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ICC Chairman
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Spin cricket magazine have conducted an interview with Brian Lara International Cricket Producer Justin Forrest. Here is the full text from the interview.
Justin Forrest has spent 18 months in a darkened room producing the new version of Brian Lara Cricket. He says it's the ultimate cricket computer game. SPIN says: Get some fresh air, son
How long have you been in the games-designing racket, then?
Seven years. I've worked on a few action-adventure games, but my focus has been sports games. When you're brought up in southern Africa as I was, you play an incredible amount of sport. I captained the school football, tennis and cricket teams, did hockey, athletics, swimming- so sport is an area where I have specialist skills to offer games design. A lot of people working in the games industry don't play sport...
What are they? More indoorsy sort of people?
Yeah. I'd say in general that's probably the case. The kind of people who've really learned how to programme and spent a lot of time on computer artwork et cetera, tend not to play much sport. They're not outdoor types.
They're not so good with girls: that's what you're saying, isn't it?
I'm not saying that! I wouldn't quote me on that. No, basically it's more of an indoors type thing, computer programming, and England is much more of an indoor type culture. I think one of the skills I can offer is that I've played these sports at a high level and I understand the dynamics and the mechanics of what makes them fun.
How long does the whole process take?
About 18 months. You start off with a story document that might be 150 pages, but once you've added the final detail of how the game works, plus the commentary scripts- we have David Gower, Jonathan Agnew, Ian Bishop, Tony Greig, Jeff Thompson and Bill Lawry in the new game- you're talking about 1,500 pages of material. Then there's a team of 16 programmers and artists involved. I'd say together we've produced the best cricket game that's ever been made. It has 850 seperate animated moves in it- the last Brian Lara game probably had less than 100.
How exactly do you animate those moves?
I did the modelling for the motion capture myself, wearing a humiliating, tight lycra body suit and having these reflective ping pong balls put in key areas across my body, so my movements could be digitised. The I had to do all 850 movements- all the shots, different bowling styles, running, linking movements- plus you have to mime being hit in the head and hit in the box and so on...
So the key difference with this game is attention to detail...
I've played a lot of cricket games in the past, not just computer games, but dice games and board games et cetera, and one of the biggest problems with computer games is that you never get a sense of the batsman's skill: they've all had a set amount of animations: a few very orthodox, technically correct shots. So you might get, say, Devon Malcolm playing a cover drive off one knee. Which would never happen. Our game has three sets of animations for different styles and levels of batsmen.
What's your top score?
I got 96 the other day, playing as Freddie Flintoff...
So the guy who designed the game can only get 96! What kind of advert's that?
Well, we haven't finsihed 'balancing' it yet. You develop a game by concentrating on the core of the game, making sure it works as a cricket simulator; then you deal with the 'balance', make it easier and easier. People will be able to come in and hit fours and sixes from the off...
You wouldn't agree that your games encourage kids to stay in and be pale and fat?
Well, kids do like to stay in and play computer games. But I don't think that stops them going out and playing sport. I have a great love of cricket and I don't think it's promoted well enough. Part of my motivation is not just making a game that sells well- I want it to encourage a greater level of interest in the sport. Playing our game encourages interest in the real game. If kids are just staying inside and not going down the nets, that's a seperate issue- the onus is on the goverment, the schools and the ECB to get money into grassroots facilities and make this much more of a mass-market sport.
Brian Lara International Cricket for Playstation 2, Xbox and PC is available from July, rrp ?29.99. www.codemasters.co.uk/brianlara
Peer Lawther has also replied to the members questions sent to him by my site Cricket World. Vist now to read the answers! http://cricketworld.lastx.net
Justin Forrest has spent 18 months in a darkened room producing the new version of Brian Lara Cricket. He says it's the ultimate cricket computer game. SPIN says: Get some fresh air, son
How long have you been in the games-designing racket, then?
Seven years. I've worked on a few action-adventure games, but my focus has been sports games. When you're brought up in southern Africa as I was, you play an incredible amount of sport. I captained the school football, tennis and cricket teams, did hockey, athletics, swimming- so sport is an area where I have specialist skills to offer games design. A lot of people working in the games industry don't play sport...
What are they? More indoorsy sort of people?
Yeah. I'd say in general that's probably the case. The kind of people who've really learned how to programme and spent a lot of time on computer artwork et cetera, tend not to play much sport. They're not outdoor types.
They're not so good with girls: that's what you're saying, isn't it?
I'm not saying that! I wouldn't quote me on that. No, basically it's more of an indoors type thing, computer programming, and England is much more of an indoor type culture. I think one of the skills I can offer is that I've played these sports at a high level and I understand the dynamics and the mechanics of what makes them fun.
How long does the whole process take?
About 18 months. You start off with a story document that might be 150 pages, but once you've added the final detail of how the game works, plus the commentary scripts- we have David Gower, Jonathan Agnew, Ian Bishop, Tony Greig, Jeff Thompson and Bill Lawry in the new game- you're talking about 1,500 pages of material. Then there's a team of 16 programmers and artists involved. I'd say together we've produced the best cricket game that's ever been made. It has 850 seperate animated moves in it- the last Brian Lara game probably had less than 100.
How exactly do you animate those moves?
I did the modelling for the motion capture myself, wearing a humiliating, tight lycra body suit and having these reflective ping pong balls put in key areas across my body, so my movements could be digitised. The I had to do all 850 movements- all the shots, different bowling styles, running, linking movements- plus you have to mime being hit in the head and hit in the box and so on...
So the key difference with this game is attention to detail...
I've played a lot of cricket games in the past, not just computer games, but dice games and board games et cetera, and one of the biggest problems with computer games is that you never get a sense of the batsman's skill: they've all had a set amount of animations: a few very orthodox, technically correct shots. So you might get, say, Devon Malcolm playing a cover drive off one knee. Which would never happen. Our game has three sets of animations for different styles and levels of batsmen.
What's your top score?
I got 96 the other day, playing as Freddie Flintoff...
So the guy who designed the game can only get 96! What kind of advert's that?
Well, we haven't finsihed 'balancing' it yet. You develop a game by concentrating on the core of the game, making sure it works as a cricket simulator; then you deal with the 'balance', make it easier and easier. People will be able to come in and hit fours and sixes from the off...
You wouldn't agree that your games encourage kids to stay in and be pale and fat?
Well, kids do like to stay in and play computer games. But I don't think that stops them going out and playing sport. I have a great love of cricket and I don't think it's promoted well enough. Part of my motivation is not just making a game that sells well- I want it to encourage a greater level of interest in the sport. Playing our game encourages interest in the real game. If kids are just staying inside and not going down the nets, that's a seperate issue- the onus is on the goverment, the schools and the ECB to get money into grassroots facilities and make this much more of a mass-market sport.
Brian Lara International Cricket for Playstation 2, Xbox and PC is available from July, rrp ?29.99. www.codemasters.co.uk/brianlara
Peer Lawther has also replied to the members questions sent to him by my site Cricket World. Vist now to read the answers! http://cricketworld.lastx.net
