GN: Did you or the team ever have any say in which games were to be included?
Jeff Vavasour: We do have a certain degree of say, but there are many factors that determine what goes in and what does not. We have favorites that we certainly lobby for, but we're also limited by what's technically possible. STUN Runner wasn't going to be emulated on the Sega Dreamcast, for example (even though the Dreamcast can do a more complicated game than STUN Runner natively, emulation, like I said, throws a lot of overhead on top which makes it impossible). There are also legal issues. As much as I'd love to have Star Wars on an Atari compilation or Tron or Discs of Tron on a Midway compilation, that's almost never going to happen.
In terms of bang-for-the-buck, we're also motivated to pick the highly recognizable games - the ones that are going to turn peoples' heads when they see it on the shelves. Still, if a game hardware supports an obscure game, sometimes we throw it in for fun. That's why Bubbles and Splat! can be found on these compilations: their hardware is related to Robotron's, so we can add them in without much effort. Sometimes people complain about the inclusion of obscure games, thinking they've displaced a slot another game could've taken. That's not true. We just see them as bonus material, not much different than the video interviews or memorabilia.
GN: Many gamers noted an occasional save glitch in the first Phantasy Star game on the PS Collection for Game Boy Advance. What caused it?
Jeff Vavasour: Yeah, that's a bit of an embarrassment. It doesn't manifest on the development kit so it's not something we could see until it went into production. Talking to the programmers on that, I was told that it's a timing issue with the save game, wherein it interferes with the sound playback as it's shutting down. There are a few other instances of bugs in our game, before and since, that didn't manifest on the development units.
GN: Dragon's Lair for the Game Boy Color was considered a great achievement, considering the limitations of the hardware, and a newer version would no doubt benefit from the increased power and touch screen dynamic of the Nintendo DS. Would this be as feasible as it sounds (and it sounds great!)? I can imagine a set including both Dragon's Lair games, or perhaps those that never saw a home release, like Cliffhanger and Thayer's Quest. Possibility or pipe dream?
Jeff Vavasour: Yes, we're quite proud of Dragon's Lair. One of the things that's funny about it, though, is that the lower quality of the screen meant less detailed (and less voluminous) art. As the performance of the systems went up, so did their graphics quality. So, the DS is more powerful, but the art load is heftier, too. 16 colors, 6 FPS or less wouldn't be tolerated on the DS.
I'd say it's possible, but in terms of difficulty, it'd be no easier. Put on top of that the fact that the art in Dragon's Lair was touched up by hand, frame by frame. For the DS, there'd be about 12x as much art to touch up. That's a lot of artist manpower. So, it's possible, but the tedium factor would be extreme.
To give people the quality they'd expect, Dragon's Lair and its kin, at this point, are better suited to a platform where full motion video is natural. That said, there are a few video codec solutions for the DS that we could look into if there was interest from the rights holders.
GN: Several of the games you worked on for Xbox Live Arcade (Joust, Gauntlet, Robotron 2084) have been warmly received by the gaming community. Is programming for Microsoft's online service any different in practice than a standard release?
Jeff Vavasour: Programming for Live Arcade is different, but familiar. The games are much more online-play oriented, so that factor is a new feature for arcade emulation, but not new to game programming in general. The enhancements and achievements require us to delve more deeply into the arcade code, using reverse engineering to extract what we need. In that sense, it's just the marriage of a set of skills that we haven't applied in quite this way before, but programming for Live Arcade is still pretty comfortable.
One particularly gratifying thing for a developer, too, is, once you've got sign-off on your game, it's on the service within 24 hours. We don't have to wait three months for the box to show up on the shelves. It's thrilling to the team to get such timely response to their work. Traditionally, we'd burn the candle at both ends to get a product "shipped", go home and collapse for a couple weeks, and then have moved on in those intervening months. We'd be well into the next project before the reviews and user feedback started to happen.
GN: You and your team managed to breathe new life on Live Arcade into games that had previously been released several times, and the new achievements and online multiplayer capabilities added new dimensions to what many believed was already perfectly balanced gameplay. Were Midway and others supportive of these changes, or did they require some convincing?
Jeff Vavasour: We're very respectful of the game balancing. We consider these games perfected, too. That's why people still want to play them more than two decades later. Midway, Microsoft, and Digital Eclipse were all of the same mind: don't mess with perfection. Still, achievements are an essential part of the Live Arcade experience. So, what the achievements are, is the person standing next to you in the arcade that goads you on: "I once saw somebody clear this entire level on one ship, and he never missed a shot! I bet you couldn't do that!" The game is the same; it's just about how you play it.
Even one of the more radical variations for online play is something you could do on the original game. In our online cooperative mode of Robotron, one person can move while the other person can fire. You coordinate via headsets. This is just like two people standing side-by-side in the arcade, each controlling a stick (and, yes, I have seen that done in real life!).
The achievements and enhancements bring back a social dimension to these games, for perhaps the first time since they were standing up in the arcades. The social aspect was a big part in what made some of these games compelling, Gauntlet being the primary example. So, these enhancements complement the game, but do not alter it. That's our philosophy.
GN: Classic game collections and Xbox Live Arcade are becoming a testament to the fact that good gameplay will always be popular, no matter how much graphics progress, yet Microsoft's own Live Arcade GM Greg Canessa recently stated in an interview that Nintendo's own line of classic games "won't hold up." Do you agree?
Jeff Vavasour: Nintendo's games are very unique in character and have a dedicated following. I know there are people who are going to welcome being able to play Nintendo's back catalogue. I think it's just a matter of Microsoft and Nintendo going for different demographics.
GN: The Xbox 360 is a beast of a machine, and Capcom has recently announced that Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting will be making its way to Live Arcade. This is a significant step up in power from the titles already offered. Is there really any limit to the types of games that can be offered there?
Jeff Vavasour: Well, I suppose the only practical limit is the Xbox 360 itself (as much as that's a limit) and how long you're willing to wait for a download. My understanding is that Live Arcade is not meant to replace the retail channel. You're not going to be downloading something that'd require a DVD's worth of storage. Still, there's a ton you can do without having to resort to a DVD. There's definitely a lot of breadth left to explore.
