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It was just after Future Wars (FW) that I started to get a buzz from programming again. Therefore, limiting myself to the visual side of a game was no longer satisfying for me; the idea of 2D polygons was the triggering point. I returned to programming and created AW just as I had created my very first 8-bit games: looking after everything myself. This was a time of (sometimes deep) reflection. Actually, it was thanks to the commercial success of FW that I was able to create AW entirely on my own, without contract or publishing pressure. It was only at the end of the development (which lasted for over a year and a half) that an agreement was signed with Delphine Software, the publisher. At that point I redoubled my efforts to have the game out in time for Christmas as I was responsible for all areas of the game, other than the music which was being written by a friend (Jean Francois Freitas).
Finally, looking back throughout my career, I have focused alternatively on different aspects of development, graphic design and programming. AW remains my most personal project, including the boxart, which I drew myself..
AW is quite a short game. In fact, it can be completed in about forty minutes. Did you originally intend the game to be longer, or are you happy with the finished result?
Yes, at the launch of the Amiga, there was an issue: people wanted more. So, I lengthened the PC and console versions a little, but I don't think it really changed much. The feeling of frustration was still emphasised by a rather unusual ending. The game is a little bit short but I like still like the way it is. Adding anything could break the overall rhythm that holds the game together as a whole. If I had to make any changes, they would be to change the level of playability, and the management of the saving points that are sometimes too far from one another.
At the time, the vector based graphics of AW were quite revolutionary. Can you tell us what inspired you to choose that particular graphical method, instead of a more traditional approach?
The idea of using this technique came to me when playing the adapted Amiga version of Dragon's Lair. This arcade game was streaming a real animated cartoon (directed by Don Bluth) from a video disc; the interactivity was extremely limited, but it looked terrific. Coding videos was something impossible at the time. However, the developers of the Amiga version had managed the trick of keeping all the original animated sequences, and it was the first time that we could see bitmap animation that big. On the other hand, this game did use a great number of floppy disks, 8 I think! But really, it stunned me. The flat drawings of the characters were really close to vector-based drawings. That's when I thought that it would be fantastic to create a 2D game, exclusively with polygons. Thus, you could gain a huge amount of memory space while having huge sprites on the screen, and particularly, while keeping a strong interactivity.
In retrospect, was there anything you especially wanted to do with AW that you weren't able to, perhaps because of the limits imposed by the technology at the time, or because of lack of time/resources?
The console versions were adapted by Interplay, who wanted to create a follow up game for the Mega CD version. I was involved in Heart of the Alien only at the level of the initial concept; Interplay looked after the rest. I was disappointed by the result, and I felt they were taking the suspense away and removing the aura of mystery which suffused the last scenes of the game. Apart from that, the only title which I was involved with at Delphine was FW, created by Paul Cuisset. Regarding Flashback, I did not participate at all in its development even though the influence of AW was very strong.
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