System Shock

So, um, But yeah, so I mean, that's just, if you don't mind, we'll talk about some of your projects.

I mean, you've done Deus Ex, you did Invisible War, Dishonored, Dishonored 2, you were on System Shock.

I looked at your Moby Games profile before we started.

And yeah,

Have you got anything like this that you can think of that you can pull on immediately, like a favorite Easter egg or a favorite, oh, they've hidden that in the game world and I've found it? Because I've been trying to think of this while I've been speaking.

Is there like a favorite hidden something?

Yeah, so first of all, that is a really interesting pushback because my frame of thinking is, in part comes from, you know, guys like Doug Church from Underworld System Shock Thief kind of articulated this really well, but like the abdication of authorship.

In other words, the dark side of that would be like, here's how you play this game.

Very, very rational, considering what they had recently done.

Before this was what? The Shock series? Not the Bioshock, but the other one.

System Shock.

That's it.

System

Shock 2, although that was some different people too.

Yeah, Ken Levine, Levine, Levoon, Laverne.

Anyway, this thing mixes real-time tactics like I mentioned with comic book style character progression, recruitment, destructible environments, which was pretty crazy at the time.

We had a...

I think after System Shock was released, which was a big game for looking glass and like, you know, it's one of the games that's a seminal classic.

Yeah.

And like people come and ask you, you know, gosh, tones, it's about working on System Shock or flood in the middle of these things and And they're talking to somebody at the Library of Congress about it.

And I'm remembering the smell of Doug Church's farts.

And I'm like, I can't take this serious, but okay, I'm glad that you think it's an August classic.

rapid dancing in the face of failure.

So Looking Glass, we shipped this game called Flight Unlimited and it worked really well and then I wanted to do a sequel to it and the company had raised money based on the success of that game.

Like, stuff like that.

Like, that's Thief, System Shock, which later Bioshock, which, I mean, Prey is built off of System Shock, essentially.

It was supposed to be called Neuroshock before they fucking...

Yeah, and what...

Yes, and if Night Dive can't do it, no one can.

Yeah, they've really been trying to get a hold of that.

Again, I was critical of Night Dive when they cancelled that fucking remake of System Shock and they came through and it's fucking great.

Um...

here?Yeah, we have one email, and feel free, please send us emails, podcasts@noclip.video or in the Patreon Discord channel for podcast chat.

Gabe wrote in and asked about, uh, "Hey, I've been playing the System Shock remaster, which allows the player to drop custom pins on the map and add text notes to them.

If memory serves me well, this is something the original version of System Shock 2 also had.

This is a feature that most games are lacking, and I wonder why.

I don't know about you, but the first thing I do on real world maps is write things down with a pen or pencil.

That's another, that's two questions really, but, like, on one hand, it goes back to that 100 meter thing that I said.

Like, the more space you're trying to do, the more shallow you, you have to, to make it, right? So your best friend is scoping and constraint, and that's why System Shock was in a space station and everyone was, was dead, you know? Because that's a couple of tricky ways to, like, you know, control the, the, the scope, and then you can go deep on things, right? Um, the other question, I always answer this way.

There's two wolves inside everyone who loves immersive sims.

[laughs]

Um, you know, is, is there a, a bittersweet feeling when it comes to making first person immersive sims? 'Cause as you said, the, you don't have to make as much track maybe because, uh, players are, are gonna be spending a decent amount of time in each area, but those areas need to be so much more detailed than most sort of, you know, mil sims or, or, you know, boomer shooters or whatever.

Um, is there ever a desire to figure out a way to make the art cheaper? Are you gonna use AI [laughs] or, or, or is there a, is there a desire to like, uh, you know, to, to, to find a simplified world style that allows you to not have to spend so much time arting these, these detailed rooms?

Well, the way to do that, our, all our art, all our content is made by humans, but the way to do that is, like I said, in System Shock.

Deus Ex is the worst problem, right? Because you're in Hong Kong one hour, and then you're in Paris another hour.

Yes, Epic Mickey is one of them.

But obviously the original Deus Ex, the Ultima series, Wing Commander, System Shock, Thief, Crusader, No Remorse.

So many classic games from over the years.

And he has really... headed these up for such a long time.