For this interview, I had the honor of speaking with Carl
Muller, a man who has worked on such games as Mortal Kombat 2
(Saturn game), FifaSoccer 96 (SNES game), Batman Forever (SNES
game), Judge Dredd (SNESgame), Pagemaster (SNES game), Junior
League Super Soccer (SNES game), VirtualSoccer (SNES game), Speedball
2 (C64 game), Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles(C64 game), Last Ninja
(NES game), Days of Thunder (NES game). And this is just a handful
of his programs. He climbed the ladder of the industry,working
from tape machines to making some of today's biggest selling
games.All of this experience makes for a very unique conversation
and perspective into how people find fun in computer-mediated
experience.
DM) Was computer programming your initial passion?
CM) Until the age of 12 I wanted to be a
travel agent. Then I met my first computer and fell instantly
in love.
DM) Then where did you start with computers?
CM) At school in Fiji, I would hurry through
my math classes to complete my homework before the end of the
lesson, so that I could spend the rest of the period at the keyboard
of a CBM 4016. It had a monochrome text screen, a staggering
16K of memory and not one but two tape drives! Naturally I wrote
only games on it. I would wander around computer shops in the
town and write games on their display machines -Commodore PETs
and TRS-80s. In those days computer magazines were full of type-in
listings of games. After I typed in one such program on a VIC-20,
the shopkeeper sold it to a customer! I led a sheltered life
at home in New Zealand writing games for my computers in BASIC
and 6502 machine code(first on a VIC-20 then a C64). The machines
yielded many interesting technical secrets (such as how to put
sprites in the border)but my lack of artistic ability left the
games looking rather worse than they played. Writing them without
the aid of an assembler, graphics program or a disk-drive also
made them slightly harder to develop. This lead me to collect
several rejection letters from publishers, including some people
I later worked with.
DM) And when did all of your effort pan out?
CM) At 16 I wrote to a games company in Australia(the
nearest one I knew of) and asked for a job. They told me to get
a degree, so I did. Still a teenager when I finished my honors
course, I contacted them again. They told me to join them right
away, without an interview. So I emigrated again and was very
happy that I had finally got into the industry, and was working
on a real, commercial game (Days of Thunder for the NES). My
heroes, people like Jeff Minter, Nick Pelling, Tony Crowther
and Matthew Smith, who had peopled the Computer and Video Games
1985 yearbook, had been writing games for ages already, and I
had felt left out living on the other side of the world from
all the exciting games companies, and the Compunet-based demo
scene. Joining Beam Software changed all that and my 8 years
commercial games programming since has been, on the whole, a
lot of fun.
DM) Do you think personal gaming systems like
Nintendo and Sega be eliminated by PC's?
CM) No. Firstly, there will be a niche for
dedicated games systems for a long time to come. The graphics
hardware has been nicer than PC, and unfettered by bloated operating
systems. Also there is something rather nice about buying a game
and knowing that it will work first time. Secondly, companies
such as Nintendo and Sega will maintain their own identity even
if they do get out of the hardware business--they still would
write good games. Thirdly, Hiroshi Yamauchi enjoys the control
over third-parties that having his own system provides far too
much to let it go willingly.
DM) How will the Internet affect gaming?
CM) I used the Internet 10 years ago to land
an overseas job, so I appreciate that it takes a while to change
its character. Mainstream games will continue to support networks,
in much the same way as they have supported LANs since the days
of Populous. Massively multi-player persistent worlds have also
been around for a long time (as MUDs) but with the right circumstances
they have the potential to be a social phenomenon. Betting your
shirt on such a game is still a risky choice though.
DM) But the speed of machines has also been increasing
dramatically. Should this have a great affect?
CM) The power of machines doubles every 18
months, so the problem is how to slow it down (to keep release
schedules reasonable, say every 5 years) rather than to speed
it up. This is needed to provide a stable target platform (i.e.
console games work. PC games don't work half the time). We would
have no trouble using up more polygons, more mass storage, more
RAM, higher resolution textures and much better sound. It's harder
for an artist to draw a decent 80 polygon model than a decent
8000 polygon model--they're good at using up machine power. Also,
it takes a few years / projects before each machine is used to
its fullest. Look how long it took C64 games to fully utilize
the machine!
DM) How will/has shareware affected the games
industry?
CM) Shareware has been useful in providing
a few people, such as ID, with seed money, but it has had its
day. With the spread of the Internet, everyone is used to getting
software for free, so I have heard that no-one registers shareware
anymore. People used to write free "demo" software
before shareware became popular, and they will do so again, either
as training for becoming commercial, or as a pastime (like the
former head of AutoCad, who is keeping his programming hand in
by writing HomePlanet). But shareware itself is less important
than two years ago.
DM) Who are your idols ?
CM) Shigeru Miyamoto, for designing the best
games ever to grace this planet with their appearance. Alan Turing,
for saving the world but being pushed into suicide by an uncaring
society. Eugene Jarvis, for his early work (not Cruising USA!)
DM) What do you play in your free time?
CM) Mario 64, Discworld 2, Dungeon Keeper.
DM) What's your all-time favorite game?
CM) Mario 64.
DM) Where do you see the next generation of games
as going?
CM) This year, fancy dynamic lighting effects
on 3d worlds are in. A good example of this will be our game
Forsaken. Blended Motion capture with soft-skinned textured models
will also be common, especially for sports games. Gameplay will
have to reflect more subtleties to reflect the increased degrees
of freedom of both the graphic display and the controllers.
DM) And for two to three years down the line?
CM) For Christmas 1998 or 1999, I would want
a game to include soft-skinned landscapes. Wave Race 64 showed
how to do this with one surface. It needs to be done with other
parts of the landscape as well. Graphics acceleration would make
possible smooth movement of undulating shapes, but the tricky
part to get running fast would be collision detection. When this
really gets hairy is when the topology of the geometry changes--think
Lava Lamp here. This technology will allow games to look more
organic. Support of multi-player gaming over LANs and the Internet
will remain as standard. There are many interesting things that
can be done over the net which are held back more by financial
reasons than technical ones. Gameplay will seem to progress less
rapidly, but the addition of an extra dimension to many genres
of games has led to a huge increase in complexity for the same
end result. The effect of this is still being worked through.
Sequels offer the possibility (if the will is there) to build
on the existing display mechanism and game physics with innovative
new intelligence routines. Even for original next-generation
titles, peoples experience with 3d platform, exploration and
fighting games will reduce the amount of effort needed in future
to implement the physics, allowing them to concentrate more on
gameplay.
DM) And lastly, what can we expect coming from
you in the future?
CM) Well, there's Ultra Soccer (N64 game).
This has just been announced through the official UK Nintendo
Magazine. It has a good chance to chart well in Japan and Europe
this Christmas. It has the potential to be the best ever soccer
game on a console or computer (it certainly already is the best-looking
one!)
