Q&A with Paul. . .  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?
My name is Paul Armatta, and I’m a Producer at LucasArts.
It’s possible that the first game I ever played was Pong. I’m pretty sure we were also listening to the new Kiss album at the time. Clearly, I’m so old, I can’t remember for sure.
When I was in Jr. High, a friend and I used to ride our bikes to the mall every Saturday and play Astrosmash. Sears had an Intellivision set up in the electronics department, and I’m not sure why, but they didn’t seem to care that we would play the game for hours and hours. Sometimes other kids would come by and want to play. Sometimes we let them.
I also remember playing a lot of Defender, Scramble, and Joust while chewing that terrible gum that came with Wacky Packs at the neighborhood 7-11.
In college, I played a lot of Super Mario on the NES after a night out drinking. I still can’t get the music from that game out of my head.
I got my first job in the industry through a friend (the same guy I played Super Mario with in college) who was working in Customer Support/QA at EA. Answering phone calls all day long is not the most enjoyable experience, but it was a great introduction to the video game industry.
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| Walk us through a typical day – as a programmer, artist, designer, producer or other function what are you focused on accomplishing during most days?
Producer: check my calendar, check email, go to a meeting, check calendar for new meetings, check email, go to more meetings, play the game, check in with QA, check in with the Developer, go to another meeting.
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| 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?
I know everyone else has a similar answer, but I think the terrain deformation is very, very cool. It’s pretty tough to create something new and innovating and get it working well in a game these days, and I think Day1 has done it. Like Dan mentioned, I think people will miss TD when they play games after Fracture.
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| What is your favorite Fracture weapon or ability? Why?
It’s a toss up between the torpedo launcher and the vortex grenade. I think the primary reason I like both of these weapons is that I’m kind of a chicken and not great at aiming when I’m on the move. Both of these weapons let me sit back and unleash massive amounts of destruction on unsuspecting enemies.
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| What’s your favorite game of all time? Why?
Maybe WoW, but probably Bejeweled 2. I never get tired of playing it. And, I can play in the privacy of my own bathroom.
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| 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.)
I loved Lord of the Rings and Devil May Cry, but my favorite is God of War because the controls are great and the story was so well implemented.
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