Entrevistamos a Robin Hunicke, Diseñadora Jefe de MySims
Para completar este fin de semana dedicado a MySims, la trilogía del avance especial y la presentación en España se completa con esta entrevista a la diseñadora jefe del título, Robin Hunicke.
RG: What is the main purpose and how important are the essences? / How did the idea come up?
RH: Essences are one of the core “curre
ncies” of the world so there is no money but you can actually collect and harvest these essences and I hope you progress to the game. So they are very critical to the gameplay and also some essences will only be available when the Sim achieves certain tasks and so in that way they’re a little bit left away but in the gameplay so you have to work to be able to get new things. And hopefully that discovery will be fun. It is a little bit more like pay. So you have to earn your pay. And the idea actually came up in a design conversation with Charles London who is one of the Senior Designers of The Sims franchise. He designed a very interesting system that revolves around this idea of an object that can be built out of blocks and the paint palette. And he is a fantastic designer.
RH: Essences are one of the core “curre
ncies” of the world so there is no money but you can actually collect and harvest these essences and I hope you progress to the game. So they are very critical to the gameplay and also some essences will only be available when the Sim achieves certain tasks and so in that way they’re a little bit left away but in the gameplay so you have to work to be able to get new things. And hopefully that discovery will be fun. It is a little bit more like pay. So you have to earn your pay. And the idea actually came up in a design conversation with Charles London who is one of the Senior Designers of The Sims franchise. He designed a very interesting system that revolves around this idea of an object that can be built out of blocks and the paint palette. And he is a fantastic designer.RG: Are expansions of any kind being considered for this game? Maybe online updates?
RH: I can´t speak about this at this time.
RG: Online gaming has officially taken off on the Wii. Did you start the project with any kind of online play/communication in mind?
RH: Online play is certainly something that has been featured that I look forward in games. One of my first favorite games was M.U.L.E. which was a multiplayer game for the Commodore 64 and why I loved it was because you could play it with other people so, most certainly online play was a big part of the original design, something that we thought about quite a bit. One of the joys of being a game designer is that you get to think about a lot of different features that you can put into the game, but not all of them always make it! So it’s been interesting to learn -for me especially as this is my first game as the Lead- things that you can think of don’t always get done. So definitely, online play would be fantastic and hopefully we will be able to deliver it in the future.
RH: I can´t speak about this at this time.
RG: Online gaming has officially taken off on the Wii. Did you start the project with any kind of online play/communication in mind?
RH: Online play is certainly something that has been featured that I look forward in games. One of my first favorite games was M.U.L.E. which was a multiplayer game for the Commodore 64 and why I loved it was because you could play it with other people so, most certainly online play was a big part of the original design, something that we thought about quite a bit. One of the joys of being a game designer is that you get to think about a lot of different features that you can put into the game, but not all of them always make it! So it’s been interesting to learn -for me especially as this is my first game as the Lead- things that you can think of don’t always get done. So definitely, online play would be fantastic and hopefully we will be able to deliver it in the future.
RG: “Small Changes, Big Results”. We’ve basically talked about those small changes. How big do you think this exclusive “result” will be for the Wii consumer?
RH: (laughs) The team has worked really hard to deliver a game that appeals to a broad audience that aloud people at all ages and all walks of life to express themselves and be creative and hopefully we have done our job which is to deliver this on the Wii platform so that it’s approachable and new people will try and play it. Our core experience as developers, as the team, has been that is a fun game to play and that it was fun to make and I hope that it’s just fun for the people that have the opportunity to play it on the Wii. That will be the big result. Joy goes into the game, and joy comes out.RG: That’s all. Thanks a lot for your time.
RH: Thank you.