The Only Thing Falling From the Sky Should be Your Enemy - A Savage Skies Interview 
by The Badger

After months of anticipation, rumors, and tantalizing tidbits of information, it seems that the release of Savage Skies is on the horizon. A hard-core aerial combat game set to a hard rock score, this title has caught the interest of more than a few fantasy and music fans. Bam! Entertainment and iRock have teamed up to bring this brainchild of chaotic fantasy action to gamers everywhere - and quite soon! Featuring both single player and multiplayer options - Savage Skies will allow you to take command of some of the most fiendish and devastating dragons, oculi, and 22 other havoc wreaking creatures. iRock, a solid team of experienced game developers are taking us on this journey using their RFEngine and a score that was a product of their work with Ozzy Osbourne and a whole team of hard rock musicians.

Want to know more? So did we! We at the GZ team were ecstatic to have the chance to have a little Q&A session with Brian Tate from iROCK Interactive. Brian is a game and level designer on Savage Skies.

How long have you been working together as iRock? What kinds of common goals brought your team together?
 

iROCK's development team has been up and running since January 2000. At that time, our original six team members had been working together for over a year on an action game for a different company, and we came over to iROCK as a complete team. So, the original group has been together quite a while. As we recruited new developers, we had the good fortune to find other people by two's and three's who had been working together on other projects. So within iROCK, we have all these groups who've known and worked with each other for years. It's been a great learning experience to assemble these groups and learn to work together as one larger team.

What other projects do you have planned for the RFE Engine? Are there any projects you'd like to take on but haven't had the chance to yet?
 

The RFEngine is pretty versatile and extensible, and we do plan to use it for other projects going forward, but we're not quite ready to talk about what those projects might be just yet. We've got a number of great ideas we want to work on, but it will be a while before they're ready to be revealed to the outside world.

Early details on Savage Skies indicate a heavy rock sound to the score for Savage Skies. Can you tell us a little more about the music that will accompany the game?
 

Yes, the score is all hard rock. Our earlier work with Ozzy Osbourne and several other rock groups got us introduced to some very talented songwriters, musicians, and producers who were later able to help us put together the original score for the game. The results are pretty sweet.

What will drive players to try out different creatures/factions? Will storyline and/or endings change depending on the creature chosen, or are the varieties more geared for the multiplayer variety?
 

The motivations for trying new stuff are varied. First, each of the three factions has its own, alternate version of the storyline to play through. To see all the game's environments, see the three different sides of the story, and try out controlling all of the creatures, you'll have to play through all three campaigns. Most missions feature a unique creature, and beating that mission unlocks that creature for use elsewhere in the game, such as in multiplayer or in replays of other missions. Every mission also has optional objectives and completing them unlocks other rewards. The player always has the option to come back to a mission he's already beaten using any game variants or creatures he's unlocked and then try to complete optional objectives he might not have been able to get previously. So, the more you explore and unlock, the greater your opportunities for unlocking even more cool stuff.

What helped your team create the most realistic flight physics possible for the 27 different kinds of creature build included in Savage Skies? What kinds of modeling did you use?
 

Well, I'm not sure "realistic" is the right word to use when talking about flight models for dragons and other flying beasts. Pure fun and rich diversity were the goals, and to that end, the physics system we've developed is robust and versatile. We also have a terrific editor that allows us to tweak dozens of variables for each creature's flight characteristics, like lift forces, drag factors, turn and pitch rates, and ways that these variables are affected by current speed, etc. So the game designers were able to easily develop a unique feel and personality for each of the 27 beasts in the game. The nimble Oculus, for example, can accelerate rapidly and turns on a mid-air dime, but can be tough to handle in a close-quarters fight. By contrast, a creature like the massive Krushkor can build up great speed, but has to accelerate more slowly and can't turn well except when moving at slower glide speeds. But he more than makes up for his lack of agility with firepower and staying power. Every creature in the game has a similarly unique style of control and feedback.

Can you give us a brief breakdown of the state of the world of Savage Skies and what's driving these factions to compete for power?
 

The world of Savage Skies was once united under the rule of one King, but an evil necromancer enacted a plot to destroy him, and apparently succeeded. The land is in chaos, with the King's strongest supporters now divided, each striving to take control of the fractured empire. The result is two emerging factions, and the third faction is formed by the necromancer himself. Years of conflict ensue, and the game's story begins with two of the factions trying to form an alliance against the third. But what everyone is missing is the fact that the old King is not really dead -- he's been magically protected, and while his body was killed, his soul has been reincarnated as not one, but three different warriors, each of whom happens to be a member of a different faction. The player takes on the role of one of these mysterious incarnations of the King, with the land on the brink of war.

What kinds of multiplayer options will be available?
 

Multiplayer consists of splitscreen deathmatch with three different modes. There's Versus Mode, in which players fight one-on-one to reach a specific number of kills. Each kill resets the battle, so that every duel is completely fair. Then there's Time Attack, in which the battle rages continuously until the timer runs out, and the player with the most kills wins. And lastly there's Team Battle, which takes Time Attack and adds the wrinkle of AI-controlled wingmen supporting each player. Every mode is playable in every level, with up to seven levels available once the player has unlocked everything. Also, all 27 creatures are usable in multiplayer, again once they've been unlocked.

Can you tell us a little bit about the role factions play in Savage Skies? Do certain creatures have certain "alignments," so to speak, as in the tradition of D&D good, evil, and neutrality?
 

The Virtwyn faction are the traditional good guys. Their look and story is influenced by classic fantasy fare, and their goals in the missions are pretty much in keeping with their character. As a Virtwyn warrior, the player will be out to stop evil threats and to protect the good people of the kingdom. The Pariah are definitely the bad guys. They practice necromancy and are bent on conquest, destruction, and chaos, so as a Pariah warrior you should be expect to wreak a lot of havoc not just on your enemies, but on innocents as well. And somewhere in between are the Chrysalis, the faction intent on change and transformation. With the Chrysalis, your goals will center around expanding the bizarre influence of your kingdom.

Where did you derive your inspiration for the 24 different creatures in Savage Skies? Were all based from existing sources or did you create some of them on your own? How did you handle creatures, such as unicorns, which are traditionally (and perhaps unfairly?) treated as docile?
 

The inspirations for the creatures are many and diverse. We looked at films, fantasy illustration, other games, and everything else we could think of. We did extensive concept work for both the factions and for individual creatures, with an eye toward creating a diverse mix of flyers for the player to command. The Virtwyn creatures, such as a golden dragon and a great bird, should be familiar to the player, as they're derived from traditional fantasy and mythology. The Pariah have an undead and/or demonic look, but are mostly unique creations. And the Chrysalis are downright strange, as befits their mutant nature; they come almost entirely from original concepts. But no one is going to mistake any of our creatures for being docile. You might say some of them, like Pegasus, are beautiful, but when they start filling the sky with fire and blood, their true nature will be obvious.

Who is your target audience for this title? Who do you think will most enjoy playing Savage Skies?
 

We're targeting action gamers of all types, with a specific focus on fans of fantasy worlds. Anyone who ever dreamed of riding a dragon will be right at home with Savage Skies. But because of the violence factor, it is a mature-rated title, so we aren't targeting children.

As technology becomes more advanced, we've equally gone into more detail on things like environmental effects. What would you say has provided the greatest challenge in recreating as far as weather/effects goes?
 

The big challenge with effects was getting the right tools in place. Effects should be artist-driven, but to get an artist working hands-on with them, you need specific tools which work well with your engine. Once the programming team put those tools together for us, the effects started popping up like magic. One artist would add fires for burning villages, another would make frost clouds to envelop creatures hit by frost attacks, another would do fireworks for our race mission, and so on. It really was amazing to see some of the things people came up with to add to the game.

What's your feeling on game creation: Which came first, the Story or the Gameplay?
 

For most games, story and gameplay are the same thing. Many people try to confuse "backstory" with "story." A backstory explains what went on in your game world before the game, setting the stage for the events in which the player will take place. This is sometimes important, sometimes not. But the story is what happens once the player gets involved, and the player himself is deciding much of it. The degree to which the story is designer-driven versus player-driven from that point on depends on the type of game in question, but with an action game like Savage Skies, the player is definitely the one behind the wheel. We as game developers are just trying to set up fun scenarios and challenges for the player to jump into. And when we started on this project, the goal was to make a cool dragon flight/combat game -- everything else about the story exists to serve that goal.

What trends or directions, if any, would you like to change about the gaming industry with your work? What kinds of things are you the most proud of in your work so far?
 

One recent industry trend that bothers me is the push toward lavish production values in (some) games at the expense of depth or length of play. This is mostly a response to increasing costs and specific demands from the gaming public, but it's certainly not the only way to deal with a demand for lush visuals and such. If I could, I'd push the industry to search for creative design solutions to maintain depth of play while still answering the need for immersive visuals -- and some developers are doing this quite well. As for my own work, I'm severely biased at the moment, but I'm really proud of everything we've done with Savage Skies. We assembled a new team and produced an ambitious, multi-platform game in very good time -- and best of all, it's really fun! Ordinarily, the whole team would be sick of playing and re-playing and re-playing the game by now, but I keep seeing guys challenging each other to versus matches, and that tells me we did something right.

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The Badger would like to thank Bam!, Brian Tate, and the entire iRock team for taking some time out to sate our curiosity on what looks to be an incredible game for fantasy, action, and hard rock fans everywhere!