Unique titles are few and far between. Even classics such as
Gauntlet can show an influence from earlier products (in that case,
a game called Dandy). In 1992, however, Sega released, with the help
of developer Appaloosa Interactive, a title so utterly original it
was breathtaking. This was Ecco The Dolphin, and it challenged those
doing derivative work to reevaluate their definition of originality.
Appaloosa Interactive is one of the oldest development houses in
the game industry. Founded in 1983 as Novotrade, this Palo
Alto-based company has more than 100 employees in Hungary split into
three teams. A phenomenal 60 to 70 products have come out of this
largely unsung group in the past 16 years.
One of the earliest companies to start working on the Dreamcast,
Appaloosa started working on Ecco The Dolphin: Defender Of The
Future, or at least the tools, in November 1997. Joining the team is
Hugo and Nebula award-winning science-fiction author David Brin.
Brin has had experience with dolphins, having created a sentient
dolphin race in his award-winning novel Startide Rising. Brin is
also a longtime game player having co-authored the pen-and-paper
roleplaying game Tribes with Steve Jackson, after spending time as a
graduate student with Dungeons & Dragons and simulation
games.
David has brought his talents to bear in creating a back story
for Ecco, which he explains: "In a nutshell - Ecco [a young and
agile bottle-nosed dolphin] lives during a future age when dolphins
and humans share leadership over a vast and peaceful civilisation.
Together, they have proved greater than either race could be alone.
Wise and invincible, they saved many other races from a cruel set of
despots. But the game's not over yet! These evil tyrants, in a last
gasp, send a ship back through time to disrupt the historical moment
when humans and dolphins first united. Ecco happens to be caught in
the backwash of this ship and is swept back with it. He's the only
one who can prevent the tragedy. But there will be many obstacles to
overcome! Along the way he goes back and forth through time, seeing
different versions of the future, trying desperately to restore one
that's filled with hope."
As Ecco, you control the dolphin throughout his adventures in a
standard third-person perspective. It's up to Ecco to set things
straight while dodging the ocean's natural dangers such as sharks,
giant octopuses, and poisonous creatures.
Using a proprietary engine and tool set called GameWorld Builder
(GWB), the team at Appaloosa has created one of the industry's Holy
Grails. The GWB is a tool set that allows non-programmers to move
and rearrange the game and its design simply and easily. As Ecco
producer Gergely Csaszar explains, "Through a user-friendly
windows-based interface, GWB allows us to populate and manipulate a
game's 3D environment in real time. Landscapes, objects, actors,
sounds, lighting, and other visual effects can be added or changed
with a few mouse clicks at will. The organised, modular structure of
the game's world allows us to direct and manage all game events with
ease and reuse already existing programmed features, such as
behaviors, with great efficiency. Tuning of any aspect of the game
became very easy and fast as well.
"One of the most rewarding experiences we have every day is being
able to change anything in the game to our liking and see it work
within a few seconds. [The] beauty of this tool is that you can run
the game instantly after changing things around. It runs the
simulation on the PC, and I can see the results on the graphics card
(on a second monitor). No more weeks of iterations, waiting for
artists to change the lighting or blaming the programmers [in order]
to adjust some parameters. If you can visualise what you want, you
can do it and test it yourself instantly. Working with GameWorld
Builder contributed greatly to the creation of this beautiful
underwater world because those who had the vision also had the means
to help realise it."
Combined with the GameWorld Builder is a new 3D-animation
mechanism that lends fluidity and dynamism to the animation of Ecco
and other animals. The Dreamcast has given the team the power to
model as close to real life as has yet been done.
Not surprisingly, Appaloosa intends to use this technology on all
its current games. With the online technology inherent in the
Dreamcast and the usability of such a tool, it is hoped that
Appaloosa or Sega will see fit to make a version of the GameWorld
Builder available to the general consumer. Letting you create new
environments and adventures for Ecco would take the experience to a
new level and allow the creative abilities of many to come to the
fore.
The technology also led to a different style of design. In a
departure from the traditional level-based game, Ecco will take you
to a great number of different environments built around themes of
several unique worlds. One world, Paradise Island, will contain
various multiple environments, and you'll move seamlessly between
coral reef, underground caves, and lakes. Appaloosa took a lot of
time to make the underwater scenes feel as authentic as possible. A
research team spent many months working with videos, photographs,
and "hundreds of copies of National Geographic magazine" to come up
with a realistic depiction of the oceanic flora and fauna. The
compliments received at E3 showed the effort was well worth it.
Within these environments the team had a relatively free hand to
design puzzles to take advantage of their surroundings, and some of
the better and more inspired puzzles came after the worlds had
already been created.
The enemies too are more involved, with, for example, multiple
sharks running different AI routines to present different game
challenges through various tuning of speed, turning, and
attitude.
The natural settings are gorgeous to look at, and the worlds are
relatively peaceful. However, the other environments emphasize more
traditional action and role-playing elements, and, as Gergely
comments, these are filled with "creatures and powerful enemies,
forces less friendly and benign. In these parts of the game [the]
story takes sharper turns and it introduces characters and scenarios
from the realm of science fiction." It is here that we see how
inspired the choice of Brin was as the storywriter. He modestly
says, "The fellows at Appaloosa approached me. Having read my novel,
Startide Rising, which portrays dolphin heroes in a future setting,
they felt my depiction showed the kind of spirit they wanted in
their new version of Ecco." The mixture of dolphins and science
fiction made him a perfect choice for the job.
Ironically, one of Ecco's strengths is also its biggest challenge
from a design standpoint. In the game industry almost everyone takes
some inspiration from a competitor, however subtle and ultimately
original. And yet Ecco is so groundbreaking there is no reference
point even as a starting point. A smart story provides a lot of
those hooks on which to hang creativity.
Brin says: "The designers told me what they needed - a reason for
Ecco to face wide-ranging and vivid perils. I came up with a way to
tie all of their innovative game techniques together. But I kept
foremost in mind the fact that the new Dreamcast interactive effects
must lead the way, just as movies are often propelled by visual
images and emotions that a director wants the audience to feel."
Ecco employs a fight or flight mechanism along with the use of
puzzles. While many creatures present a danger to Ecco, other
dolphins and various species of whale will cooperate in the
completion of his quest. For example, one such companion is needed
to defeat the giant octopus, but finding the correct companion will
require a lot of additional work.
Several alumni from Ecco on the Genesis, including Joseph
Szentesi, Emil Venyercsan, Kadocsa Tassonyi, and Csaba Soltesz, are
part of the current 40-person team. While not a sequel in the
traditional sense of a continuing story (although notably a sequel
does exist on the Genesis, as does a young adult version of the game
called Ecco Jr), says Gergely, "at the same time we did not forget
that the first Ecco Genesis game generated a sizable group of fans
throughout the world. We received many comments from these
supporters who told us what they liked and disliked in the first
games. While designing this new version of Ecco the Dolphin,
everyone at Appaloosa did its best to listen to these comments and
implement the best ideas in the new incarnation."
One unexpected result of some Appaloosa focus tests was the
discovery that there are two different categories of game players
when it comes to navigating in a virtual environment. Gergely
expands on that point: "The difference between the two groups lies
in their ability of maintaining their orientation in a true 3D space
while sustaining control of the main character regardless of its or
the camera's position and orientation. Think about the
radio-controlled cars: some people feel completely natural
controlling them, while others always get confused with left and
right once the RC car turns towards them.
"In Ecco the Dolphin we are trying to cater for both of these
groups. For those of us who were born with VR glasses and learned to
walk by watching The Space Marine [laughs] we allow total control of
all the natural abilities of a real dolphin. For the more
down-to-earth audience we provide various helpful, optional features
to aid them, such as automatic pitch and roll leveling for
example."
Appaloosa's goal was nothing less than creating an onscreen
dolphin seemingly as alive as any documentary footage you might see
on television. The fact that they appear to have succeeded is a
testament to the power of these next-generation platforms in only
their first iteration. As Gergely says, "We have finally reached the
level where the game can look as good during actual gameplay as
those fancy prerendered, ray-traced computer-generated movie
sequences we are drooling over between stages of most computer and
video games nowadays." Now the cut-scenes between the action will
use the same engine as the game with only occasional special effects
implemented specifically for the scene.
Brin, a noted futurist, sees an exciting experience ahead. "It's
an age of collaborative entertainment," he says, "with audience and
players becoming part of the team. Heck, it's true even in a novel,
where the 'team' consists of a writer and a reader, creating images
that are different every time."
While a number of other Dreamcast titles have been more lauded,
Ecco The Dolphin: Defender Of The Future has the potential to be the
defining Dreamcast experience.
By Wallace Poulter
Posted 06/10/1999
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