Chris Bischoff – BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
[b]AG[/b]: Close relationships sit at the heart of your games: John Maracheck searching for his family, Hadley and her unborn baby, and now a pair of brothers in BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION. How important do you think it is for stories to have an emotional core like that, even in a generally plot-driven genre like sci-fi?
[b]Chris[/b]: I think that it’s most important to create stories that people can relate to. To tug on the heart strings, if you will. It builds interesting characters in the world, and drives their actions and motives.
Many of our favorite stories deal with this too. Most recently in Interstellar, where Cooper and Murph’s relationship had us choked up at his desperation to return to his family. Or Ripley’s fight to save Newt, in Aliens.
We want to evoke emotion, and drive our characters as we delve into our wonderful worlds and extreme situations. STASIS was our first attempt at this process. I think we have gotten better at it and we are ready to tackle even greater emotive familial relationships.
BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
[b]AG[/b]: Both the Groomlake setting from STASIS and the post-apocalyptic African wasteland from BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION have very distinctive looks, blending retro and futuristic aesthetics. What goes into imagining the worlds in your games?
[b]Chris[/b]: I think that us being introduced to science fiction through (what are now considered) classic films of the ‘70s and ‘80s has influenced our art. Its nostalgia mixed with something fun.
When I wanted to create science fiction worlds as a kid, I’d imagine them made up of vacuum-formed plastic and old recycled pipes. Now that we have the opportunity to make those worlds, I get to make those early childhood dreams come true!
[b]AG[/b]: The scientists in STASIS are a pretty amoral lot (and that’s putting it mildly). Do you believe there’s any real risk that a company as reckless as the Cayne Corporation could come to be? Do we have enough safeguards in place to keep ethically questionable research in check?
[b]Chris[/b]: People make the best monsters. Humans have the ability to be incredibly selfless – and at the same time we have the ability to be truly horrific. I think that everyone exists in that grey area in-between, and it’s when the consequences of our actions are completely removed that we start to see how far we will shift in either direction.
Corporations and governments are just people, but as these huge institutions get larger and larger the consequences for their actions get smaller and smaller. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
While we’ve never had a company as powerful as Cayne Corporation in our world (yet…), history has shown what happens when these centers of power get too large. Our safeguards tend to come in the form of our empathy and our humanity – and the optimist in me believes it’s that humanity which will always show through in even the darkest of times.
STASIS
[b]AG[/b]: More realistically, do you see the technologies discussed in STASIS, such as organ cloning and genetic manipulation, coming to pass? If so, would that be a good thing, or should we start preparing for the worst? Are we (as humans) as incapable of using technology responsibly as your games would suggest?
[b]Chris[/b]: I’m incredibly excited about the current state of science and technology! We are living in the future! I have a tricorder in my pocket, we’re 3D printing artificial limbs and we’re only a few years away from biologically printing body organs and understanding our own genetic code. ‘Childhood Chris’ would be impressed!
I think that scientists are inherently good people who want to leave the world a better place than when they got here. I like to think that the world of Cayne Corporation will only ever exist in my head…
[b]AG[/b]: Although a much smaller game than STASIS, you easily could have charged money for CAYNE and probably done quite well. Not that we’re complaining(!), but why release it for free?
[b]Chris[/b]: We made the decision to release CAYNE for free before we went into production. It was the perfect project to test our new asset pipeline, as well as the new Unity framework we had in mind. It also allowed us to work out how to work intensely together on a game project. CAYNE only took us 11 months to complete and so we now have a benchmark on what we can do in a time period. CAYNE has also given us a rock solid foundation to build our future projects on, and has been downloaded over 160,000 times – which is a lot of engine future proofing!
[b]AG[/b]: You’ve also contributed to the art design of Wasteland 3, correct? It’s certainly no surprise that others have recognized your skills. How did that partnership come about?
[b]Chris[/b]: I did some early fan art for Wasteland 2 when it was first announced, and since then I’ve kept in touch with industry legend Brian Fargo. We met up at GDC2015 and discussed the idea of working together on a more official basis for InXile’s next project – which happened to be Wasteland 3.
Over a few months we helped with look development and concept art to flesh out the world and visually show off the new ideas that Brian and his amazing team had.
It was an incredible experience, and it’s something that I’m happy to keep doing as long as they will have me!
[b]AG[/b]: The brotherly bond plays a big role in BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION. It’s not hard to see what inspired you on that account! How have you found the process of working so closely together for so long? Do you still get along, or can it be a strain at times?
[b]Chris[/b]: We get along better than most people! And while there is conflict, we navigate around it constructively. While we share so many similar interests, we also have different views on a multitude of things. Where these opinions meet is where the interesting ideas emerge.
BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
[b]AG[/b]: As you’ve noted on your Kickstarter page, it’s novel for a game to be set in Africa. Looking at the footage so far, it’s easy to see why you wanted to show off how beautiful it can be. So why bring down an apocalypse upon it?
[b]Chris[/b]: New York and San Francisco have had enough science fiction destruction!
The ideas for a post apocalyptic game in Africa have their roots in a story that Nic and I wrote years ago (pre-STASIS). So when it came down to us planning our next project, we dusted off the old ideas and this one jumped out at us! It seemed a good fit, and as we started exploring the idea further, we were more and more excited about the possibilities.
[b]AG[/b]: Do you feel like ambassadors for African game development? Will we see more great games coming out of Africa in the future?
[b]Chris[/b]: I don’t consider us to be ambassadors, but I do hope that people can look at what we have achieved and realize that they can do the same. Digital distribution has torn down the barriers to releasing a game out into the world.
I do hope to see Africa being explored in games, beyond the idea of a war torn continent. There is such beauty and wonder here – it’s an extremely wide pallet for artists and creators to explore.
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