Tag Archives: programming

Shadow Madness (PS1)

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Shadow Madness was a turn-based RPG for PS1

Links: Shadow Madness (Wikipedia)

At Crave, my title was Design Director and I was slated to head up the creation of a premiere PS2 title. Several teams hit crunch mode and I offered to dive in and help them ship. Weeks after our release candidate was ready, Crave HQ moved to close the studio.

Note: Ted Woolsey is now Senior Director, Digital Publishing at Microsoft Studios)
Contact: ted_woolsey@hotmail.com

Here is what my boss Ted had to say about my work…

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to introduce Nick Newhard to you. Nick was hired in late Fall, 1998, to be the Director of Design for a new RPG video game product at Crave Entertainment. When he came on board, the production team was busy integrating game assets and scripting Crave’s PlayStation RPG, Shadow Madness, which is shipping on May 29, 1999.

The team was in urgent need of design/scripting talent when Nick joined Crave, so we asked him to learn the complicated scripting language we developed to support the title. Without a complaint or comment, he took to the task and began building screens per the design documents. Nick soon became one of our most creative scripters. He worked well with our engineers and artists, and was able to offer suggestions and redesign scenes to make them more interesting for the player.

After the team completed the integration/scripting of Shadow Madness, another team, at work on Caesar’s Palace for the N64, needed engineering support. Again, and in spite of his Director of Design job description, Nick quickly came up to speed on this project, and began helping to write code and analyze and improve the design. As was the case on Shadow Madness, his peers regarded him as a reliable, creative individual with a strong work ethic.

The management at Crave was impressed with the manner in which Nick approached his tasks. He always had a positive attitude and was an employee in good standing at all times. Unfortunately for Nick and the other employees at Crave in Seattle, Crave has reassessed its strategy regarding internal development, and is divesting itself of its studio in Seattle. We were sorry to see Nick and the other developers, designers and artists leave before their first game even shipped.

At any rate, I can enthusiastically recommend Nick to you, and hope he is give the opportunity to put his skills and creative vision to good use for your company.

Best wishes,

Ted Woolsey

VP Internal Development

Crave Entertainment, Inc.

Blood Plasma Pak

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Horror-themed first person shooter. Blood: Plasma Pak was our first expansion and included new levels, weapons, enemies, and game play.

  • Metascore: 82
  • User score: 9.2 Universal Acclaim

Links: Q Studios, Metacritic Profile

Reviews: GiantBomb, GOG

Interviews: Over the years, I’ve given a few interviews but this one is my favorite.

As owner and co-founder of Q Studios, I contacted Apogee/3DRealms, negotiated our development contract and advances, and ran the studio’s day-to-day operations.

On Blood, I was the Lead Designer but much of our great content grew organically from our passionate, humorous, and diverse team. Towards the end of the project, I took over programming responsibilities and also negotiated the merger/acquisition with Monolith. We repurchased the publishing rights to Blood and released the game on our own terms, garnering great reviews even to this day.

I championed and communicated the product vision at all levels, led play-balancing of game systems, weapons, enemy AI, level design and difficulty, and multiplayer functionality. I corralled feedback from the core team, QA department, play-testers, and executive team. I collaborated with internal and external Project Managers to keep various projects on track. I also instituted a formal game pitch submission process to review and assess new concept proposals.

  • Negotiated the merger of Q Studios and Monolith Productions
  • Assumed Lead Programmer role from alpha through release for both Blood and the Blood: Plasma Pak add-on.
  • Successfully completed last-minute change requests to add competitive game features, such as CTF play.

 

Blood

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Horror-themed first person shooter.

  • Metascore: 82
  • User score: 9.2 Universal Acclaim

Links: Q Studios, Metacritic Profile

Reviews: GiantBomb, GOG

Interviews: Over the years, I’ve given a few interviews but this one is my favorite.

As owner and co-founder of Q Studios, I contacted Apogee/3DRealms, negotiated our development contract and advances, and ran the studio’s day-to-day operations.

On Blood, I was the Lead Designer but much of our great content grew organically from our passionate, humorous, and diverse team. Towards the end of the project, I took over programming responsibilities and also negotiated the merger/acquisition with Monolith. We repurchased the publishing rights to Blood and released the game on our own terms, garnering great reviews even to this day.

I championed and communicated the product vision at all levels, led play-balancing of game systems, weapons, enemy AI, level design and difficulty, and multiplayer functionality. I corralled feedback from the core team, QA department, play-testers, and executive team. I collaborated with internal and external Project Managers to keep various projects on track. I also instituted a formal game pitch submission process to review and assess new concept proposals.

  • Negotiated the merger of Q Studios and Monolith Productions
  • Assumed Lead Programmer role from alpha through release for both Blood and the Blood: Plasma Pak add-on.
  • Successfully completed last-minute change requests to add competitive game features, such as CTF play.

 

Cancellations

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Alas, some games are not meant to be. I’ve worked on a few cancelled projects. The most painful was the demise of the Privateer Online MMORPG, cancelled a mere two weeks after our GDD, TDD, and biz plan were approved (and funded!) by EA.

Here is a list of cancelled projects I worked on:

Unannounced Azada-series Game & Puzzle Design, Lua Scripting, Writing
Azure / Game Community Producer / Game Designer
PopCap “Solitaire” and others Game Programming / Game Play Design
Privateer Online / MMORPG Senior Game Designer – Systems
Renegade Legion / CRPG Engine & Tools Programmer

Links related to Privateer Online for the morbidly curious: