturally a thorn in the side, and destroys Lara’s good reputation. The peak, though, is on a CD that I received this morning . . .

PG: What’s on it?

AS: (Pulls out a CD-ROM with ” Nude Raider” written on it and explicit photos on the cover.) A hardcore porno with someone dressed up as Lara as the main actress! That’s really just vulgar and repulsive!

PG: Your office film project will probably bring you even more fun.

AS: Of course, the coming Hollywood film is a big thing, though also not without risk. With Lara, we’re bringing a worldwide popular character to the project. Core has a lot to lose with the film, as compared to Paramount which can only win.

PG: Does Core have any influence on the film? Could you, for example, determine the actress for the title role?

AS: No, we can’t determine it, but Paramount naturally talks to us about potential candidates. My favorite actress for the title roll, by the way, would be Jennifer Lopez. The woman is classy and fits right in with the Lara image. Jennifer would definitely be my first choice!

The post Interview: Jeremy Smith, Adrian Smith, Core Design (PrimaGames, 2000) appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Guest article by Wing See Li.

For the first time ever, it brings me great pleasure to present the readers of the Tomb Of Ash my first, unexpected interview with
the creator of Computer Virus Simulator, D. Jagielski (thedarkhog on Twitter).
At the moment, he is responsible for almost everything for the upcoming indie
3D platforming/collectathon game ranging from character and asset modelling to
level design except for the music (as stated in the interview).

How did this come about? While I’m minding my own
business surfing the internet and flicking through the web pages of Facebook
and Twitter, I suddenly received a tweet from D. Jagielski (also known as
thedarkhog) while I’m scrolling up and down the notifications list. It’s
not every day a random stranger abruptly asks me to do an interview with
him/her so I immediately accepted his request. Besides, I might as well snag
the opportunity while I still can! And the rest is history!

Now with further ado, here is my first interview with
D. Jagielski!

What games inspired your Virus Computer Simulator game?

D. Jagielski:
Mainly early 3D games such as Alpha Waves/Continuum released by infogrames back
in either 90 or 91, not sure right now – one of the first if not the first 3D
platformers, way before Super Mario 64. Also, demoscene. And it’s Computer
Virus Simulator.

What inspired you to use a computer virus as a character?

D. Jagielski:
Originality. To my knowledge it has never been done before and I needed
something to stand out since I’ve knew full well I won’t be only 3D platformer
in town by the time of release. Also this gives me free reign to do as many
obscure computer jokes as I please.

Can you tell me a summary of the story of the Computer Virus Simulator game?

D. Jagielski:
For now story is still in flux. I think I’ll do it with loosely connected story
arcs, similar to what some web comics do. This will make possible to extend the
game’s story as long as it is vialable commercially and as long as I have ideas
to do so. Each “arc” will be 5-10 levels long, with demo having its
own arc.

Is there a main antagonist? Can you describe to me what he/she looks like or show
me a picture of him/her?

D. Jagielski:
The Creator, who is, well, creator of The Virus has a rival and there will be
few clashes between the two, but he’s not the same “main antagonist”
in the sense that Neo Cortex is for Crash or Gruntilda for Banjo.

Does the Computer Virus have its own moveset?

D. Jagielski:
Yes. While it’s not final, for now it consists of dash, acting both as mobility
ability as well as attack, ground pound, gliding, jumping and wall jumping.

You can also pick up upgrades that allow you to shoot.

What does your game development team compose of? Or is it just you developing the
game, composing music, programming, testing the game etc?

D. Jagielski: I
am doing most of development, including levels, coding graphics and all the
sounds within the game. For music I rely on CC and outright public domain
chiptunes. I wish I could hire musician for the projects, but the game has
basically $0 budget.

Are you planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign for this game?

D. Jagielski: I
am from one of those countries where you can’t launch Kickstarter, but
IndieGoGo is pretty much in the cards once demo is ready.

Speaking of launching this game, do you have an estimated release date? What platforms
are you planning on releasing this game on?

D. Jagielski: I
don’t know when I will be able to finish the demo and this is prerequisite for
the IGG campaign as I think that in the current crowdfunding climate it is
important to give potential funders something more than just a nice video to
base their decisions on, especially on IndieGoGo.

But I’ll try to do this before this year is over,
hopefully.

Will there be a hub world in your game? A lot of 3D platformers have hub worlds.

D. Jagielski:
Actually, the whole main menu itself is playable and has an area where you can
select level you want to play. You will be able to play the levels in any order
you want to, but of course preferably you’d play them in order. From the main
menu you can also get to the level editor.

Is your game open-world? Or is it in the vein of Crash Bandicoot, Super Mario 3D
Land, Super Mario 3D World etc?

D. Jagielski:
Some levels will be linear while others will be more open. It all depends on
needs of the specific area. The level editor contained within the game, same
one that I’m using to create levels for the game and which will be available to
the players as well allows for both kinds to be made.

How many levels and worlds will there be in total? Do they each have names?

D. Jagielski:
The target point at which game will be considered finished is 100 levels. They
will all have names.

What are the names of the levels? Can you name a few examples of the levels for me?

D. Jagielski:
The level currently in development is called “Datacolumns”.

Will the game have bosses, mini-bosses and a final boss? If so, what are the names of
them?

D. Jagielski:
Yes, it certainly will have bosses, but at this point I don’t know what kind of
bosses they will be as I’ve simply not this far in the development to have to
create one.

Due to me working on this alone I have to concentrate on
one thing at a time, for now it is level design.

How long have you been working on this game for?

D. Jagielski: I
have been working on the Computer Virus Simulator since 2014.

What are the programmes you use to develop your game?

D. Jagielski:
I’m developing the game using Unity3D and Blender for artwork.

What is the software you use to compose your music?

D. Jagielski: I
don’t compose the music. Music in the game as of right now is Creative Commons
and Public Domain chiptunes.

Are they placeholder music?

D. Jagielski:
Not sure at this point. Whether I’ll use it in the final product depends on how
successful my IndieGoGo campaign will be (planning to launch it in flexible
funding so at least I’ll get some money for development). Although I really
like the tune that is currently being used for the main menu area.

Are you planning on adding vehicle and turret sections in your game? Or are you not
following the trend of most old platformers? Old platformers mostly have turret
and vehicle sections.

D. Jagielski: I
don’t know at this point whether this would be done.

I guess this will depend on Early Access feedback on it
and whether people will want me to do it.

Will there be any power-ups or abilities?

D. Jagielski:
Yes, there will be. One such ability that I’ve forgot to mention is the ability
to create a checkpoint anywhere in the level so if you die, you’ll respawn in
the place where you set the checkpoint instead of having to start the entire
level over.

Number of these checkpoints is limited though (at the
start of the level it’s just 2 checkpoints), but you can collect checkpoint
orbs to add more. Usually checkpoints orbs are given away before any harder
parts of the level.

Will there be any save states?

D. Jagielski:
You won’t be able to save mid-level. The only way to preserve that progress is
through placing checkpoints in a smart manner. All other data such as level
high score, how many times you’ve completed specific level and so on will be
preserved automatically. The game won’t feature lives system.

Will there be DLC, season passes, microtransactions etc in the future?

D. Jagielski:
Definitely no microtransactions or season passes, but there may be DLCs (as in,
proper expansion packs) if game proves to be popular enough.

Will there be any NPCs to talk to and help?

D. Jagielski:
Not sure about that yet.

What are the main objectives in the game?

D. Jagielski:
Every level has its own goal you need to complete in order to finish it (and
unlock level exit plate). Sometimes you’ll have to collect certain amount of
data stored in datagrams; sometimes you’ll have to kill certain amount of
enemies, sometimes other things, sometimes a mix of any of the above.

Is the computer virus is the only character you can play as or there is more than
one character to play as?

D. Jagielski:
The Virus is the only one. You don’t need more than him.

What or who inspired the Computer Virus character?

D. Jagielski: I
see, I see… Well, he’s just a Computer Virus, that’s all. As for what he looks
like, it was based on old 8×8 pixel art thing of mine that then I’ve replicated
in Blender using Grid object which then I’ve extruded to make The Virus
actually 3D.

Will the characters, levels and worlds be colourful and vibrant? Where do you get
inspired from for level and character design?

D. Jagielski:
Yes, they will be colourful. As for inspiration many of level concepts are
based in part on various demoscene demos and early 3D games. Other sources of
inspiration include nature and architecture.

What are the collectibles in the game, including the main collectibles?

D. Jagielski: At
this point there’s a gun pickup, datagram pickup (datagrams can also be
destroyed by careless shooting, so be careful where you shoot when you have to
collect datagrams), checkpoint orb pickup. The game isn’t a collectathon by any
means (it’s more close to Super Mario 64 and Crash in terms how pickups are
used), but there will be many different items that just add score.

What or where is the gun gameplay inspired from?

D. Jagielski:
Take any 3D platformer that has user-created projectiles and you’d be mostly
correct. The projectiles travel a short distance then disappear (or disappear
after collision with a solid surface, whichever comes first). The projectiles
are real objects as well, since we’re way past the point where hitscans were
necessary for performance reasons.

How many guns and weapons are in the game?

D. Jagielski:
For now there’s only destructive gun.

Why did you include gun gameplay in your game?

D. Jagielski: Because it makes gameplay more interesting
and are especially useful while dealing with high hp enemies. Also some of the
enemies such as Bad Pointers are immune to the Virus’ dash and ground pound
ability so using gun is the only way to actually harm them.

What or where are the guns and weapon designs inspired from?

D. Jagielski: I
don’t want to discuss this at this point.

What is the main currency in the game?

D. Jagielski:
There is none.

Will there be any gameplay mechanics or mini-games to add diversity to your game?

D. Jagielski:
Yes, there will be minigames, however you’ll have to be smart to unlock them.

Are there any upgrades to the guns, weapons, abilities etc?

D. Jagielski:
Yes.

After getting a game over, do players start from the last time they saved or they
start from the previous level/world they visited?

D. Jagielski:
There’s no game over, because there’s no lives mechanic. You can create a
checkpoint mid-level to be respawned at that point, however there’s limited
number of checkpoints and if you die without setting one, you’ll have to start
level over.

Does your Computer Virus character have idle animations?

D. Jagielski:

At the moment just one.

Can you describe the idle animation without revealing any spoilers?

D. Jagielski:
No.

Is there going to be fall damage if the Computer Virus falls from a high platform,
ledge, cliff etc?

D. Jagielski:
Fall damage? In a platformer? Don’t be ridiculous.

What engine (e.g. Unreal Engine 4, Unity) do you use to develop your game?

D. Jagielski:
I’m using Unity.

Why did you choose not to include fall damage in your game?

D. Jagielski:
Because only crazy people would enjoy such a thing in a platformer of any kind.
I am firmly against fall damage, even in genres where it makes more sense to
have it such as first person shooters, open world games, RPGs, and so on. Fall
damage simply punishes you for exploring.

What if you don’t make that jump and the ground is
several hundred meters below you? Having to get back up there for another
attempt is punishing enough, you don’t have to kill player over it.

Will there be any vehicles or a method of transportation to travel from one level or
world to another?

D. Jagielski:
You’ll be able to play levels in any order from a list in the playable main
menu.

Will there be any trophies, skill points or achievements?

D. Jagielski:
There will be, although available only in campaign levels to avoid someone
making an achievement farm and putting it on the workshop.

Will there be online multiplayer or split-screen local multiplayer?

D. Jagielski:
There will be no multiplayer. Computer Virus Simulator is a single-player
experience.

Will there be a co-op mode?

D. Jagielski:
No.

Will there be any cutscenes? Will there be any loading screens featuring characters or the main character doing an animation?

D. Jagielski: I
don’t think there will be any cutscenes, as I don’t want to take away control
from the players. But there’s dialogue system implemented that shows up at the
bottom of the screen where the player can stop and read what the characters are
saying or continue on with the level.

There’s going to be in-game conversations with subtitles at the bottom of the screen?

D. Jagielski:
For the loading times, game’s so fast when it comes to loading new level that
no load screen is necessary. Put one just in case, but it only blinks and
doesn’t consist of much other than the “Loading…” text.  There will be conversations at the bottom of the screen using text boxes. Think SNES JRPG games or what Yooka-Laylee/Banjo had only it doesn’t take control out from you and you are free to ignore it and carry on if you like.

If the game ever comes out on consoles, will it be released on a disc or a cartridge?

I don’t know if I will go physical with the console
players at this moment.

Only digital at the moment?

D. Jagielski:

At the moment, yes. Plan to release to Windows/Linux/Mac then if the game is
successful enough (it will be) I’ll port it to consoles. However whether it
will be physical or digital at this point is unknown to me as I have first make
the thing before thinking of porting it to the different platforms.

Are you thinking of hiring more people to help you with game development?

D. Jagielski:
Once I have money to do so, yes.

If people are willing to help you for free, will you hire them?

D. Jagielski:
There are some serious legal issues with that if I want to do business, so no.

Do you ever get creative block? If you do, how do you get over it?

D. Jagielski:
Rarely do, however I’ve found that if you force yourself to do for few minutes,
the block subsidies.

Do you listen to music to help you concentrate? If you do,
what music and songs do you listen to?

D. Jagielski: https://play.spotify.com/user/1181262013/playlist/17PBXT1lem0dRwA4VZZGUN?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open

Does the music and songs you listen to inspire your game?

D. Jagielski:
Not really.

If your game ever becomes successful, are you planning on
developing a sequel?

D. Jagielski:
There will be no Computer Virus Simulator 2.

Will there be merchandise if the game becomes successful?

D. Jagielski:
Yes, there will be merchandise when the game becomes a success.

Will there be a series? Or you’re going to work on a new IP?

D. Jagielski:
After Computer Virus Simulator I’ll be working on a racing title.

What will the racing game be called?

D. Jagielski: I
have not decided yet.

Do you have a link to your Computer Virus Simulator Indiegogo campaign?

D. Jagielski:
Campaign will launch once the demo is complete which it isn’t at the moment.

What are the links to your social media and your website if people want to keep up to date with your game?

Follow me on Twitter (@thedarkhog) or read the devlog on
tigsource

Are there other links too? I’ve heard the computer virus have his own Twitter account.

D. Jagielski:
Yes. It’s @VirusSimulator *hopes his drive won’t be formatted overnight*

Are you on Instagram and Facebook? It’s a shame your Facebook page of your game is deleted.

D. Jagielski:
Not on Instagram, no, and Facebook I’ve made only for few games there which I
don’t play anymore.

Couldn’t keep it up and found better to concentrate on
Twitter and my tigsource devlog. Maybe when I’ll be able to hire someone to
support it for me.

If it’s possible, will you be releasing this game to handheld consoles and smartphones?

D. Jagielski:
Handhelds maybe. But it would be nightmare to play on a smartphone or even a
tablet. This game needs a physical controller, be it mouse and keyboard (which
is preferred) or gamepad.

Would the price of the game vary from port to port/version to version?

D. Jagielski:
No, I don’t think so. As for Early access there will be three tier pricing:
When the game is launched as an EA title, when it is halfway done and when it
launches officially, lower the less of the game is complete.

Does the Computer Virus have a signature ability or a signature weapon?

D. Jagielski:
Haven’t thought about it yet, but in future he’ll be able to take over other
processes and make them do his bidding. Maybe this could be it?

Is the computer virus a hero, villain or an anti-hero?

D. Jagielski: I
prefer to not reveal that information yet.

What are the features and aspects that make your game stand out from other 3D platformers?

D. Jagielski: I
think the level editor is the biggest one. Because this is the same editor I am
using to create levels for the game and I will continue to do so, you’ll have
as much power to create your own unique levels as I do. No other 3D platformer
that I know of allows for that sort of thing.

It’s been a distinct pleasure doing an interview with you and especially, my first interview at that! Hopefully, we should do this again
sometime.

D. Jagielski:
Hopefully. Have a good night.

By Wing See Li for Tomb of Ash

Follow Wing See Li:

• Twitter
• Fanfiction.net
• FictionPress
• Archive of Our Own Profile
• YouTube
• Google Plus
• Tumblr
• Sketchfab
• Miiverse
• PaigeeWorld
• LinkedIn

Keep Up To Date with D. Jagielski and Computer Virus:

• TIGForums:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedarkhog
  and https://twitter.com/virussimulator

• YouTube

The post Computer Virus Simulator Creator Interview appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Eric Loren is a UK-based American actor and musician. He played Mr Diagoras and the Dalek Sec in Doctor Who. He also played Kurtis Trent in Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness and Lieutenant in Saving Private Ryan. Eric also has appeared in 2011 Video Game, Battlefield 3, as Sergeant Steve Campo.

Links:

• Eric’s album on iTunes
• Eric’s album on Google Play
• Eric’s album on Spotify

The post [Interview] Eric Loren – Behind the Voice of Kurtis Trent appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Today we chat with Alexandre Serel, the author of L’Histoire de
Tomb Raider (The History of Tomb Raider).

Hi Alexandre, Thank you so much for agreeing to spare some time and speak to us today

No problem Ash, I hope everything’s ok in Manchester!

Tell us how you’ve got an idea to write this stunningly looking book.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a game designer at CORE
Design so, I think as an adult it was obvious to write a book about Tomb
Raider! More seriously, I had the idea in 2012 when visiting a french event
about the Japanese culture, Japan Expo. My publisher, Pix N Love, was there to
present books about video games. As simple as that, I told myself “There’s
something to do with Tomb Raider”. I started doing research and, in 2014, I
started writing a few things which would become this book.

I know you were writing another book, Lara from L to A, how different is it to “the history of Tomb Raider”?

That’s the same book ! « Lara From L to A » was the first
title of « The Story of Tomb Raider ». We (my publisher and I) thought that «
Lara From L to A » was a strange name. It became « The Story of Tomb Raider :
Lara Croft’s Odyssey». Why « Lara Croft’s Odyssey » ? Because « Odyssey » is
the name of the very first video game console and « Lara Croft’s Odyssey » is
my very first book. It’s a simple nod.

What readers should expect from this book

It’s a kind of story telling. I didn’t want to write
“Nathan McCree, interview page 56”. It was rather talking to CORE developers
so they could tell me their work, anecdotes and who they really are. Once I got
these information, I had to assemble them in order to tell a story.

The original script for Tomb Raider 1, provided by Core Design.

How long it took you to write this book?

It took me one year to “understand” the history of CORE and
another one to “assemble” the whole thing. After one year, a big draft was in
my computer. But, to be clear, I was unsatisfied with the results. So, I
rewrote whole passages. Then, one day, I received lots of documents from
Richard Morton. So, hundreds of documents had to be translated, a huge work
from Anaïs Orhant. It took a few months. While waiting for the translations, I
was finishing passages.

Alexandre, Célia and Pix n’ Love team

I’m sure you’re extremely proud of it. What was the most challenging in writing
“The History of Tomb Raider”?

No, I’m not really proud. Some people were able to read the
book, saying it was really good. But I’m an Eternal dissatisfied person and I
only find defects. The hardest thing ? Angel of Darkness without hesitation.
The game development was so chaotic that I spent weeks trying to put the right
things back in place. I had to manage lots of information. Pieces of stories
that were scrapped, things that were written by Murti Schofield or other people
form CORE Design… that was tiring. There were also incoherent game design
documents… I remember spending entire days telling myself « It will be hard to
put things back in order » The most important thing is to think of the reader.
So, trying to tell him / her a coherent story and to make him / her understand
that things were complicated with this game. I unfortunately believe that
there’s not « one reality » about Angel of Darkness but several. Each person
has a different version of the story and this is quite normal. Richard will
remember this point, Murti another one and another person has yet another
version… So many years later, I’m still very sad that this caused the fall of
CORE Design. Every employee of the studio is an immense artist. I would love to
see them working together again. Wouldn’t it be great ?

I know that there are plans on English version, could you comment on that? Any
other languages you might plan to translate it to?

We are in talks for the English version, but nothing is yet
decided. The other countries might have a « different » version because it
would not be fun just translate the book. Moreover, some passages talks about
the Tomb Raider phenomenon in France, so this not interesting for English
readers. It needs a few challenges. I would like to add a few things to the
English version, like a meeting with Meagan Marie, English Lara Croft voices,
etc… But nothing is set in stone.

The History of Tomb Raider has one of the best (if not the best) covers I have ever
seen. Who designed it?

Three of us have worked on the cover. With Célia Beauduc,
who is also the illustrator, we’ve got the idea of a cover that “calls for
adventure”. The first draft was showing Lara from back, looking at the horizon.
But I wasn’t convinced and found it a little too “classic”. So Célia, who is
very talented, started thinking about a concept, the idea of Lara turning to
the reader, inviting him / her to read the book and going on an adventure. Then
Luc Pétronille, who is the creative director of Pix N Love took Célia’s
illustration and reworked it into a final version. He then created the Atlantis
Edition all by himself. He is also really talented and he impresses me every
time.

One of the early cover designs

On behalf of an entire Tomb Raider community and Core Design fans, thank you for
your effort.

Thank YOU! Don’t change and please continue to make CORE Design life in your mind.

The post [Interview] Alexandre Serel. The author of The History of Tomb Raider appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

The post Our interview with The Arcade appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Richard Morton was a level designer for Tomb Raider 2-6, an artist and writer for Tomb Raider 4-6, lead game designer for Tomb Raider 3-6 and environmental artist. Richard kindly took some time to answer a number of questions. The questions were devised with the help of Tomb Raider of the Unforgettable Core Design.

How did you start working in Core
Design?

I started working at core after being made redundant from Hi-Tec in Sheffield,
myself and a coder called Gary Antcliffe were given an interview after our boss
at Hi-Tec had a round of Golf with Jeremy Heath-Smith.

What was the most challenging part
of when you first started to work on your first Tomb Raider game?

I’d say it was learning the Editors, both the level editor & Anim edit had to
be mastered along with importing models, animations and textures into Anim edit,
there models would be textured and the animation behaviours set-up ready for
coding. Part of this process also involved learning 3DS Max and Photoshop.

What was the inspiration for the
very first level you designed?

Myfirst TR level was in TR2, it was the Tomb of Xian. I drew most of my
inspiration from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Big Trouble in Little
China and The Golden Child.

Left to right
Upper Row: Darren Wakeman, Richard Morton, Andy Sandham, Lara, Martin Gibbins, Tom Scutt, Chris Coup.
Lower Row: Richard Flower, Jamie Morton, Peter Duncan, Phil Chapman

What parts of mythology and architecture inspired the design of the levels and the artwork? For example, what
parts of Egyptian mythology inspired you for levels in TR4.

Weheavily researched ancient mythology for all relevant locations throughout the
TR series, AOD was the exception to a degree as we were writing our own
mythology with Murti. With TR4 we drew on many different aspects of Egyptian
culture and Mythology, by using real locations and adding a mythical twist or
exaggeration of reality to make a more interesting level for the player. We
drew on the legends of Seth (Set) vs Horus as the main story backbone of TR4,
also taking cues from the typical ‘Curse of the Mummy’ legends right down to
creating our own mythology with Creatures like the Sphinx.

Which was your favorite game that you worked on and why?  

TR4 was my fave for sure, I felt we were in a very good place as a team, we were
firing on all cylinders, we knew what the engine could do and what else we
wanted from it. We nailed a great story set in only two geographical locations
(Cambodia and Egypt) so we could really focus on the characters and how their
storylines unfolded. We also had a kick-in-the-balls ending which was planned,
not an afterthought (as some articles may suggest)

Richard Morton at the Core Design offices circa 1998

What was the most challenging?

AOD for sure, we were working with unfinished PS2 hardware for over a year so we didn’t
fully know what it was capable of. We didn’t have the same world editor from
the PS1 TR games so we were building a way more complex game on new hardware
without the robust and reliable editors. It just took too long to get where we
needed to be, I’m still proud of AOD, I think we accomplished so much in that
game that has laid the groundwork for what has come afterwards.

We were told that Tomb Raider
Chronicles had levels that were conceptualized for Tomb Raider Last Revelation.
What levels from Chronicles were originally to be in Last Revelation?
How did the story originally go to involve them?

I’m not sure where you were given that information but it’s untrue. The Last
Revelation was always designed to be set in Cambodia and Egypt. I think some ideas
were thrown around for older concepts as to what TR4 could have been before we
settled on The Last Revelation.

Towards the end of Chronicles,
we are put in levels in which stealth is very important to get through them.
Was this to prepare the gamer for the release of Angel of Darkness?

Yes, in a way it was, we were under pressure to include stealth gameplay more and
more as the series progressed.

Peter Connelly released a video that had a woman named Putai, a Shaman, that awakens Lara in the design
from AOD.  Originally, was there to be a level to explain how Lara was
resurrected from the tomb crumbling around her in the Last Revelation?

Yes, the Shaman was to play a big role in AOD, as you can see from the video we got
far enough into production that fully rendered and musically scored movie
sequences were made with her in them. Demean Sequences showing how the Shaman
nursed Lara back to health. We had a training level planned which was set
inside a giant cave, the Shamans den. In this cave the Shaman would guide Lara
through her new moves and controls, the Shaman could take the form of a woman
and transform into a spectral Hawk, the hawk would show Lara the way if she was
lost. This gameplay was to extend into the story levels of the game too, with
the Shaman contacting Lara through the Scarab Pendant Lara now wore around her
neck. As Lara came across a new move in the story levels the player could
choose to practise the move in ‘dream time’ back in the Shamans cave.

In the Angel of Darkness there are many locked doors.  With cheats you can go through them and are able to
see portions of the game that were unfinished or not used in the marketed game.
This leads us to wonder how much was removed and if you had examples of
such?  

We chopped and changed the level layouts quite a lot in AOD, especially in the
Parisian street levels. I wouldn’t say there was much that was removed, but
certain assets may have been swapped around. The big level that was partially
built but removed was the Parisian scrapyard.

Murti told us that there was a glitch after Lara and Kurtis are knocked out outside the Louvre as there
should be another cutscene to explain how Lara got the periapt shard.
Any details on the cutscene?

I’ve included a document which should explain the list cutscene and many other bits
and bobs. For the answer to this question please look at cutscene – point 6.21
at the bottom of page 9 continuing on page 10

What was the original concept of having Von Croy’s stick? Why is it an item that you can pick up? 

The stick was meant to be a link from Last Revelation to AOD as its the head of Set. Originally there was meant to be
another flashback cutscene showing Lara getting trapped beneath the pyramid and
her rescue by the shaman, the end of that scene was meant to blend into the
shot of the stick.

Using money in the game you can buy the gun from Luddick and can bribe the bouncer to get to Bouchard.
What else could you originally do with money in AOD?  

The currency was to play a much bigger part, with energy in the form of food being
bought, ammo, information. The plan was to have much more of Parisian life
being interactive to the player, allowing Lara into shops to buy or barter
items she needs to succeed.

There were also many animations that were not used in the final game.  Were there any notable uses of
these you wanted to see happen?  

Kurtis had many moves that didn’t end up in the final game. In the FMV sequences
we see Kurtis using Psychic powers do control his Glave weapon. I had many more
powers designed for Kurtis… He could Farsee, which was an ‘out of the body’
flying power. You can see very similar powers to Kurtis in the game Beyond Two
Souls.

With the advancements of graphics and technology there must have been a lot of changes in workflow and creation
between Chronicles and AOD.  Can you describe the changes you felt?  

The gap in detail was huge, we’d gone from
creating levels from boxes and pyramids to creating free form geometry that
could look exactly like the real thing (within poly limits of course) this took
way longer than we thought, especially when we added the collision maps. We
originally intended to have a streaming engine too, but we couldn’t get it to
work efficiently at the time, so levels had to be redesigned and restructured
to compensate.

There was a video leaked that was for Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition for PSP.  This was designed
and created by Core mirroring the original game more than TRA that was released
by Crystal Dynamics.  With so many similarities with the original TR1
what were the main differences between TRAE and TR1?

We had a completely new control system for Lara, very similar to the Free Running
controls, which allowed her to be far more athletic and agile when traversing
the levels, especially the jumping and climbing. Lara could lock on two
independent enemies at once or concentrate her firepower on a single target. We
had a new character Melissa Croft who was Lara’s cousin, the player could
choose to play Lara or Melissa in single player. In co-op mode the two
characters would work together to solve puzzles. We reimagined the levels so
they were familiar but not a carbon copy of the originals, so the player would
still be challenged. We added a totally new last level called Escape from
Atlantis – Atlantean War Machine.

Was TRAE meant to be made just for PSP or for PC and consoles as well?

It was developed on PC and PSP but also ran on PS2 as well. So could easily have
been released on all of those formats.

In concept form and even once the levels are drawn out there are many differences to the completed
project. What are some of the notable changes on the games you worked on
from concept to finished project?

Each and every level I’ve worked on or managed ends up getting modified in some way,
most only require small tweaks but others need larger modifications. Sometimes
what feels right on paper just doesn’t work in the engine. Nowadays most of the
design work is done on paper and in the white box prototype phase but back in
the TR Editor it was far quicker and easier to plan on paper then build.

My Temple of Xian in TR2 had to be cut in half because it didn’t fit in memory.
Pretty much all of the first couple of level of AOD were chopped and changed
around especially where the game actually started (originally on a rooftop,
then in an alleyway. Finally, in the courtyard)

Have you played the newer Tomb Raider games by Crystal Dynamics?  What are your thoughts on them?  

I love the last two crystal games Tomb
Raider [2013] and Rise of the Tomb
Raider. For me they capture the exploration aspects of the originals that
precious Crystal TR games just didn’t have. It’s a shame that most of the
actual tombs were side missions rather than being in the main story.

As the level designer and an artists you had a lot of input on the feel of the Tomb Raider classics.
How do you feel about the direction the story of the new games has taken?
What would you have done different?

I love how the newer games look, I actually love how they’ve taken a step back
and showed us the very beginning of her adult tomb raider career. The weapons
work well especially the bow. Maybe the survival aspects could have been
enhanced, but only in certain chunks of the story, maybe at the start give her
nothing and force the player to craft weapons from the surroundings, the same
mechanic could be used if Lara got captured and all weapons taken from her. I
also mentioned earlier about the tombs being treated as side missions rather
than the main story.

In theory if you had your team then with the same projects with MODERN technology what advancements in level design
and art would you take advantage of?  What ideas you wish you could have
used were thrown out because of technical limitations?

Streaming technology and the sheer amount of memory and power would allow us to create
some truly gobsmacking levels. In AOD the whole Parisian location was designed
as one big streaming level with multiple routes through it, but it was far
ahead of its time and couldn’t work on ps2.

A persistent world with night and day moving in cycles would be an amazing tool
to have in TR, shadows casting on objects at certain times of day would be a
cool puzzle mechanic.

Fans analysed Phil Campbell’s notes on the cancelled TR4:Gold and created their own vision of the game,
some are still improving the controls, graphics and other aspects for the AOD.
What are your thoughts on such fan dedication? Any particular fanmade TR project that impressed you? 

All TR fan made projects and material impresses me greatly because it’s from the
heart, it’s what drives the fans. I take my hat off to them all. The AOD sequel
project that was running for a while looked awesome, TR4-Gold looks cool. The
AOD novel was great. There are way too many great projects to mention.

Kurtis was an interesting character with great potential, but there’s still a lot of mystery around him. Probably
many of his abilities were cut out of the final build, so could you tell us
more about this?  Did you want to implement an upgrading system for his
special powers in The Angel of Darkness (or in the following entries) a bit
like RPG games? 

Kurtis was my biggest regret in AOD, we had so many great things planned for him, I
designed so many cool gameplay situations around his powers. When we were told
that we just didn’t have time to implement any of his powers my heart sank, I
had to redesign all of Kurtis’s gameplay sections to use just a gun instead of
all his abilities such as his Chirugai Blade (glave weapon) as seen in
cutscenes, his control system was to allow Kurtis to target on multiple enemies
in slow-mo and ‘tag’ them with a psychic marker, then throw the blade which
would arc through the air and take all the baddies out, the trade-off being
that Kurtis was vulnerable whilst targeting the enemies before theoing the
blade. Another ability was his Farsee ability, which again rendered Kurtis
vulnerable as he meditated and performed a ghost walk or out-of-body
experience, which allowed him to fly through curtail doors and walls (a lot
like the ghost powers in beyond two souls)

Rumour has it the players could play as Eckhardt for brief segments of the game in the Alpha version. Where
these sequences flashback about the Black Alchemist’s past or were they set in
the present days?

Sorry but there were no plans for Eckhardt as a playable character in AOD, we did toy
with the idea of Lara or Kurtis wearing his Glove at some point though.

Is it true that, in the Beta version, the player could move the camera, and do the classic 180° flip as
described in the official guide of the game?

Yes, this is true, about 6 months before release we designed and implemented a
different control system for Lara, it worked really well and was a bit like the
modern 3rd person controls you see today, given more time I’m sure we could
have made them work perfectly, but we had to revert back to the system that was
in the released version of the game. Please play Free Running on PSP and PS2
for an idea of what we had running.

While creating the game world and the various environments, did you take inspiration from real existing places
(for example, the urban streets of Paris and Prague)?

Yes, we took much inspiration from existing places and had quite a few ‘research’
trips to various locations including London with its many Museums and street
architecture and also Paris with the Louvre as its centrepiece. The team almost
got kicked out of the Louvre because someone took pictures of the security
systems, camera equipment was also in danger of getting stolen in the Parisian backstreets.
It would have been nice to visit some of the more exotic locations but tight
schedules didn’t allow for this, our substitute was the internet and many trips
to the library to research the many reference books

Kurtis and Lara were initially meant to collaborate in some levels of the alpha game to achieve some tasks. Was this
collaboration only in relation to the puzzles or was it extended to the
combats, too?

It was mainly for puzzle purposes and would have worked very similar to the latest
Uncharted game, with Lara helping Kurtis onto a ledge, Kurtis opening a door
for Lara, etc… the difference being that the player could switch between
which character they controlled as the level progressed.

Had Core kept the franchise and still be in charge of developing the sequels, how would you picture Tomb
Raider today? Do you believe it would be similar to what we have now or not?

Not really the same as what we have. I believe the AOD story arc would definitely
have been fleshed out as a trilogy as was always planned, there was so much
more to reveal about the characters and locations it would have only got better
and better. Kurtis was planned to have his own spin off series of games too,
with him dipping in and out of future Tomb Raider games and vice-versa with
Lara. I think we would have ended up with either a full blown game or a
scenario within a game depicting Lara’s early adult Tomb Raider adventures kind
of like what Crystal have done with the latest two games, we’d always had
elements of our storylines that show the history of Lara’s life.

With regards of the 20th anniversary, of course it’s hard to tell, but do you think Core would’ve made
another remake (TR2 this time) like they planned to do with 10th AE?

Not sure about TR2, I think remaking the first one was the Anniversary everyone wanted to see. If it
had sold well enough it would have been difficult to refuse remaking the whole
set of games ala Uncharted Collection.

Do you feel today’s games are less challenging to players due to more linear level design, more forgiving traps
and puzzles, built-in help, etc.? And, if so, is that a good or bad thing?

I think games on the whole are way less hardcore than they used to be (with a few
exceptions) Tomb Raider is not different. Even in the PS1’s lifecycle we had to
make adjustments for the more casual gamers that were emerging, people just
don’t want to retreat the same ground they’ve just played through if they’ve
died, so we put either lots more invisible checkpoints in or allow save anywhere.
In the 80’s and 90’s games were mostly played by children and teens, but as the
demographic got older and the teens became adults with more responsibilities
and less time to play games, the nature of how games are played had to change.

Please discuss how you and the team found the “sweet spot” when setting the difficulty level of the
classic games. Were there places you feel you missed the mark or levels you
might have done differently in hindsight?

Difficulty is always the most difficult thing to balance and get right. After levels were
completed I’d sit down and play each level and write notes on how it could be
made clearer to the player, or harder depending on how far the level was in the
game. We’d get pages and pages of useful feedback from the test department and
further adjustments were made. I always hated the instant deaths that certain
traps would demand, I still hate them today but you just can’t get around
certain scenarios such as jumping off a cliff or into a bottomless chasm, the
player has to die. In hindsight I’d say quite a few levels were too hard, such
as The Kayak level in TR3, Temple of Xian in TR2.

Most of the classic games include at least one level where Lara has no weapons. Did these present any special
challenges in terms of level design?

Yep, we liked to use this mechanic. It allowed us to perform a reset on Lara’s
weapon cache and also force a bit of sneak or stealth gameplay. It was actually
nice to design these levels because they broke up the gameplay and allowed us to
breathe a little before ramping up the difficult again.

Can you clarify the Chronicles timeline? Where did each chapter take place in relation to the events in TR1,
2, 3, and 4? Young Lara sure got around, and it seems like Larson and Pierre
have died more times than most mortals are entitled to.

This is a tricky one… Rome I think was set before the first Tomb Raider game.
Russian Base & Sub was set between TR2 and TR3. Black Isle was set before
TR1. VCI Headquarters was set Between TR3 and TR4 I think.

Without necessarily getting into the politics, could you talk about what was going to be included in the 10th
Anniversary Edition from Core?

Basically we wanted to remake the original but as mentioned earlier, put a twist on each
level to make them different and give the player a fresh challenge. We had new
moves such as wall running and a far more fluid control system to reflect
Lara’s athletic abilities more accurately. We also had a whole new final level
planned with Lara battling against a huge Atlantean War Machine piloted by
Natla.

Have you played the 2013 reboot and Rise of the Tomb Raider, the LC games, Lara Croft GO? Impressions? And if you
are following the new games, as a player, what would you like to see next?

I am a Tomb Raider fan like the rest of you guys now, I’ve played all of the new
games after Core, including Anniversary which was difficult for me because I
knew our version was better. The first couple of Crystal D games were a very
mixed bag, which looked pretty but just didn’t feel like tomb raider. Lara
Croft GO is amazing, I loved how they stripped it right back to the essential
puzzle gameplay, the graphical style was awesome too. The last two Crystal D
games have really impressed me, I think they’ve finally got Tomb Raider on the
right track, maybe it can regain it rightful place as top of the Action
Adventure games, after all Lara would kick Drakes Ass right? As a player I’d
like to see another TR game following the choose the next location as used in
TR3, with today’s tech they could really go to town on it, allow for a
storyline versatile enough to allow the player some choices that take the game
in different directions, I don’t think open world would be the right path, but
a world map with a branching story path would be cool, allow Lara to really
explore the globe.

The post The Interview with Richard Morton appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

 

Tomb of Ash presents an exclusive interview with Murti Schofield – the writer of the Angel of Darkness. Along with talking about his inspiration for the story, Murti reveals some previously unknown details that were left out of the game, including the fate of Kurtis Trent.

Hello Murti! First of all, thank you for taking your time to speak to me today.

Oh you’re welcome, I love talking about myself!

Don’t we all?

Yeah, I’m just more honest about it! [He laughs.]

So, how did you start working at Core?

I did some work for them on a game called Fighting Force through a good friend of mine. Probably about a year after that that same friend told me that they were looking into making a new Tomb Raider game and that they were a little bit stuck. He said that he reminded them that I’d done some dialogue work for them before and asked if I’d be interested. I drove over to Derby. I thought that they simply wanted some more dialogue work doing… Adrian Smith asked me if I might have any ideas for the game. They wanted to revamp Lara. They wanted something ground-breaking and yet spookily the same whilst keeping all the signature marks of Lara Croft. At the time I had my head stuffed with Cappadocia and Turkey and France, because I did a lot of writing about that and was travelling in those places. So I told him a whole series of possibilities for a story.  Adrian seemed very interested and he asked when I could start. That was in May 2000 and I turned up again in June and was introduced to the team that was working on the ideas for the Angel of Darkness, which was James Kenny, Peter Duncan and Mark Donald. It was just three of them and they had worked for six months on that game. I started producing ideas and it all went from there.

I know that you did some writing work before the Angel of Darkness. How different is it to write a script for a videogame?

I worked on computer games before; for about 4-5 years as an artist doing environments and animation.  I am a trained animator. I worked in Cosgrove Hall animation studio in Manchester and worked on the BFG film all of whicih was hand drawn traditional animation. I also worked on concept designs for central television in London.  So, I was familiar with working in the media. But then I had an idea for a computer game with a friend of mine even though at the time I knew nothing about computer games.  This was in about 1994.  I offered the idea to Sony and they offered me a job at Psygnosis in Chester, where I worked on two games as an artist. I was still writing in my own time. I was working on a novel calledCappadocian Aengelus with some of the similar themes that I transferred to the Angel of Darkness.

When you started approaching the script for the Angel of Darkness did you read scripts by Vicky Arnold and Andy Sandham to get a grasp on Lara’s character?

I didn’t talk to Andy very much as he was very busy on the then current game [Tomb Raider Chronicles]. I looked at the documents that were written for TR1-5 but the idea was not to copy what was done before, it was to make a quite a radical break from that. So although I wanted to know what Lara was doing in Egypt, what was she up to in around the world there was only a certain amount of that that I wanted to take with me into the Angel of Darkness world. Like Von Croy’s walking stick.

So your Cappadocian Aengelus was the main inspiration for the AOD?

Yeah, as well as From The Ashes Of Angels by Andrew Collins. Aengelus came in at something like 175,000 words and took me about two years to write. It was one of the main inspirations. I was always interested in obscure aspects of history. Particularly when some mystery is involved like secret societies and information that is in public domain but nobody notices it because it’s encoded. Having spent time in the underground cities of Cappadocia I was just saturated with this kind of material. Also the Languedoc area in France where the Cathar heresy was crushed and the Templars were wiped out. So Knights Templar and angelic forces were in my head and it was basically the root of the proposal that I made to Adrian [Smith].

What was the main inspiration for Lux Veritatis?

One of my obsessions was the Knights Templar, but I didn’t want to use them as such because they were used in other games. The moment you say “the Knights Templar” people immediately think they understand what you are talking about. I wanted to create something that would make people think “oh, what the Hell is that?” So Lux Veritatis was actually a secret inner order within the Knights Templar but it allowed me to use “Lux Veritatis” all the way through instead of saying “the Knights Templar”.

How Kurtis was created?

Adrian [Smith] said in the initial interview that he wanted the possibility of a playable spin-off character and if I had any ideas. As a big Raiders of the Lost Ark fan I suggested a playable male character that was an adventurer, that was about as far as it went at that point. Adrian said I could come up with more ideas on that.  So the concept was to create a young male adventurer and when I started writing background material I wanted him to have some sort of connection into the mystic past. I decided to make him a member of Lux Veritatis but not a full-on member. He had to be a trainee or apprentice and that is when the idea of making him a descendent of one of the last Lux Veritatis’ adepts came in. When I’d get an idea like that I’d propose it to the team and they would do artwork and in the meantime I’d spending every hour that I could spare writing up possible background stories. I wrote a lot of material, more than we could possibly use, but the more I’d write as a foundation for a story the more convincing the story would be. If anyone would ask me “why is that there?” I could give them a good reason rather than just say “oh it seemed like a good idea”. All the ideas are there because they’re built on the established background story. I hate cliché and I hate gratuitously used information, so every name was chosen for a particular reason, every character was built on a certain idea, and all the concepts were definitely interrelated to each other. I tried to create an entire universe that worked. Oh and Ash, I really loved your interpretation of Konstantin!

Ah, thank you!

I thought he was great! I’d never seen any illustration of him before.

Thank you so much! To be honest the Angel of Darkness is a very dear game to me because when it came out I was going through a very difficult period of my life and it made that period a bit more bearable.

Yes, I read your blogpost about it. It does sound like a very dark period.

Was Kurtis the last adept of the Lux Veritatis?

When the game starts, his father [Konstantin] has just been killed which left no other elder Lux Veritatis adepts alive. So Kurtis was the only trained Lux Veritatis initiate still active, except, there is one other; a female character that went to the dark side. That’s all I’ll say at this stage.

What were the plans for Castle Kriegler and Cappadocia?

It all started quite early on in the process. When I first met the three members of the team it was Mark Donald, Pete Duncan and James Kenny. We began discussions about the kind of things they wanted to do and I could deliver. I obviously gave them the run past of all the things I’d proposed to Adrian and then we started to discuss it all. The first thing I wanted to do was to establish the mood of what I was trying to set up.
So I wrote an FMV script, like a film script, of events in Castle Kriegler in 1945, where Eckhardt is held captive in the subterranean chambers. The Count and Countess Kriegler and their son were the Lux Veritatis guardians at the time. They were guarding the world from Eckhardt. Somehow members of the Cabal arranged to misdirect an Allied bombing force and bombarded the castle in order to release Eckhardt.

The FMV script was well received by the team. So, the idea was that at some point in 1945 Eckhardt has been released by the Allied bombing of Castle Kriegler. Gerhard Heissturm, Kurtis’s grandfather who was a young man at the time, was a man servant to the Krieglers and he escapes the destruction. Also it’s worth noting that in the script it talks about the Periapt Discs. There weren’t Shards at that point but three talismanic Discs. And so Gerhard escaped with some of the discs that were used to keep Eckhardt imprisoned. The Discs were changed, I think a couple of months later, into Shards. In the early stages of development the idea was to have four locations: Paris, Prague, and then going on to Castle Kriegler where various things were hidden and had to be dug out. This would lead to the finale for the first game in Cappadocia.
I only outlined the things that might happen in there in broad outline but it fairly soon became clear that it was just too much to achieve in one game.

You have to remember that I had never done this before, not on this scale and not for a triple A project. What I was trying to do was come up with lots of interesting story ideas that held together and around which a mass of gameplay opportunities could be built. So when Rich Morton came on board after a few months I began to talk to him and Andy Sandham about it. That was the point at which everybody began to realize that Castle Kriegler and Cappadocia were just too big. We needed to bring everything back and make it happen in either in Paris or Prague which is what we did and it still seemed to hang together very well. At that stage I was pleased that it was still working okay. I now began to work very closely with Rich. If this story takes Lara in this situation what sort of gameplay opportunities are there for that to happen in Paris in the game? And so on. You know there was the nightclub in Paris and all the other stuff? Now what could take place in there was outside my area of expertise. I don’t do gameplay and puzzles. I would create the story where things would occur and Lara would be going around asking questions and Rich and various other people came up with “All right well she goes to this nightclub. She can do this this, and these are the kind of clues need she be looking for there”…and so on.

My challenge was to keep the story coherent. For example in Castle Kriegler there are all sorts of secret areas which could support game play.  Some Lux Veritatis chambers are hidden in there, as was Eckhardt’s old alchemist lab and a ritual chamber where Eckhardt was going to be attempting a critical self transformation.

Once I found out that we had to abandon Kriegler and put everything into Prague I just pushed everything else to the side and concentrated on Paris and Prague. There was no time for anything else with the pace hotting up. Yeah that’s about all I can say at this stage, nothing of the proposed Kriegler or Cappadocian levels was ever properly finalized.

You’ve just reminded me about the nightclub, “Le Serpent Rouge”. Lara has to retrieve a mysterious box from one of the flashlights that don’t work. What’s inside of that box?

Right. You know the Tarantino film where everybody is fighting for this suitcase but no one knows what’s inside it. They only see a blue glow coming out of it when it’s opened. I loved that idea. So basically that was a rip-off from that film. It just remains mysterious, an intriguing possibility because if I never specified what was in that box I could always pick it up in Game 2.  I would make sure that it was something really essential to the story but was left hanging for the present. I left a lot of clues in Game 1 that could be picked up later on in games 2 and 3.  But, of course because those games never happened you never got to see why they were there and why they were significant. Hm, what was the name of that film…

Pulp Fiction?

Yes! Thank you, that’s the one! I just thought it was so cool and so funny! I grew up with comics, I did all my escapism through comics like you did with games. I was reading comics avidly and passionately from the age of about six. I was hugely inspired by comics; British comics, European comics, American comics and film. Whenever I was in meetings with people at Core I used to be referencing all sorts of comics and films. It was only after a while that I realized 90 percent of them didn’t know what the hell I was talking about because they haven’t seen the films or they haven’t read the comics or they didn’t get the cultural references. So I had to start dialling back on that. But I had one guy came to me, “You know all this stuff you keep mentioning Hellboy and Hellblazer. How do I get a hold of all this stuff?” It was because I was using these as a way of expressing the ideas I was proposing. It was a sort of shorthand language to establish moods and style. Hellboy particularly. There was one occasion where I was talking about a monster that Lara and Kurtis could run into in Castle Kriegler and it was based on the Jewish idea of the golem.

Oh yeah, I know that one!

Yeah, well you’re obviously a cultured person because nobody in that particular meeting understood what I was talking about.

The only reason I know of it is because I played Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption and there is a Jewish neighbourhood in there where you have to fight a golem!

Brilliant! So you know what I’m talking about. But when I mentioned this idea of the golem one particular guy said that we couldn’t do that because of copyright. Tolkien will have a fit, because you know, “Gollum”… Good grief.

In the early game concepts Putai, the shaman who saved Lara in Egypt, was supposed to say things like “you feel stronger now Lara”, “you learnt a new skill” and stuff like that. Why was this idea dropped?

I honestly don’t know. Basically when it came to dialogue, I wanted to make the characters as realistic and lively as possible, but within the limits imposed on you by gameplay, I was having to ask Rich and others what kind of dialogue did they need. I don’t know who was making decisions about that, but what was coming back to me was that they needed loads of things that Lara could say at different points in the game. I wasn’t involved in the decision of how the dialogue would be used except when it was carrying story content. If it was stuff during the gameplay, I just threw in loads of things and they cherry picked the bits they wanted. Although we were all supposed to be working closely together, it was only a couple of people like Rich that I was working closely with. Basically the programmers were a very separate entity, the artists were a separate entity and I was separate from both of those. I found it very difficult to talk to programmers; Although, Tom Scutt was great to communicate with because he could talk both artist and programmer language. He was the main conduit through which I/we communicated with the programmers if there was the need. I didn’t make many decisions at all related to how the gameplay worked. Not my area of expertise. I was quite distinct from that process.

What is the purpose of Von Croy’s Stick?

Well, originally there were supposed to be a whole series of clues linking back to previous situations in previous games. In fact, I was going through some notes the other day and came across a whole set of charts showing all the clues that appear in various notebooks and documents. I don’t think it was used cause quite honestly I never went back and played the game afterwards – I couldn’t face it. But, the idea was that the top of the Anubis (Seth) walking stick came off and inside there was a scroll with some clues scrawled on parchment. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what they even were. I wrote the clue in, it was in a discussion I had with Rich. I think we did a few things like that just in case we needed to pick them up later on.

For the first 5 or 6 years after its release I had very little idea that anybody cared about AOD as I myself didn’t at that point. Basically, I was downhearted because I’d put so much into it and I know a lot of other people had as well. The KTEB were the first ones to get in touch with me and that was kind of interesting in a certain way. But, then on the 10^th anniversary, The Lost Dominion people got in touch with me and I thought I’d pay some attention and see what was going on. I simply didn’t know how keen people were. I had no idea so I started talking to Jenni and various other people and I thought “Blimey, people have really dug into this”. People were discussing things on the site that I’d hidden in clues, names, and other stuff and it was a complete revelation for me as well as an affirmation of all the effort I’d put in.  I just thought it had vanished without a trace. I knew that the KTEB were keen on Kurtis, but that’s a different thing.

I like your renders of Kurtis by the way, they are great!

Thank you so much! I think I was the first one to actually make a Kurtis render in 2006’ish…

How did Lara come clean with the police?

As far as I know, she still hasn’t. At the end of AOD she’s still on the run from the police. She’s never cleared her name properly.

There are a number of references to Sumerian Gods in the game, can you comment on those?

Very often when people are building levels they’ll just include something that would link her to some moments in her past.   I don’t think overmuch thought was given to it. Or perhaps a lot. I don’t know. I wasn’t party to that. People would pick up some Syrian or Babylonian architecture and put it in. It was very often left to the artist as long as no one spotted any real glitches with it like Pete Connelly appearing in the Mona Lisa.

In Von Croy’s notebook there is a reference to the Golden Lion that will bring destruction upon earth. Can you give a bit more details on that?

The Golden Lion was a prophecy relating to a Nephilim Saviour, who would return and re-establish the Nephilim race. Eckhardt was very aware of this. He tried to bring together a Sanglyph to reawaken the Sleeper and transmute himself using alchemical processes into the person or being who would become the Golden Lion. He thought he would inherit The Golden Lion of the Nephilim mantle and of course rule over everything.

What’s the history between Lara and Karel? They never met in the game yet Lara acts like she knows him when she first meets him in the final scene.

In 1300s Eckhardt makes his first contact with the Nephilim and tries to kill off the original Cabal so he remains the only one. Incidentally one of the original members of the Cabal at that period was a character called Régis Limoux, which was one of Karel’s identities. Anyway when Lara first arrives in Prague she sees Karel’s photo in Luddick’s folder with dossiers on the Mafia/Cabal members [in the cutscene you can’t see Karel’s photograph]. She recognises him from that.

I read somewhere in your notes that there is a possibility that Lara and Kurtis have their extraordinary physical abilities because they come from Eckhardt’s genetically engineered generation of people

Hm, yes, that’s very true. How strange because I’ve hinted at this in various documents and is something I wanted, and still want, to say a great deal more about. In fact, I was also reading that document the other day. My idea of Lara and Kurtis is that they do come from unusual bloodlines. I began by thinking hard what would motivate someone in Lara’s position to do the things that she does. What would have influenced her life choices at a more profound level than simply the urge to go adventuring and shooting everything that crosses her path. I wanted to look into the inner darkness that could be driving her. I felt like there must be some deep, shadowy part of her past, as yet to be disclosed, which might link her to some ancient historic forces that have been battling in the shadows of a mythic and recorded history. That became the starting point of taking Cappadocia and angelic myths and the idea of ancient beings that might possibly be linked to her own genetic past.

Why is Karel in his Nephilim form is so different to the sleeper in terms of looks?

Basically that’s because he’s gone through so many shape-shifting transformations that he never really returns to his original, true form. Shape shifting has its consequences and costs, like every use of power.

That brings us to our next question – does he survive at the end of the game?

Yes, everybody survives except Eckhardt.

Gunderson also?

Yes, him and Rouzic [who is not in the game]. They are the only two surviving members of the Cabal. Karel also survived.

Did Kurtis survive?

Oh yes of course, he also survived. There are games of his own waiting to be written!

Cool! that’s the first firm answer on his fate!

When Lara and Kurtis are both knocked out outside Louvre, why was Kurtis’s Periapt Shard left behind?

That is a glitch. There was supposed to be another scene in there that should have explained how that happened.

What relationship if any was planned to develop between Lara and Kurtis in the future games

Well I like the idea of this sort of that teenage “push me pull you” dynamic, the kind of relationship where they are actually strongly attracted to each other; a lot of sexual tension which expresses itself in a sort of buddy relationship, with a lot of mutual respect…and tussling.

During his time in the Foreign Legion Kurtis got a nickname the Demon Hunter. How did that happen?

When Kurtis was in the Legion he tried to leave the shadow wars far behind him. However, when he’s in the Legion various incidents happen where dark and demonic forces come to the fore of his life. There was one event when he was out with a patrol in the desert and a tribe of Arabic nomads gets attacked by djinn. Kurtis got drawn into that and tackles the djinn. Two of his fellow comrades die and two others survive, as well as Kurtis. Later back at the Legionaires’ drinking lair tongues start wagging, people start talking about the djinns and the name sticks. There were also many additional events where Kurtis seemed to be attracting demonic entities.

What happens to Kurtis’ body in the end of the game?

The idea was that he drags himself away and relapses into a toxic coma, which is when the body is protecting itself most dramatically. Basically, he survives that way.

Can you explain who the Agency is?

It’s the enforcement arm of the Cabal. They were the hit squad of the Cabal and Gunderson was in charge of it. There was just no space in the game in which to use them anymore, but I was very keen to bring them back in the second game because Gunderson survives and one of the way they reconstruct the Cabal is to set up all the protective measures as they were before, including the Agency. I liked the Agency, I could have done a lot with them. I think it was the Agency that Kurtis was working for unknowingly at one point as a mercenary.

If you would receive an offer to work in the videogame industry what would be your response?

That’s a good question because I’ve been thinking about that for the last couple of years. I wouldn’t want to be working the way I was before. I don’t want to be dealing with massive deadlines and so on. If I was to be used as an ideas consultant or a concept design consultant, I’d be very happy about that. Depending on the project of course. I’ve got to be passionate about it because I’ve got so many things of my own needing a lot of my attention and energy. But, I’d be very interested to be used as a consultant for a game project or something media oriented. I wouldn’t want to be fully employed though or tied to a daily timetable grind again. I don’t have the stamina and energy that I used to have 10 years ago. I need to concentrate on things which I know are going to get completed.

Oh! Speaking of the videogames, I don’t know if you play them much but you may want to consider the Broken Sword series…

Oh is that the one with the Knights Templar?

Yep

Yes! I did a lot of research on that one.  I tend not to play games, but I research them.  Assassin’s Creed has a brilliant concept.

Well these are all the questions I had for you. Thank you so much for your time Murti!

You’re very welcome.

The Angel of Darkness fans must consider checking out Murti’s The Shadow Histories book series as “Tomb Raider Angel Of Darkness and The Shadow Histories, all share some fundamental similarities of theme”. Volume I and II are available on Kindle

Further Read

Special thanks:

Tatiana Leitzel

Tina Ljubenkov

Leksaart

The post Murti Schofield – Writing the Angel of Darkness appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

 

In 1996, Natalie Cook was the first official model to represent Lara Croft. Today she sat down with me and a couple of folks from Survivor Reborn to talk about her experience as the original, real-life Tomb Raider!

Hi Natalie,

Hello Ash!

Thank you for joining us today! Dare I say you look absolutely fantastic and it’s hard to imagine it’s been twenty years since you were Lara’s model!

Thank you, nor can I [she laughs]!

So let’s go back to 1996 then, how did you become Lara Croft?

Well, Eidos at the time were looking for a model to be Lara Croft and my agent gave me a call. She said to me “You know your brown contact lenses that you’ve got from your previous job as Snow-white for Disney? Can you put them in and go for the casting and see how it goes? They [Eidos] stipulated that they wanted a model with brown eyes, athletic-looking and with a nice-sized bust.” There were lots of girls and I thought that I wasn’t going to get this job… and yes so I just went for this interview. They asked me a few questions. It was twenty years ago and I can’t quite remember what they were asking… and yeah, my agent gave me a call and said that they [Eidos] wanted to use me as Lara Croft.

How much did you know about the character when you first dressed as Lara?

Well, not very much… they didn’t really say too much about her. I think because she was quite new at the time, and the character was in the early days of development. I think as the years have gone on they’ve adapted her so much and they changed the way she looked, like ridiculously, she’s completely unrecognisable from that picture there [she points on my t-shirt with classic Lara] to what she looks like now!

Do you remember any other girls who were at ECTS?

I do, at the computer show [ECTS] there was this girl called Katie Price who’s gone on to be really famous and another girl whose name I can’t remember but I do remember that me and Katie didn’t quite gel with her. Me and Katie were really enjoying what we were doing and the other girl didn’t seem like she was enjoying herself.

Natalie Cook on the left, Katie Price on the right. ECTS, (1996). Olympia, London

So I’d imagine you were the lead model. How were your relations with the other two at that expo? Were you three having fun portraying Lara?

Yeah, we were told to just run around, pretend to sort of shoot people, and basically “kick arse” – that’s what they told us to do, so we had great fun doing that [she laughs]

How did you feel at ECTS? Did anything unusual happen?

I can’t remember anything unusual but I do remember that we had such a great time portraying a woman that, you know, men were fearful of. She was used to getting it her own way and basically we used that to our advantage. And the guns that we had were quite realistic and we just had a great time.

There’s one mysterious detail we noticed on one of your early photos. What is this notepad you have? Also there’s a signature on your shirt. Do you remember anything about it?

Hmm, no I don’t remember what that is [she looks closely at the picture]. Oh it might have been the game!

As for the signature, that was Björn Borg, the tennis player. At the time, these were white tops and they didn’t have “Tomb Raider” written on them there. And obviously when they chose me to be Lara’s model to go to the places all over England, they changed my outfit to be more thematic.

Important question. Have you played the game?

I did, but not very well [she laughs]. I remember playing at a few launches and I remember kids were sitting next to me and also playing, and I remember I was really bad at it.

Did you try to play any other Tomb Raider games? Do you follow the series at all? Do you like the new version of Lara?

I don’t [follow the franchise], no. I should really. I can obviously tell when I go to the shops and see the demos and posters and I can tell that the graphics have changed enormously since the time I was Lara.

[click here to see these scans in HD]

Other Lara models after you had some strict terms and conditions such as “no talking in the costume”. Were you under any such conditions?

No, they never told me that I wasn’t allowed to talk in the costume. I was walking around talking to people because people wanted to speak to me about the game or about Lara.

In this picture you’re with some people from Core Design including Toby Gard and the legendary Ian Livingstone. Did you speak to any of them? Were they giving you advice and directions on how to portray Lara?

No, they just said that she was sort of a “bad-ass”, “kick-ass” woman that is not to be messed with and she knows what she wants in her life and she’ll go out and get it.

Natalie Cook, Katie Price with Jeremy Heath-Smith, Toby Gard and Core Design. ECTS (1996), Olympia, London.

I know that Toby shouted “I created you!” at Katie and she just walked off swiftly.

[She laughs] I wonder what she said back

Oh no, she just walked away

Oh did she? [She laughs]

Tell us about the video advert that featured you dressed as Lara? How long did it take to film?

It was a night shoot at some sort of disused warehouse/factory and it was a 12-hour shoot. I remember I got there at 6 in the evening and left at 6 in the morning. It was all outside and it was quite a cold day as well so I was very, very cold. Unfortunately, it is not me doing the back-flips. My children think it was me. They’re like, “mum, I didn’t know you could do that! Show me!” and I’m like, “yeah, not now, I hurt my leg” [she laughs].

They had a firearms expert there as well to teach me how to fire real guns, which was fantastic! There were just lots of explosions…

Were they real guns?

Yes, they were real guns that I was using on set. Obviously there were blanks in them, but yeah they were real!

Did you expect the game to become so popular and Lara to turn into an iconic character?

No, not when I was here doing the shows, no. ECTS was the very first show that we did. I never ever thought that it would [become so popular]. It was when they chose me to be the official Lara Croft model and I went to do the launches for the game in different places I realised how big she was. All these fans were so interested in the game and the game was being labelled as one of the most amazing computer games of that generation. And obviously having a woman as a protagonist was incredible and new.

Ever went as Lara to a fancy dress party?

I don’t really go to that many fancy dress parties, but it could be an option! I never really thought of it actually! It is funny because we do have a fancy dress costume shop down the road from us and a Lara Croft outfit is in there and it is quite a nice one!

I know you’ve seen the Tomb Raider films, what are your thoughts on them?

I thought it was very good, I think they cast it very well. Angelina Jolie played an amazing part. It probably would have been better if they had a British actress, considering that she [Lara] is British… but she [Angelina] did fit the bill.

You know they’re making a third film right? You should definitely go for it!

Are they? Oh I did, back then when they were making the first film someone from Eidos called me and said that there might be an opportunity for me to have a small part in the film, but it never really happened…never mind

What are you up to these days?

Well, since being Lara Croft I did a couple of high-profile things after that. And then I had four children since then and I’m now a full-time mum and I love it!

I know that you write songs and play music…

Yeah, not really much going on there. I was supposed to bring out a record as Lara Croft and it was called “Raiders”. I recorded it in the studio and then the song was dropped…

Did you know Rhona Mitra, who was the model right after you, recorded an album as Lara?

Oh yes I’m aware of it, haven’t heard it though

It’s rather awful to be fair, perhaps you should consider correcting this?

Yeah! It is an option! Yeah! I’ll think of that!

Thank you so much for coming here today!

Oh you’re welcome!

See also:

Memorabilia signed by Natalie Cook

Natalie and Ash, 28/01/2016

The post [INTERVIEW] Natalie Cook – the Original Real Life Lara Croft appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

We are delighted
and honoured to present you an interview with one of Lara’s voice over actresses,
Jude Gibbins. Jude voiced Lara in Tomb Raider II and Tomb Raider III, along
with adverts and trailers for the game.

Hello Jude. Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview!  

Hello Ash, Thank you for your interest in wanting to know about my time as Lara Croft. I hope you find my answers an enjoyable read.

How did you find out that the Tomb Raider developers needed a voice actress for videogame icon Lara Croft?  Were you approached or cast?

I had a phone call from my brother, who was a programmer working at Core Design, and he said they were holding auditions for a voice to a character in a computer game, I asked who it was and of course it was for Lara Croft, to which I replied “who is that and what does she look like?” (well you can imagine the disgust in his face). Anyway I thought about it and decided to have a go. I was given a page of script and they recorded me at their studios in Derby… If I remember rightly, there were about eight other girls who turned up too. I recorded one evening and got a phone call the next day to say I had got the part.

How did you react when you got the position?  What were you first reactions?  

When I got the part I was so excited I could not believe it. My first reaction was to shout it from the roof tops because of course by then I knew all about Lara Croft. However, I was not allowed to tell anyone, the directors wanted it to be a secret. The only person I told was my son.

Prior to you being cast as Lara Croft did you play Tomb Raider at all? If so, what were your thoughts on it?

I’m afraid as for playing the actual Tomb Raider games… I am useless at it. But I think it is fascinating and I admire anyone who has the patience for them.

Have you done voice acting before or after you were Lara Croft?

Lara Croft has been my only voice over work. Before that I had danced and sang in my local amateur dramatics society based in Derby, “The Good Companions” where I stayed for 32 years. Wonderful memories. So I suppose that helped with the acting. I would love to do more voice over work, I loved it all.

What was most unusual about this role?  What parts did you like or dislike?

All my experiences as Lara Croft were varied and challenging but exciting and enjoyable. The only thing I disliked is the fact I had to keep it a secret. Although the press soon got wind of it and as result I did a lot of interview’s for television and radio. They were nerve racking I can tell you!

Where did you have to go to be recorded and was there anyone from Core Design there at the time to direct you? What directions did they give you? 

Most of the recording was done either in London or at Core Design. I had a lot of instructions on how they wanted her to sound and sometimes I could do a line many times until they were satisfied it was right. I did however have a lot of help from Nathan McCree, as you might know he wrote the music for Tomb Raider, He was really kind and gave me a lot of advice and help. We are still friends today.

Have you integrated quotes from the script of either Tomb Raider games you have worked on into daily life?

The only time I quote as Lara Croft in my real life is if i am asked to, otherwise not really. Although I did do an answer machine message once as Lara for a friend!

How different was it to voice Sophia Leigh compared to Lara Croft?  How was it to voice both halves of a conversation since both of them interacted?

What happened with Sophia Leigh, as I remember, I was asked to do the lines at a separate time than Lara and they didn’t know if they would actually my voice so my honest answer to that is I am not sure if it is my voice, although I have heard it and it does sound like me!

Who did you like to voice more Lara or Sophia?

I loved voicing Lara Croft and I am very proud and privileged to have had her in my life.

Does anyone recognize your voice in real life to be that of Lara Croft?  

I don’t get recognised by my voice, I am sorry to say.

Do you recall any funny moments or outtakes that occurred during the process?  

I had a lot of fun in the studios and yes there were many outtakes and laughter. The hardest thing to record was the breath she took coming out of the water… that took some time and it was so funny to hear some of the sounds, we were in stitches! Oh and I am afraid I used to swear a lot too!

Have you followed the Tomb Raider series since your work was done?  If so, how do you feel about the adjustments and the direction of the development?  

I think the direction of the Tomb Raider games is fantastic. The graphics are superb. How Lara has evolved too is fantastic and that goes for her voice today as well. I think all the Lara voices have done a brilliant job and of course she has changed with the times like most thing do.

Thank you very much for your time!

Well Ash I hope this is a good read and I look forward to hearing more about the [Special project – TBA soon]!

The post [Exclusive] Interview with Jude Gibbins – Lara’s Voice for Tomb Raider 2-3 appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Nathan McCree is a music composer and sound effects editor
for various multimedia projects. Nathan wrote the iconic music for Tomb Raider
1-3 and a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Nathan about his
work at Core Design.

Here is a full transcription of the interview.

First of all, thank you for giving me this chance to discuss your work on the iconic soundtrack for Tomb Raider! How did you become a musician and how did you start working at Core Design?

I grew up in a family which was musical. Particularly my Dad and I began singing in a church choir when I was just a little lad. So I did a lot of singing. I started learning the piano when I was nine and started writing music when I was about 13. I wanted to be in a band; leave school at 16 years old and do the rock and roll lifestyle but that wasn’t to be. My dad said I had to go to university so off I went. I studied music along the way; did O level and A level music and all the grades on the piano but at university I studied computer programming; software engineering. I was quite into maths, I quite liked that. And so, when I finished my degree I was applying for jobs as a programmer. As luck would have it my first programming job was at the games development company, Core Design in Derby. The first project by boss put me on was to code a music sequencer for the SEGA Megadrive – like Cubase or Protools but obviously a much smaller, condensed version. I finished that a little ahead of schedule and so I said to Jezza (Jeremy Heath-Smith, owner of Core Design), I’ll write some music on it and show you what it can do, so I did that. When listened to it he said, “Wow that’s brilliant mate, do you want to do the music for our next game?” Of course I said yes. So I started working as a composer with them four months after I’d started, writing music for Asterix… “Asterix and the Great Rescue”, I think it was. So that was my first project, well, first music project anyway.

Well no. I mean, there’s always that chance and I guess that was always in the back of my mind. Whenever you’re writing music for a project, there’s always a chance that, if it’s going to be sold publicly, that it’s going to be picked up by a load of people and then you get catapulted into fame and fortune. So yeah that was always in the back of my mind but it wasn’t something I consciously thought about with Tomb Raider at all, it was just another project like all the others I’d been working on. I was doing quite a lot of projects at that time, certainly in excess of 6 projects a year. I think, a year before that, we were turning out about a project every month. Myself and Martin Iveson were really busy, we were writing music like crazy in all sorts of different styles so it was just another project. Previously, for two years before Tomb Raider, I’d been doing a lot of orchestral projects; Soulstar, Heimdall, Swagman. So I’d been practicing or perfecting my orchestral ensembles and when Tomb Raider came along it was given to me automatically because I was doing all the orchestral stuff. Martin was doing mostly electronic, dance and rhythm based music, I tended to do mostly orchestral, story-telling music. Toby was looking for orchestral music so he automatically came to me. But no, I had no idea it was going to be big, I don’t think any of us did.

Tomb Raider is largely inspired by Indiana Jones. What was the inspiration for the soundtrack? Did your inspiration change from game to game?

Well for the first game the inspiration was Lara Croft’s character. I talked to Toby quite a lot about what she was like, what her personality was like and from that I tried to describe her musically wherever we were in the game, whatever was going on. I tried to add some sense of beauty to the music. Lara is also classy, intelligent, confident and quite a powerful woman so I was trying to get all those “buzzwords” or emotions into the music. So that was the kind of raw inspiration or direction for the Tomb Raider music.  I think most composers draw from their own experiences with music, things that they’ve listened to throughout their life and they are influenced by that music and those influences come out in the music that they write. I think every composer does this. For me with Tomb Raider, I drew a lot from my choral background singing in churches, which is why you hear choral voices in Tomb Raider in many places. I’m quite a big fan of what we call “four-part harmony” which is soprano, alto, tenor and bass. As for how the inspiration changed between Tomb Raider I, II and III… it certainly did change for a number of reasons.  I guess the first reason was that technically we’d done the first Tomb Raider game and so now I had a better idea of how we could structure the music better, how we could trigger it better, how it could be more interactive than it was before and how it could be closer to a film score. So I was working more with the technology in mind with Tomb Raider II. You will notice that many of the cues are smaller and there are more of them; they’re triggered more frequently when enemies jump out from the corner or something like that. There was much more of this in Tomb Raider II than in Tomb Raider I, because with Tomb Raider I we were just chucking stuff in you know, there was very little time, it was a case of ‘get it in and get it working’. With Tomb Raider II we had more time to develop that technology so the music changed accordingly. It became more location specific, the Venice tune is a good example… We had this new product and this new technology where you’re looking at the character on screen interacting with a 3D world, that had never been done before…and to my knowledge it was the first time music was being used to describe specific locations in a game. So the music was gradually taking shape, I was gathering music for specific moments in the game; for when Lara uncovered something new, when she was climbing a wall, when she was surprised… I was building the repertoire. Then Tomb Raider III came along and there was even more of that going on – in Tomb Raider there were 7 music cues, Tomb Raider II had 27 cues and Tomb Raider III had 48. The number of music cues was almost doubling with each successive game, and as a result I was able to describe the game better each time. I had more musical content to select from and use to describe particular moments in the game. With Tomb Raider III the technology again affected the style of the music. It was becoming more and more fragmented as I could position the music in many more interactive situations than in the first one. It became more flexible. The location specific themes were more apparent too with Tomb Raider III.

Yeah the called me and I went to Core and saw all my old friends. At this time Gavin Rummery who was lead coder and designer on Tomb Raider 2 and a coder on Tomb Raider1, he was now studio head! He was running Core Design! So you know he was my mate, so I went in to see him in his office and I said “Alright Gav, you’ve got Jezza’s desk!” [he laughs] So yeah he was sitting at Jezza’s desk which was quite funny. So we talked about the project and I prepared an audio specification for them and a quote and it was all set to go into production but before I’d actually done any work the project was moved to Crystal Dynamics and that was the end of that!

How many Tomb Raider themes (for all the games) did you create before the team decided which one they’d use?

One. You know, the team didn’t decide what music to use. I decided what music to use. Games were made very differently back then; it was 20 years ago. Basically if an artist drew a picture and he wanted it to go somewhere in the game, it went in. Nobody said “oh can you change it or can you draw it a bit more like this”. He was the artist and he decided what went in graphically. Similarly I was the composer and I decided what went in musically. And that’s how it worked. It was quite a small team. We were all pals with each other and we trusted each other to make the right decisions.

We know now how difficult it was for Core to push out a Tomb Raider game every year. How difficult was it for you to come up with a new soundtrack?

Well personally I didn’t find it a problem creatively. The main problem I had was lack of time. On Tomb Raider I, I think I had a month only to write all the music. On TR 2 I think I had 2 months and on TR 3 it was a little bit over 3 months, maybe 4 months because there was quite a lot of video work in TR 3 as well which took quite a bit of time. So it wasn’t difficult in terms of thinking of material. That was just no problem at all. I’ve never really had a problem thinking of ideas or thinking of melodies and harmonies. That’s just not a problem for me at all. The problem was how I was going to get all of this music written and implemented in the time that I’d got. That was my problem.

If you had the chance, would you change anything about the final versions of your soundtracks?

Yes. I’d change everything in terms of production because the equipment that I had and the budget that was given to me to make the soundtracks was really small. I just had a couple of synthesizers and that was it. If I was going to do the same thing again I would hire a live orchestra and I would do it properly. Jeremy didn’t give me that budget and he didn’t see the value in doing that while I was on the project. It wasn’t until TR 6 [the Angel of Darkness] that he decided to pull in a live orchestra. That’s okay. It was a good move, but I think a little bit too late because, you know, after 6 the project was moved.

If Lara Croft would have been a male character (as it was planned at some point) would the soundtrack have changed significantly?

It would’ve been very different. I wouldn’t write a beautiful piece of music for a man or a male hero. I’d write something tougher, more handsome than beautiful. If you could describe the difference musically that would be one way of doing it. When you think about franchises like James Bond, Indiana Jones or any other male character theme tune, you wouldn’t say those pieces are beautiful, would you?

No, not really.

Exactly. They’re not beautiful pieces of music. They’re strong, courageous, adventurous pieces of music and those are the kind of emotions that they push forward. They don’t push forward beauty. So, had Tomb Raider been a male character, the music would have course been different.

Do you have any thoughts on the Female Icon album?

Yes, I heard about this when it was being made. It was quite a long time ago, wasn’t it?

1997 I believe?

Yeah, I remember I was still at Core when it was being made and I remember hearing one or two tracks that had come to us for review. They were pre-production mixes I believe, not final mixes, but yeah, I did hear a couple of tracks. I can’t actually remember what they were like. I remember I wasn’t overly impressed though [he laughs].

I wrote that in 2000. I was doing a lot of writing then but not for any specific projects. I had left Core because I wanted to work for myself. I wanted to create my own music and try to make a living from that. So around this time I was just writing music – and lots of it. And to be honest, I thought quite naively, “Oh I’ve just done three Tomb Raiders I’m bound to get loads of work now”, well, that didn’t happen. I just sat in my studio for about two years and wrote loads of music. I had a few contracts during that time, but nothing financially significant. Eventually I realised that I was running out of money and I thought, “Shit maybe I should go and try to find some work”. So I did! Anyway it was in those two years, you see when I was just writing music that I wrote “In The Dark”. It was Tomb Raider inspired, but it wasn’t written for a particular Tomb Raider project. I was thinking about Tomb Raider when I was writing it though. I was enjoying being creative and being free I guess. I wasn’t being told what to write or having to write in a particular style, I was just sat at my keyboard thinking “okay let’s just start writing something and see where it goes” and that was one of those pieces.

Were there any tracks were cut from the games?

No. Everything I wrote went in. There wasn’t much time Ash, so I had to write stuff as fast as possible and I really had to use everything because even using everything, there still wasn’t enough material to properly cover the game.

Were there any limitations put on you as a composer?

Yeah, the equipment I was using. Everything I wrote for Tomb Raider was recorded using synthesizers of the time. With these machines, there is a limitation in the number of voices that they can produce simultaneously. It is known as polyphony in the trade. Each sound on the synths that I used could utilise up to four different voices. Some sounds used all those four voices. So when I pressed one note on the keyboard, four voices were being used. If I played a triad – a three note chord, with a sound that uses all four of its voices, I was using twelve voices just with those three notes. The synths I was using had 64-note polyphony which means they could play 64 voices simultaneously. Now, if I play a 10 note chord (with a 4-voice sound), if I’ve got all of my fingers down on the keyboard, I’m using 40 voices. You can see now that very quickly I am going to run out of voices. When the synth runs out of voices, once I’ve used all 64 voices and they’re all playing, if I try to play another note, the machine has a priority policy which determines what happens when the machine gets full. This policy can be changed and edited by the user. It can be set to kill the oldest note first in order to play the new note, or it can be set to maintain playing the current notes and to only play the new note if there is a free voice. So what happens when you fill up the keyboard you start losing notes somewhere, either new notes don’t play or old notes get cut off. This is one of the limitations so you have to be careful about how many voices you are using. What I will do sometimes to save voices if I’m overusing my keyboards, where I’ve got big chords playing some string pad for example, if that string pad is made up of 4 voices for each note, I will edit that patch and I’ll deactivate 1 or sometimes 2 of the voices that I don’t need. They might be some kind of detail in the sound like the scratch of a bow when it hits the violin string for example. Depending on how I use that sound I might not need this detail so I can delete it by deactivating that voice saving myself 10 voices in my 10 note cord. Then I can play my violin solo for example over the top because I’ve freed up some voices. So these are the kind of limitations I had to work with and sometimes that slowed me down because I’d be writing, writing, writing, adding lots of instruments and suddenly I’d notice that the oboe is not playing all the notes of its melody for some reason, so I’d start diagnosing the problem. The oboe is playing on its own, but it’s not playing when everything else is playing. Why is that? Usually it’s because the synth has reached its 64-note polyphony limit. I’m overusing my keyboard! So I would check the function on the synth which monitors how many voices are being used – it’s basically a real-time diagnostics function. I’d check the diagnostics and this would show me which sounds are using the most voices and then I could plan how to fix the problem in order to get all my instruments playing at the same time. Sometimes that would involve deactivating voices in some of the sounds, sometimes it would involve changing priority settings. It is also possible to reserve a certain number of voices for a particular sound, so that a particular sound is guaranteed to play no matter what how many other voices are playing at that moment. By the time I’ve tested which strategy produces the best result I may have spent one or two hours programming the keyboards to get all my instruments to play properly. So those kind of limitations cost time and it was time I didn’t really have.

Oh wow I didn’t know all those details

Yeah, there’s a lot that goes on with producing a piece of music, there are thousands of things to think about. It is quite a complicated process. The actual music composition itself is relatively simple compared to dealing with the technology to make the bloody thing sound right!

Peter Connelly worked on soundtracks for TR 4-6 and he plans to do a remaster of those, are you going to do anything similar?

All I can say at this point in time is that I will be making a public announcement very soon [at PAX]. Just a little teaser – it’s going to be something big!

Did you listen to the Tomb Raider Anniversary soundtrack?

Yes I did.

What was your impression?

Well, it’s really lovely to hear someone else reproducing your music, because you hear their interpretation of your work which is fascinating and humbling at the same time. It is really a wonderful experience. I thought that Troels’ rendition of my music was done really well. It is quite clear that he had a lot more expensive equipment to use than I did… His interpretation was much grander than mine, I think if I had to do it again I don’t think I would make such a grand production like Troels Folmann, I think I’d still keep it quite minimalistic and intimate because that’s my style and personally, I think that my style fits Lara Croft better [he laughs], that’s just my personal choice, there’s nothing wrong with Troels’ music, I think it’s brilliant and I really enjoyed listening to his interpretations, I think they’re really well done.

It’s a personal thing really isn’t it? Some people like the original because it’s the first thing they heard. The first interpretation of a track that you hear carries all the memories and associations that you had at the time of hearing it. Maybe if I’d have heard Troels’ covers first I’d have thought that they were better than Nathan McCree’s, who knows.

Have you heard the new Rise of the Tomb Raider soundtrack by any chance?

The very latest one? I heard what I understand to be the main theme which was on Soundcloud, because they released it ahead of the game

Yeah I think so.

Yeah. Again, it’s a really good production, the composition is good as well. I’m a little bit surprised though, that Crystal Dynamics have decided to change the theme again… I find myself trying to understand Crystal Dynamics’ direction with what they’re doing with Tomb Raider, they’ve wanted to take it to somewhere new since 2013 and they’ve certainly done that. Their latest game is absolutely amazing, but it’s almost unrecognisable as Tomb Raider. So yep, it’s somewhere new. Is it Tomb Raider? Is it what people recognise as Tomb Raider? I don’t know. Some fans think it is a completely different product but with the same name. Whether that’s good or bad, again, it comes down to your personal choice… so I’m trying to understand it. Obviously Crystal Dynamics is trying to make money, everyone is trying to make money… from a musical perspective I am a little bit confused, because when you take something like James Bond for instance, I can’t imagine a James Bond film without [he hums a James Bond theme], it wouldn’t be a James Bond film if it didn’t have that, it has to be there, that theme is James Bond! So I am a little confused why Crystal changed the theme tune, and not only once, but twice. I’m not sure what’s going on with Tomb Raider at the moment.

I actually think it was more than twice? Because Legend had a different tune and Underworld as well, then 2013.

I’m not so sure. Legend and Underworld did use my theme tune. It is definitely in those scores. Maybe only for the theme tune but it was certainly there and it was until the Reboot in 2013 when they dropped it completely. Jason Graves was hired to write a completely new theme and then Crystal made Rise of the Tomb Raider with another composer and another new theme again. I don’t understand…

I know you’ve been to Derby recently, have you visited Lara Croft Way?

Yeah I was passing through Derby a few months ago, I went to Andy Sandham’s wedding actually and on my way back I popped into Derby and drove pass my old house.

What were your feelings, you know, being there?

[he laughs] I have lots of good memories about being in Derby. We had lots and lots of great parties. I remember hanging around with Andy Sandham, Stuart Atkinson and Martin Gibbins to name a few, it was just hilarious. It was just non-stop fun. We all had a fair bit of money because we were working on Tomb Raider so we were just going out constantly [he laughs] partying, enjoying life. So yeah, it was a good feeling visiting Derby again but I tell you what, I would never go and live there again, and it’s not just Derby I’m talking about, I’m talking about England. I’ve relocated now to the Czech Republic and every time I go back to England it’s raining, raining, raining and then it’s windy and it’s cold and I think “Sod this, I’m not coming back here again” …

I know this question has probably been asked before, but say Crystal Dynamics or some film production company asked you to work on the new game or film, what would you say to that?

I’d say yes, I’d love to!

Have you heard the soundtrack from Tomb Raider films?

Yes, I watched them both… I didn’t like the first one, because the soundtrack bared no relevance to Tomb Raider whatsoever.  It was just like watching a film cut to a load of dance music and that couldn’t be further from what Lara Croft is all about. She was brought up in this aristocratic family, very high-class society… she didn’t listen to dance/pop music, she listened to classical music. This is why we picked classical music to describe the game. She was a classy woman; she wouldn’t have listened to dance music. Not that I’m saying that listening to dance music is in any way derogatory but it’s just not her… The second movie’s soundtrack was written by Alan Silvestri – one of my heroes, so I was overjoyed to read an interview with him where he stated that his score was heavily influenced by the music that I’d written for Tomb Raider games!… I enjoyed listening to his score. It was a very grand production, but that’s typical of Silvestri. His score for Back to the Future used that massive brass ensemble. He’s into big orchestral productions… That’s his style. If they asked me to do the third movie, of course I would be very honoured!

Have you heard Lara Croft Go! soundtrack then? It has some motifs in there.

Yeah I heard that and I’ve played it, and I really, really like it! Yeah my Tomb Raider theme is in there and they used some of my ambiences as well… I think it works brilliantly.

It won the best mobile game recently

Not surprised at all, it is a really good game. I was totally hooked when I played it. I couldn’t put it down.

You auditioned the actors for Tomb Raider I, what made you choose Shelley Blond as Lara?

She sounded right. The way it worked with the VO back then, and today, there are agencies that have hundreds of actors on their books. I gave the agency the character brief, and then they found five or six people for each character. They then sent me a CD with the actor’s show reels. After listening to the show reels I’d call the agency and tell them who I want to interview. I’d then call the actors directly, chat to them, hear how they speak and interact, then ask them to read a few lines from the script. I remember I had a loudspeaker on my phone in the studio at Core and I had a mic right next to the phone and I recorded my conversations with them. Later, after going through all the recordings I picked the one which sounded most natural and fluid, and the one that I thought would be the easiest to direct at the recording session. I made my choice, told the agency which one I wanted, booked them, and we met at the studio where we recorded the script.

Shelley said there was someone directing her at the studio, was that you?

Yes, it was.

Why did you decide to make her sound rather mono-syllabic and expressionless?

Yeah! I remember that! When Shelley performed her first few lines we (Vicky Arnold (script writer) and I) felt she was too emotional. Lara Croft is emotional person but she doesn’t display her emotions, she is really cool, calm and collective. Shelley was too expressive and playful with her lines on the first few takes. So after the first test recording I remember Vicky saying to me “No that’s not right, that’s too much, Lara is cooler than that”. So I suggested to Shelley that she make it a bit more monotone to give Lara that cool, intelligent delivery which, hopefully, is what we got in the end.

The New York Times said that Lara’s voice in the first game is as sexy as Jessica Rabbit’s

Shelley Blond was great. Her voice really worked. It was a shame Core didn’t continue to hire her.

You know about the alternative intro for Tomb Raider I, did you write the music for that as well?

Yes I did. The music to that was taken from a game that I’d written a couple of years before Tomb Raider called Heimdall 2, because I hadn’t written any music for Tomb Raider at this point. I think I had had a talk with Toby about the style of music but I wasn’t yet officially working on the project, I was still working on another project. So when this trailer came along, someone came running into my office and said “Nate we need music for this trailer, it needs to go out tomorrow!” This often happened at Core, so I thought “What do I have lying around that I could use?” I was doing primarily orchestral projects at that time and so I looked back through the projects I’d previously done at Core and found a track for Heimdall 2, which kind of made sense for that trailer. So I edited it to fit. As far as I remember we may have shown that trailer for our Core Design stand at E3 but I don’t think it was ever made available to public officially.

What advice would you give to someone who’s just starting as a composer for video games?

For someone who is already working in the industry, I would say to try and keep your writing as flexible as possible. Don’t narrow your style. Be prepared and be open to any style that’s requested.  If you’re a composer already working for a company, for one thing, you are very lucky. To make sure you stay working for that company you need to be as versatile as possible. Don’t be precious about what you’re writing either. You also need to be a good communicator; you have to help people to describe what is it that they want.

For somebody trying to get into the industry, well, that’s quite difficult. I am reminded of the phrase “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. If you’ve got a friend that can recommend you that’s ten times better than sending in a show reel. And talking of show reels, don’t send a show reel with an hour of music on it, nobody has an hour, they have got about two minutes, if you’re lucky. Try to get to know somebody who could open the door for you. Try to get a meeting with people if you can, like down at the pub, meet the producer… show him your personality, your character and your passion for music and video games, get them to like you.

Do you think this applies to any creative industry?

I think so. I’m in a fortunate position now where I can practically choose who I work with. I do have a lot of work. So I tend to work with the people or projects that I like. Then I have more fun… it doesn’t matter how much money I’m being paid, I don’t want to work on a project with people who treat me like shit. I’d rather work with the other guy for half the money and be happy in my work.

What are your current projects and future plans?

I’ve got a lot of projects going on. Two of my regular clients are people I used to work with at Core Design. That’s great, because they’re like my pals – we understand each other really well. I’ve got lots of mobile games, that’s the thing at the minute. It’s nice work for me as they are quick turn-around projects – maybe 2 weeks’ work. I write 5-6 tunes in those weeks, a bunch of sound effects, maybe do some voices and job done. It’s exciting and varied and I work on lots of different things – I don’t get bored. Aside from that there are a number of film producers that I’ve been working with… I’m working on a film trailer at the minute and the Producer wants me to write the full score when they go into full production. There’s also a very special project which I will be talking about at PAX on Friday – that is set to complete this year.

Thank you so much for your time!

You’re welcome!

The post [Exclusive] Interview with Nathan McCree appeared first on Tomb of Ash.