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Fourteen levels of action in Oni provide increasing stages of difficulty. At the beginning of the development process in 1997, the team hired architects to design the levels, an idea that probably seemed good at the time, but it proved to be impractical, as LeBel discovered when he joined the group in 1999.
“By then,” he recalls, “the team had produced a large number of architecturally correct building models for the game. Our challenge was finding ways to adapt the spaces to better suit an interactive experience while retaining the distinctive style.
“It took a lot of ‘re-education,’ but once Dave Dunn, the remaining architect, learned the fundamentals of level design (which is a very different discipline from the one he had been trained in), he revised the geometry of every level in the game to suit our core gameplay model, and he did it all in seven months. One man, 14 levels, seven months. A feat worthy of Homer!”
Meanwhile, Michael Evans, who became the project lead in December of 1999, had his own headaches to deal with as he tried to bring the original plans in line with reality.
“At that point we had been really focused on ‘make everything cool and cram everything possible into the game,’” he explains. “The result was we had a whole lot of stuff that didn’t really work all the way yet, like multiplayer support.
“We shifted focus to the more critical things — making the AI work, adding a particle system, adding functional sound, adding a system that would let us make the weapons we wanted, and, finally, making the game run on systems that had less than a couple hundred megabytes of RAM.”
Built For OS X
Any Macintosh running Mac OS X will be able to play Oni, thanks to Bungie’s Carbonization of the game.
“It’s important to understand that Mac OS X brings the kind of fundamental change to operating systems that only Apple can launch,” says Tamte. “It’s critical that the Mac community embrace Mac OS X because it once again lets Apple offer a clearly and visually superior interface between people and their computers.”
Just Have Fun
Tamte also believes that Oni has a convincing interface between players and the larger world contained within the game.
“Lots of games have cut-scene animation,” he explains. “But it totally takes me out of the experience when the game maker plays some high-res movie, the screen goes blank, and then you see a ‘Loading…’ screen.
“One of the things that’s cool about Oni is that the cut-scenes are all done in the engine, and you move seamlessly from them into the actual gameplay, with no interruptions. It’s like the game has a bigger life than just what you control.”
LeBel sums up the mood of the creative team best when he says, “There will always be expectations, limitations and complaints, but ultimately I know I did my job if someone can sit down, play the game, and have fun. And that is the most satisfying thing in the world.”
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An Oni Combat Primer
For more of the Oni story, check out the Dark Horse comic. Basic Moves Sledgehammer Heel. Press Punch, Punch, Kick and pound the bad guys. Caution: This is a slow move, but the results are usually spectacular. Disarm. Push into an armed enemy and press Punch to knock his weapon out of his hands. Not so tough now, is he? Backbreaker. Push into an enemy and press Kick. Ow! Triple-Hit Haymaker. Press Punch three times in a row and send a bad guy to the moon. Power-Ups You’ll find all sorts of useful items if you look around every area you pass through. There are more to be found than what’s on this list. Ballistic Ammo. This item allows you to reload any ballistic weapon. It was developed by WCG researchers who needed an easy way to reload a wide variety of guns. Energy Cell. This one is a handy power source, especially if you need to reload an energy-based weapon. Hypo Spray. An injection of this stuff will help you recover lost health. Phase Cloak. Want to be invisible? You can vanish from sight for 30 seconds with the phase cloak. Don’t bump into any non-phased bodies while cloaked, though, or you’ll become visible for a moment. Force Shield. Your basic bullet barrier. It can only absorb so much punishment before it collapses, though. |
