Tuesday 18 April 2006
Shawn Ketcherside, lead game designer of SiN Episodes, has offered up some insight into the development process behind Ritual's piecemeal shooter.
"From the beginning of the project we went round and round, thinking about what it means to be 'episodic'. We looked at a number of models and tried to see how they would fit our universe and how we thought the games should fall out," said Ketcherside.
"We realised that, for us, it didn't make sense to simply make one game and chop it up into multiple pieces. To me that seemed to negate many of the advantages of being episodic. Specifically the freedom to innovate and evolve."
Above: After Shawn's insights into SiN Episodes, here's another, erm, refreshing perspective
"To give some examples from other media, let's look at two outstanding television shows: X-Files and, more recently, Lost," explains Ketcherside. "Each episode is written to be a complete experience. For the most part, the episodes are written so that having knowledge about [prior] elements can enhance your viewing experience, but they're certainly not required to enjoy the story being told.
"So what does this actually mean to our fans? Well, it means that you can expect each episode of SiN Episodes to introduce something innovative and new into the mix, you can expect to get a satisfying story, and you can expect a rock solid, fun experience."
