MaD
- In the past the BBs did shoot-em-ups, platform, fantasy,
and maze-adventure games, to list some styles. Is there
any style you'd specially like to revisit in future games?
Is that desire due to advances in modern technology and
its gameplay implications or for pure passion?
Mike
- To be honest, we could revisit any of our old titles -
they're a pretty rich heritage for us. You have to remember
that they were almost all ST and Amiga games, so if we went
back to them now, what we could do with modern PC's and
consoles could make for totally different games to their
predecessors. And not only do we have some great titles,
our back catalogue also has a number of cool universes which
can be developed further.
For us, though, the most important element of any game is
how fun it will be. With the original Z, we used to get
asked "Why are the armies there? Why are they fighting?
How did all that unmanned hardware get there?" and
the answer was really that there wasn't any reason, it just
made a fun game.
That's what's important to us. We tried to define things
a bit more in Z:SS and make a more "solid" universe
for the game, but the same principles remained. Whichever
style of game we approach, it's always from the point of
view of "Well, what'll make this game mad fun?".
MaD
- Could you feed us with some details about your future
game? At least its genre?
Mike
- Nope ;-) [Editor
note: Damn! :) ]
MaD
- In Z Expansion Pack, the bitbros made some balance changes
and added many improvements. How probable is a future Z:SS
Expansion Pack, and in which ways do you think it would
add to the Z:SS experience?
Mike
- Well, I hope we have covered a lot of issues in the patches
we have put out so far. I don't think there is going to
be an expansion pack as such this time. We have been looking
at a new story line for a further instalment of the Z series
which is quite exciting, and that will be different again
to the current two Z games. It would probably be closer
to Steel Soldiers than Steel Soliders was to the original
Z, but still different. I would like to start work on this
right now but we have to wait to see if a publisher come
our way first.
MaD
- Having recently released games for the Playstation (Speedball
2100) and PC platforms, how do you analyze both? Which platform,
console or PC, will the Bitmaps try to concentrate the most?
Mike
- We really like to work on the PC format, but as time moves
on we are looking at consoles as well. The one big advantage
for consoles is that you write a game for one machine and
it works - we write a PC game for 1000's of machines and
it doesn't matter how well you test it, you just can't test
it on all combinations. Then you have to put up with the
guys that can't get it to work telling us it's so bugged
we should be shot! Sometimes it's just how they have their
machines set up. We try and fix problems for people as they
crop up. Buying a PC game is a problem - I buy loads and
sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, but all my
console games work first time.
Next: The
two incarnations