Tuesday
Aug032010
Hydro Thunder Hurricane Interview
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 3:07PM
One of my favorite things about the gaming world is that it’s perpetuated by minds more creative than most of Hollywood. Yet, we never really see or hear from these people beyond the occasional trade show where you can forget about smaller titles like Live Arcade games! That’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to highlight those developers who have taken the road less traveled and brought us games on a budget.
Today’s interview is with Matt Small from Vector Unit. He’s responsible for the excellent Hydro Thunder Hurricane on XBLA.
Q1: If you don't mind telling us, what is your name, GamerTag and contribution to Hydro Thunder Hurricane?
My name is Matt Small. I'm the Creative Director, which meant I designed all the levels and art directed the game, as well as building some of the environments and boats. GamerTag is Smaul.
Q2: Before we jump into Hydro Thunder talk, how is the economic climate affecting the team's development goals (and the games industry at large)? Do you have any stats for us? Any corners cut during development?
Q3: Can you offer us any approximate sales figures for the first week? Were expectations met?
Sorry I can't discuss sales specifically. But we've been pretty happy with the reviews and the sales overall.
Q4: Hydro Thunder was a huge success in the arcades of old and was widely heralded as one of the best racing games to be released. Do you have the original cabinets networked in the offices?
I wish! I've played it in the arcades, but we're not so fortunate to have a cabinet here at the office. We did most of our HT playing on the DreamCast.
Q5: What are the team's thoughts on Kinect and will Hurricane make any use of this new hardware via patch or DLC?
We love the idea of Kinect and are excited to do something with it on our next game. No plans to update Hurricane for Kinect though -- I think Kinect will work best with games that utilize broad gestures, like swinging your arms or moving your whole body. Hurricane requires really precise controls, and I think it plays best off a controller or a wheel.
Q6: Hurricane has benefited from a major overhaul. Did the team have creative freedom to do as it pleased or were you bound by the parameters of the original arcade title? Any temptations to drift (pun not intended) outside the box?
We had a lot of creative freedom. We chose to stick to what made the original game truly awesome, like the boost mechanic and the crazy environments, but we also wanted to add some new elements to the game. We spent a lot of time on the water physics, making it feel much more realistic and interactive than in the original game. We also added the drafting mechanic, and of course spent a lot of time tuning the online multiplayer to make it super lag-free.
We needed to remake all the environments from scratch because the 360 is just so much more powerful than the hardware Midway had back in the day. And since we were remaking them anyway, we decided to built all new tracks, with new layouts and shortcuts. The boats we decided to keep from the original, because fans all have their favorites -- Rad Hazard, or Tidal Blade or Damn the Torpedoes -- but of course we redesigned them and added all new animations and effects.
Q7: San Francisco Rush 2049 was my all time favorite arcade game. Any chance you can work your Hurricane magic on that property as well? I would die and go to heaven for a Dreamcast version remake! What lies ahead for the team?
I would love to take a crack at Rush 2049. I loved that game. But we're not planning on working on it right now. We really enjoy that style of epic arcade racing game though, and my hope is that we'll be able to bring more of these types of games to consoles, whether they're sequels or original titles.
Q8: It's always fun to get an insider's look at game development. Any funny stories that altered the course of the game's development? Any "it's a feature, not a bug" moments?
Recording voice for the game was really fun. Most of the voice was done by our sound engineer, Robb Mills -- he did all the copilot voices in Hurricane, and did an amazing job. We had a script for him, but he did a lot of ad-libbing too. When he recorded the reaction lines (stuff like "Holy COW!" or "This is crazy!"), he ad-libbed this one that was just a crazy Tourette syndrome litany of curses, "Holy F*$*%) JES*#! CH#(*# SHI$(*# MOTH#R$*#)#)G!!" and stuck it in the game to surprise us. The first time we heard it in the game we were rolling on the floor laughing. Unfortunately we had to take it out to get our E-rating :-P
Q9: Almost every game that launches these days has some form of downloadable content. Can you offer us any insight into DLC plans for Hydro Thunder Hurricane?
We are working on it now. I can't give away any specifics yet, but expect more tracks and more boats!
Q10: Ok, last question. Can we ever hope to see a sequel in the form of Hydro Thunder Typhoon? We know Hurricane just launched, but you can never have too much of a good thing right?
It depends on a lot of things -- Microsoft, Midway/Warner, other plans of our own.... hopefully it all comes together though because we'd love to! We already have plans for things we'd like to add for a sequel, and I believe we could expand on this game and make it even better.
Many thanks to Matt Small for taking time to answer my questions! Check out our review of Hydro Thunder Hurricane in our Live Arcade section and download the demo on Xbox Live.
Today’s interview is with Matt Small from Vector Unit. He’s responsible for the excellent Hydro Thunder Hurricane on XBLA.
Q1: If you don't mind telling us, what is your name, GamerTag and contribution to Hydro Thunder Hurricane?
My name is Matt Small. I'm the Creative Director, which meant I designed all the levels and art directed the game, as well as building some of the environments and boats. GamerTag is Smaul.
Q2: Before we jump into Hydro Thunder talk, how is the economic climate affecting the team's development goals (and the games industry at large)? Do you have any stats for us? Any corners cut during development?
It actually didn't affect us too much during development. One good thing was that we were staffing up right when a bunch of talented people we knew were let go from their jobs, so we were able to offer them positions on our project.
Q3: Can you offer us any approximate sales figures for the first week? Were expectations met?
Sorry I can't discuss sales specifically. But we've been pretty happy with the reviews and the sales overall.
Q4: Hydro Thunder was a huge success in the arcades of old and was widely heralded as one of the best racing games to be released. Do you have the original cabinets networked in the offices?
I wish! I've played it in the arcades, but we're not so fortunate to have a cabinet here at the office. We did most of our HT playing on the DreamCast.
Q5: What are the team's thoughts on Kinect and will Hurricane make any use of this new hardware via patch or DLC?
We love the idea of Kinect and are excited to do something with it on our next game. No plans to update Hurricane for Kinect though -- I think Kinect will work best with games that utilize broad gestures, like swinging your arms or moving your whole body. Hurricane requires really precise controls, and I think it plays best off a controller or a wheel.
Q6: Hurricane has benefited from a major overhaul. Did the team have creative freedom to do as it pleased or were you bound by the parameters of the original arcade title? Any temptations to drift (pun not intended) outside the box?
We had a lot of creative freedom. We chose to stick to what made the original game truly awesome, like the boost mechanic and the crazy environments, but we also wanted to add some new elements to the game. We spent a lot of time on the water physics, making it feel much more realistic and interactive than in the original game. We also added the drafting mechanic, and of course spent a lot of time tuning the online multiplayer to make it super lag-free.
We needed to remake all the environments from scratch because the 360 is just so much more powerful than the hardware Midway had back in the day. And since we were remaking them anyway, we decided to built all new tracks, with new layouts and shortcuts. The boats we decided to keep from the original, because fans all have their favorites -- Rad Hazard, or Tidal Blade or Damn the Torpedoes -- but of course we redesigned them and added all new animations and effects.
Q7: San Francisco Rush 2049 was my all time favorite arcade game. Any chance you can work your Hurricane magic on that property as well? I would die and go to heaven for a Dreamcast version remake! What lies ahead for the team?
I would love to take a crack at Rush 2049. I loved that game. But we're not planning on working on it right now. We really enjoy that style of epic arcade racing game though, and my hope is that we'll be able to bring more of these types of games to consoles, whether they're sequels or original titles.
Q8: It's always fun to get an insider's look at game development. Any funny stories that altered the course of the game's development? Any "it's a feature, not a bug" moments?
Recording voice for the game was really fun. Most of the voice was done by our sound engineer, Robb Mills -- he did all the copilot voices in Hurricane, and did an amazing job. We had a script for him, but he did a lot of ad-libbing too. When he recorded the reaction lines (stuff like "Holy COW!" or "This is crazy!"), he ad-libbed this one that was just a crazy Tourette syndrome litany of curses, "Holy F*$*%) JES*#! CH#(*# SHI$(*# MOTH#R$*#)#)G!!" and stuck it in the game to surprise us. The first time we heard it in the game we were rolling on the floor laughing. Unfortunately we had to take it out to get our E-rating :-P
Q9: Almost every game that launches these days has some form of downloadable content. Can you offer us any insight into DLC plans for Hydro Thunder Hurricane?
We are working on it now. I can't give away any specifics yet, but expect more tracks and more boats!
Q10: Ok, last question. Can we ever hope to see a sequel in the form of Hydro Thunder Typhoon? We know Hurricane just launched, but you can never have too much of a good thing right?
It depends on a lot of things -- Microsoft, Midway/Warner, other plans of our own.... hopefully it all comes together though because we'd love to! We already have plans for things we'd like to add for a sequel, and I believe we could expand on this game and make it even better.
Many thanks to Matt Small for taking time to answer my questions! Check out our review of Hydro Thunder Hurricane in our Live Arcade section and download the demo on Xbox Live.
Reader Comments (3)
Amazing post. I have bookmarked your site. I am looking forward to reading more
Thank you very much for sharing this. I have subscribed to your RSS feed. Please keep up the good work.
Great game I love it ...................... and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to going mulit platform. Seriously though its awesome to see you guys expanding