Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda Interview

GameStar.ru offers an interview with extensive answers from Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda, ArenaNet and DoubleBear designer, about her past with Obsidian and her current work on Guild Wars 2 and Dead State.

Tell about years of your work for Obsidian. And tell, please, about ‘Project New Jersey’ and Aliens RPG.

Ha! Going right for the shadowy stuff, eh? I wish I could go into more details, but the Non-Disclosure Agreements that protect those old titles hang around for a long time, and are not things to be trifled with, even when you don’t work for the company anymore. It’s considered in terribly bad form to break one – even a little bit – and as a game developer, it impacts your relationship with both your current and your future employers. I’m certain I have a reputation for being a terrible tease about those two little-known titles, but for as much as I seem to be coy about them, I really do wish I could say more than has been said elsewhere. The fact of the matter is that the great revelations about these games are not mine to make – if only because I can’t write my own paycheck should things go poorly for me as a result.)

THAT BEING SAID – Project New Jersey was the game I was brought onto Obsidian to work on initially, and where I really got my first shot in more well-developed game systems such as ambient creatures and level design. It wasn’t long for this world, sadly, and part of the reason I suppose much didn’t get out there was that there wasn’t all that much game as yet. I myself was only on it for a couple of months, but I did grow very fond of it, as I think everyone else on the project did as well.

I was a dedicated member of the Aliens team for probably a grand total of four weeks – I’d followed its progress at the studio and given feedback on various documentation, but I didn’t really get to work on it directly until my last month or so at Obsidian, when I was swapped off the end polish for Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir to write for it. I felt rather bad about that, too – there was a really interesting cast of characters that had been created for the game, and I really wanted to write for them. I told Josh Sawyer it was like being handed a basket of the cutest kittens in the world and being told I could pet them for a bit, but I was forbidden to take any home. (…And now since the game is dead, I’ve inadvertently got you all thinking of dead kittens. I’m a horrible person.)

One interesting thing that the Aliens RPG had in common with Dead State (and something that intrigued me as a writing challenge then even as it does now) – with each character, there is a possible moment where they’re fully aware they’re going to die. Not in this “oh no chief, are we gonna make it” kind of vague way, but in a very clear and definite one: they’ve been facehugged – or they’ve been bit. They’re dead in a matter of time, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. What a fantastic litmus test for a character! You rarely get that kind of moment of terrifying clarity in writing. It’s almost like you’re cheating the system, getting a thought experiment like that. It’s heavy and exhausting and chilling to write, but kind of thrilling in its own way, because the player, too, knows exactly what that moment means – everyone’s approaching it with the same understanding. Heavy stuff.
(…and then you have to lighten the mood with a fart joke or something. Kidding!)