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1. Respect For The Medium
1. Respect For The Medium
Rand Miller: That is good insight because most of the people we talk to don't realize how much trouble you have to go to up front when you are designing the game to make sure it fits in the medium you are aiming for. We'd done cd with previous kids' products [Cosmic Osmo & Manhole], and we had at least an idea of what it could be and what the schemes were. That helped. Before we even touched the cd itself, or even touched the programming or any of that, when Robyn and I were designing, we knew those limitations and that worked its way from ground zero right into the game. So that is an important point.
Robyn Miller: Plus, we also respected it as a real medium. We weren't out to just make a quick buck when we did it, we wanted to make something that we felt was going to end up being great, as great as we could do at least. So we put a lot of effort into it, as much effort as we possibly could.
Rand: Maybe that's why people ended up respecting it.
Kyle: That effort is very evident in it. I was originally addicted to Asteroids, a trigger twitcher from way back.
(chuckles of recognition all around)
Myst is the first game I solved from beginning to end in about ten years. There was something about it that brought back my passion for the medium.
Rand: It would have been hard for us to have respect for the medium in the same way if it had been an arcade type thing because [Myst is] so cinematic and we really could go a long, long way with the visuals and sound and all those different media mixed together.
Kyle: Right, trigger games don't do that at all. It's all about adrenaline and it doesn't matter what the story is.
Robyn: You get the same feeling with trigger games as you got with Pong, but cd-rom has more potential than that.
Rand: And whatever comes next will have even more potential.
Robyn: That's the thing, it's still so undefined. Myst, maybe right now, has got a little niche there, yeah...
Rand: Or some part of it...
Robyn: But there is still so much that people haven't even touched on and that is why it is so exciting to be in this field right now. It is an open field and we get to help define it.
Kyle: It's probably going to be some sixteen year old kid who is the internet, or is cd rom, is the part of it that will break through and everyone will say, oh, that's what this medium should be.
Robyn: It seems like that is how it always works. That is how all mediums, even movies are defined. It leaves plenty of room for other people to innovate.
