Q&A with Deke. . .  Tell us a little bit about yourself – who are you, what got you into games, how you got started making games as a career and what you do at Day 1 Studios or LucasArts?
| I first got into games around age 8, playing my older brother’s Atari 2600, defying all threats against doing so. My gaming career started with the unenviable job of answering support phone calls for PC games. I worked my way up to Producer by taking every advantage to get away from said phone call duty. After shipping a few titles, I moved over to Day 1 Studios, where I do a little of everything related to managing the single player side of Fracture. |
| Walk us through a typical day – as a programmer, artist, designer, producer or other function what are you focused on accomplishing during most days?
| Its cliché, but I really don’t have a typical day. I focus mainly on keeping the creative side of Fracture’s single player production moving smoothly, so I’m involved in nearly all aspects of development. We’re a very collaborative group, so most every day I’m working with the team leads to identify problem areas and attack them as soon as they come up. We play through the game, identify areas that need the most attention, and prioritize (and assign) the team tasks based on input from the publisher, focus testing, and the Fracture team itself. |
| What about Fracture excites you most as a developer? What do you think will excite Fracture fans most when they get to play it for the first time?
As a developer, I’m most excited to bring Terrain Deformation to gamers. Technically, it’s amazing how well our engine does everything you would expect from an action shooter while also moving the ground around in real time. After playing Fracture, I definitely miss using TD when playing other games.
Playing Fracture for the first time, I think people will be excited about how freely they can manipulate the ground.Hearing new players say “Oh, you can raise or lower the ground anywhere you want!” never gets old. |
| What is your favorite Fracture weapon or ability? Why?
| My favorite ability in Fracture has to be the TD Jump augmentation. This ability really speaks to the uniquely iterative nature of Fracture. It started as an exploit where a few players would time their jump just as they raised the ground under their feet to jump super high. People were having fun with this, so we changed the controls to make it much easier to accomplish, and it became a standard ability in our game. |
| What’s your favorite game of all time? Why?
| Interstate 76 is still probably my favorite game of all time. It was one of the first games that made me think of a game as an experience. The developers tied everything together in such a slick, unique package – the cars, characters, music, environment, HUD, story, even the installer. I could boot it up and get lost for hours in the world they created. |
| What’s your favorite action game of all time? Why? (If you picked an action game for the question above, feel free to highlight another action title you really enjoyed.)
| Prince of Persia for PS2 is my action game standout. It was the perfect storm of a new IP (sort of), a novel time-shifting gameplay mechanic, and an against-the-grain setting for its time. The controls were near perfect, the story was engaging, and the bending time gameplay made me wish other games had the same feature. |
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