American McGee Presents Scrapland has the potential to spin out into a series. "A robot in a world of robots," has some potential, especially when it has the feel of Grand Theft Auto without the random beat downs. We fired some questions at Enric Alvarez, lead designer and project manager on Scrapland, including how many people worked on the project, influences that can be seen in Scrapland, finding a publisher, the genesis of the idea, and more! Thanks for your time, Enric!

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Enric Alvarez (Scrapland) Q&A

Conducted by Omni

I’ll hit you with the heavy questions later. What is you name and role on Scrapland; how long have you been in the industry and what got you started in the industry?

Hi there, my name is Enric Alvarez. In short: I'm lead designer and project manager for Scrapland. I'm also co-founder of Mercury Steam. I started professionally in this industry 5 years ago as a level designer for "Blade of Darkness" the hack'n'slash game from Rebel Act Studios released in 2001; Then I was promoted to lead game designer for "Blade of Darkness 2" but the developer closed its doors and the project never saw the light. After that myself with some colleagues founded Mercury Steam and started development of Scrapland.

In your own words, what is Scrapland all about and where did the idea come from?

First, Scrapland is an innovating game, hard to define using the standard categories we are used to these days. Scrapland has action and adventure, on foot and vehicular gameplay, huge outdoors and detailed indoors, thousands of dialogue lines and a deep storyline, ship building and transformation into other characters, etc.. All of that packed in an emergent gameplay experience with total freedom of movement from the very first moment. Trying to define this game using standard categories is a futile effort. Personally I think Scrapland goes some steps forward in many aspects, being a cohesive, fresh and new experience.

You won't believe it but the idea was making a realistic game. In fact, Scrapland presents a robot society very real and similar – from a sarcastic point of view – with our own society and the hero is a common guy faced against a murderous conspiracy that surpasses his abilities. Why I say this is "realistic"? Because all gameplay mechanics are built around a living, interactive, changing and beating world. We never change the rules of this world to adapt them to specific mission necessities. In real life, the rest of the world does not stop or change because you are "accomplishing a mission." Same for Scrapland.

What was the most critical aspect of Scrapland to get right? (Graphics? Control? Story?)

All aspects or Scrapland are so critically interrelated that you can't do without all of them.

How long was Scrapland in development?

Two years.

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Scrapland seems to emphasize the ability to outfit and customize the many ships included in the game. Is this where combat is emphasized? Ship-to-ship?

Scrapland provides on foot and vehicular action gameplay at equal shares. Shipbuilding is a mere resource to improve your tools. Players will decide which resources or tools they want to use to survive in Scrapland.

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Has the team estimated how many hours of gameplay the average gamer will get from Scrapland?

About 30 hours and many more for curious players.

What recognizable inspirations have been incorporated in Scrapland’s design? (I’m thinking about movies, books, and other games, etc.)

Scrapland is a rich game with many influences. From Stanislaw Lem's sci-fi literature to Pixar’s films... I’m only mentioning the more obvious ones. In general it can be said we have been influenced by games, movies and books that try to innovate and go some steps forward from the establishment. Personally I don't like wasting time doing things that have already been done.

Did Scrapland have a difficult time finding a publisher? If so, why?

The answer to the first question is an emphatic "YES". About the second question I have to severely bite my tongue because someone told me once "don't burn bridges". You know what I mean.

The fact sheet for Scrapland mentions “proprietary path finding technology and hyper-intelligent player interaction” for NPCs. Can you give us an example of how this works in the game?

Almost all NPC's behavior is unscripted, I mean characters are able to move everywhere, interact the way they want and react in front of player's or other NPC's attacks. They move around with total freedom of movements and in combat situations they are able to do incredible attack and defense maneuvers:

They go after items when they need them or simply to prevent you getting them.

They perform avoiding and attack movements depending on the environment and other circumstances.

They use countermeasures to difficult pursuits, deflect missiles, and disable enemies radar system.

They are able to attack coordinately in groups.

Etc…

Has the main character changed much since the initial doodles?

No. We wanted him the way he is from the very first moment.

Does Scrapland have the potential to turn into a franchise? Or are you even thinking about that at this point?

I think it has. D-Tritus is a traveler and Scrapland is only the first stage of his travels.

(November 25, 2004)


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