Robocalypse Interview (IGN)

## Robocalypse Interview

The writers want to give you more of a reason to play than just "finishing it."

BY DAEMON HATFIELD

UPDATED: MAY 12, 2012 11:58 PM

POSTED: JAN 31, 2008 3:56 PM

Ever since the DS was revealed, real-time strategy fans thought the system would be great for the genre. Both the stylus control and extra real estate the dual screens provide would seem to solve many of the problems RTS games face when they leave the comfort of the mouse and keyboard. But over three years later, the DS isn't exactly bursting with offerings from the genre.

Which is why our ears perked up last week when we heard a former SpongeBob SquarePants writer and his partner were penning a new DS RTS game called Robocalypse. The story follows a batch of robots implanted with the brains of World War II veterans that must stop a band of rampaging machines. Some slick screenshots and an innovative premise convinced us this title warranted further investigation. We caught up with writers Jay Lender and Micah Wright to find out more about this impending robot holocaust.

**IGN: Jay, can you tell us some specific episodes of SpongeBob you wrote/directed?**

Jay Lender: Oh...Just One Bite, The Graveyard Shift, The Fry-Cook Games, The Camping Episode, Valentine's Day, Even-numbered Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy episodes. 24 shorts altogether, I think, plus the live action Patchy the Pirate wraparound for The Lost Episode. I did at least two shows where Patrick and SpongeBob are especially chummy, so I guess those rumors about them are my fault. But they are just rumors.

**IGN: What have you guys written together?**

Micah Wright: We've written several films together, including a draft of the Korean animated film "Wonderful Days." We've developed stacks of TV shows, both animated and live action. Before we got into games we wrote an entire novel on seventeen rolls of toilet paper, but lost three chapters of the original manuscript after an unfortunate guacamole incident.

Jay: In games, we've written the upcoming Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed and it's next-gen sequel, Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon. We've written 14 games in total, including a Dukes of Hazzard game, a Looney Tunes game, and -- in case you think we can't do blood and guts -- the upcoming MMOFPS Huxley. We pride ourselves on bringing great story, characters and dialog to any genre or medium, including toilet paper.

**IGN: What new ideas are you bringing to the real-time strategy genre?**

Jay: We're bringing the idea that characters in an RTS should have more to say than (putting on my bad cockney accent) "Wot' is it?"

Micah: And that publishers should be required by law to hire us to write all such games.

Jay: Actually, what we bring is the idea that stories and character matter in this genre -- that we can do more with realtime RPGs than just that big text crawl that says "And Lo, did the Orcish armies of the North sweep into Rivertown and lay waste ya-bladda bladda blah..." That stuff doesn't cut it any more. People want to see characters they like with interesting problems that -- in this case -- the player can resolve through RTS gameplay. Fortunately, the gents at [developer] Vogster agree with us.

**IGN: Are you guys big gamers?**

Jay: Yes! Since Spacewar!

Micah: We're both avid gamers. I own all three of the next-gen platforms, a PSP and a Magnavox Odyssey. I've still got the stigmata on my left hand from the corner of the joystick that came with my first game system -- I speak, of course, of the Sears Video Arcade – er -- Atari 2600.

Jay: I've got an Xbox 360, a Wii and a Nintendo DS, but I can't get my PS3 yet because I've already got cables plugged into every available port on my TV, my amplifier, my component video switchbox and several things that may or may not even be connected to the electrical grid.

Micah: And we both play PC games on our Macs.

*We caught up with writers Jay Lender and Micah Wright to find out more about this impending robot holocaust.*

**IGN: Have you checked out Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings? It's another DS RTS that works really well.**

Micah: We drink their milkshake!

Jay: We drink their milkshaaaaaaaaaake!

Micah: See how we dodge your questions by quoting high-fallutin' art-house movies? That's proof we're good writers.

Jay: Seriously, though, is "revenant" a real word? I haven't looked it up or anything, but how can you trust a game with a title like that? Anyway, we've been too busy playing Robocalypse to worry about the competition.

Micah: Michael Mendheim showed us a tech demo about 8 months ago -- at the time it was more like an ant farm than a game -- and the second we saw it we knew we wanted to sign on.

Jay: And now that the interface is mature and the gameplay is getting really polished -- we're total converts. We think think that after this, using a stylus is the only way to play an RTS. Everything else pales in comparison. In the future nobody's going to want to do this with a mouse or a joystick.

Micah: He means "controller."

Jay: Yeah, that's what I meant.

**IGN: How does writing for games differ from writing for TV? Is there a medium you prefer?**

Micah: Whichever pays more.

Jay: Absolutely.

Micah: Seriously, we're writers -- we'll write whatever needs writing, any genre, any medium. Games, television and film all have their charms. If we hit it big in film tomorrow, we would still continue writing games...just for more money. And the power… sweet, delicious power!

Jay: Right. But games are definitely their own thing. Game scripts are typically much longer than in film because games can run for 10 hours or 40 hours or more. Incidental dialog like "I need more ammo!" or "The pamphlet said Raccoon City was nice this time of year!" can run thousands of lines -- more than any single movie or TV show. Plus there are no established formats for the documents, so there aren't any specialized writing tools available to the general public. And we're still establishing conventions for telling stories that the audience can participate in -- when's the best time for an in-game vignette, when to use a cinematic, etc. And there's still a contingent of gamers out there that thinks your player character should never talk or be seen. But the biggest difference between filmed media and games is that for many game developers -- not the swell guys at Vogster, of course -- the story just isn't the primary consideration, and sometimes it isn't even very high up on the list. At least not yet.

Micah: And there's a reason for the difference. If the story isn't good in TV & film, the end result simply can't be any good, no matter how fantastic your actors are, or your special effects -- no matter how much money you throw at it. Cough, cough – Transformers -- Cough! But a game can have a *lousy* story and still be fun to play. For a long time that made it easy for game developers to ignore story. We've all played games which were fun, but were bogged down by pointless cutscenes filled with bad dialog, spouted by characters who you can't care about because they have no weaknesses and never change or grow. As long as gameplay is king, those can be good games -- but I submit that games like that are never GREAT games. In a great game the play mechanics, the controls, the physics, the design and animation, etc. combine with a fantastic story and characters to create something which is more than the sum of its parts.

Jay: In a great game, the story doesn't give you a break from gameplay, it compels you to play -- and gives you context for your actions, so killing that 5000th and final zombie means something more than just "I'm done." We constantly hear people saying "I've got to keep playing the game so I can finish it." We think "finishing it" is a lame reason to do anything.

Micah: And $60 is too much to pay for the privilege of saying "Well, that's overwith." The best review we've ever gotten was from 1Up and it said "I hate this game, but I keep playing it because I need to know what happens next in the story." That's a start. But what we really want is for people to say that they played because they needed to know what happens next...and they wanted to feel something. When you play Robocalypse, you WILL feel something.

**IGN: What can you tell us about the story in Robocalypse?**

Micah: We can tell you that after you play this game you will never look at a cockroach in the same way again.

Jay: Well, there must be SOME people out there who will look at cockroaches the same way.

Micah: Yes, but none of those people read IGN. IGN has only wholesome, good-looking readers who would never...well, that would be giving it away.

**IGN: How will the story be told? Cut scenes? Video?**

Micah: Jay and I will be personally visiting with each and every purchaser to act out the story as they play the game...except in non-english speaking countries where we will be played by localized writers.

Jay: Either that or cut scenes, depending on our availability.