Ken Levine Keynote

Ken Levine held a keynote speech at Develop 08, entitled BioShock and Awe: Immersing the Gamer in an Alternate World Without Drowning Out the Gameplay. Videogaming247 offers a list of tidbits, while Eurogamer split it up into Ken Levine warning against early focus testing and talking about the blessing of extra development time.

“We didn’t get as much time as Blizzard does, but it was a lot more than we used to get,” said Levine. “Time… Lets you stop drinking your own Kool-Aid, step back and see how things really are.”

The team gave a few examples of early ideas for BioShock that didn’t work out – including an early prototype featuring a monster called “eel-man”, which dragged itself across the floor. “Not only could it not move, it could even turn invisible!,” commented lead technical artist Nate Wells. “I thought it would be terrifying,” Levine lamented, before Wells added that “its main attack was making you feel awkward”.

The BioShock team was also disparaging of approaching game development with everything planned out in advance – rather than allowing the game to emerge and adapt during the process.

“AAA games are about never being satisfied,” Wells told the audience. “If you aren’t biting your nails on release day, you’ve screwed up.

“It’s easier to make a schedule, work out what your levels will be like, how your characters will look… But the game will be boring,” he said. “It’ll be more like a product than like art. Making art is about fighting, arguments, throwing glasses,” he concluded, referencing a now-infamous moment when Ken Levine threw his glasses on the floor in anger during a design meeting.