Unmasking the Gamers: Chris Avellone – game designer, writer, and former ‘unlucky schlep’ – Part 2
Posted by Will Ooi | Posted in Gaming | Tags: Alpha Protocol, Fallout, Interviews, Unmasking the Gamers | Posted on 16-08-2011-05-2008
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This is the latest part of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person game. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley, Andrew Doherty, Cody Winn, Chris Avellone Part 1.
This edition of Unmasking the Gamers features part 2 of an interview with Chris Avellone. Having spoken previously about RPG design, this time round we had a look at the development and eventual reception for the espionage-RPG Alpha Protocol, the process of casting voice actors to suit written characters, as well as a bit more about Chris himself.
Will Ooi: Alpha Protocol took players on a spy’s journey through ambiguous political agendas and dealt with current, real-life events concerning the transparency of governments and questionable ethics of multinational corporations, amongst other things. Was one of your aims for this game to educate the player? It’s not often we see Taiwan-China relations mentioned in this medium…
Mr Chris Avellone: Some of the story framework was based on the two previous iterations of the storyline. I inherited Halbech, the Taiwan angle, etc, so I couldn’t speak to that. What appealed to me most about the original plot was the characters, which I always felt were strong and each had a cool visual and ego signature. In AP2, because of this, our plan was to simply make the plot more character-driven than event-driven, and cater to the characters the setting allowed for.
WO: Was the dialogue response option ‘headslam’ inspired by anything in particular?
MCA: I think everyone’s had that moment when talking to a jackass where you imagine his face kissing the nearest concrete sidewalk/brick wall/bar counter. When writing the Alpha Protocol characters, the question you always have in the back of your mind is how Bond/Bauer/Bourne would respond, and usually, all the “actions” in Alpha Protocol are Bauer-inspired, since he doesn’t have the time or patience for anyone giving him lip when lives are at stake.
[Gamasutra Feature & Fallout Wiki]
