BioShock lead programmer Chris Kline has said at a GDC session in Paris that the game should have been a failure.
"In fact," he said, "it did fail a lot, over the course of time. A series of big mistakes and corrections and slipped ship dates, but all of these helped make it a good game."
Kline detailed a number of the mistakes, starting from the initial idea of remaking commercial failure System Shock 2, right through to focusing on making it more exciting inside of working on the 'small' things like balancing, plasmid use and the script.
The team also found making a world that exists without the player was a mistake, hinting that Rapture originally would have been a more factional experience with NPCs fighting each other. "The world needs to revolve around the player," Kline said.
Despite this, the programmer remained resolute to this way of working. "Some people think that constantly messing up, and pushing dates isn't a good way to make a game, but as far as I'm concerned it's the only way to make a good game."
Jun 24, 2008
