Viewing Post from Monday Feb 23, 2009
DICE's Lars Gustavsson Talks About The Perils Of Innovation Over Execution
Lars Gustavsson, creative director for Mirror’s Edge, gave a talk that
Gamasutra sat in on. In it, he uses Mirror's Edge as an example as he talks about how sometimes, innovation takes precedence over execution - even if it leaves developers ripping their hair out.
The team came up with three ideas, and prototyped -- and then scrapped -- each one. "What the team quickly found out when we played it was that it’s very hard to control or see your limbs in first person shooters," he said, and at this point ideas from parkour and Prince of Persia were introduced.
"The team stepped back, and started with paper and pen, trying to sort out all the problems with the first person view," said Gustavsson. "Once they had it on paper, the next step was animations, trying to prove that it could work." Eventually, they prototyped it and found it to be fun.