14 DAY TRIAL // Richard Lemarchand, who is the co-lead designer working on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, the latest game from Naughty Dog, has told an audience at the Montreal International Game Summit that one of the big secrets for the success of the franchise has been that the developers were ready to inject a lot of emotion into their game and had the freedom to do so.
He talked a little about the creative process at Naughty Dog, telling the audience, “At the very beginning of a project, we do lots of brainstorming. Then we get to work as quickly as we could implementing these ideas, and they give us fixed reference points… this is one way that making a video game is fundamentally different than making a movie.”
He added, “We don't use any kind of formal methodology”, which means that all the people linked to the game are able to deliver creative input in the initial stages of video game development.
Communication is key for the team working on Uncharted and all the developers are encouraged to be brutal when it comes to assessing the work of others, pointing out all potential problems.
This quick and powerful quality assurance system means that the team can introduce features that other developers are not able to handle, like making the game very emotional at times, encouraging gamers to develop a close link to the characters.
Uncharted has long been known for the quality of their storytelling and Lemarchand says that another secret is that the characters they create are use less snark and condescending that those seen in other series.
Drake's Deception is now out all over the world and has been getting very good reviews, although some have complained about how the title is veering ever closer to the world of movies than that video games.