Tone Control Season 1 comes to a close: Episode 14 with Ken Levine

[Steve]

Alright folks, here it is! The capper for S1: me and Ken Levine, chattin it up:

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/tonecontrol/episodes/ken-levine

 

May 1, 2014 A long journey's road comes to an end. We always arrive back where we started. Circles within circles... there's always a man.. there's always a city.. there's always a podcast. In this, the final episode of Tone Control Season 1, I sit down with my former boss Ken Levine to talk about the origins of Irrational Games, BioShock, and that time we worked together on BioShock Infinite. Thanks again for listening.

 

Games Discussed: System Shock, System Shock 2, Freedom Force, BioShock, BioShock 2: Minerva's Den, BioShock Infinite, Gone Home

[melmer]

[deleted user]

Nice. I always look forward to when these come out, shame it's the last one! Are you planning on doing any more in the future or you taking a break for a bit?

[I Speel My Dreenk]

Great job on these, Steve. It must've been difficult to find time for you and the interviewee to sit down and chat for a few hours, and with 14 fewer candidates (barring repeats) it likely won't get easier. Even so, looking forward to another season!

[sclpls]

Wow, extended 80's mix of the theme music at the end of this episode!

 

Must have been tough talking to Ken about all this stuff because I could easily see you doing an individual episode on any one of Irrational's games!

 

I really liked your question about the shift from Irrational as a scrappy PC developer to making games with just this incredible level of polish in terms of art direction, as well as the question about the tension between making a more mainstream Shock game despite the fact that these games are incredibly weird. I don't know if Ken gave a satisfactory answer, but then again I'm not sure that there is one. That's part of what makes Bioshock special. In so many ways it's as improbable as the failed utopias it depicts.

[zerofiftyone]

I'm not sure if this has been linked in any of the other episode threads, but if anybody was looking for the track used as the theme music, you'll find it here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SERGZh6XB2M

[Steve]

I'm not sure if this has been linked in any of the other episode threads, but if anybody was looking for the track used as the theme music, you'll find it here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SERGZh6XB2M

 

You sure as hell will.

[Steve]

 really liked your question about the shift from Irrational as a scrappy PC developer to making games with just this incredible level of polish in terms of art direction, as well as the question about the tension between making a more mainstream Shock game despite the fact that these games are incredibly weird. I don't know if Ken gave a satisfactory answer, but then again I'm not sure that there is one. That's part of what makes Bioshock special. In so many ways it's as improbable as the failed utopias it depicts.

 

Yeah I think it's a hard question to answer (though that's kind of the point of this podcast.. which makes it my fault if I can't get to the heart of this kind of thing.) But on some level it's just like, I make weird stuff, I can't help it. So... games?

[brkl]

So when was this recorded?

[Salacious Snake]

That cat has so much rude 'tude, winking at me while his New Orderesque theme tune plays. 

[Jake]

So when was this recorded?

Says in the ep it was recorded at GDC. After it was announced irrational was closing, but right before burial at sea part 2 came out.

[kilanash]

Even though it's an often brought up phrase (necessity is the mother of invention), it's fascinating to hear from the mouths of the creators themselves about how limitations (in scope, budget, technology) affect and shape the decisions made in games, and then how retroactively we pin intent, design and clever forethought to it.

Also, I'd never heard of subtractive BSPs before. Learn something cool every day.

[Schnapple]

I liked Jake's idea of Tone Control hunting down some of the more obscure and/or controversial developers, such as:

 

- Find one or more of the developers of PYST, the MYST parody that starred John Goodman. Ask what it was like to work on a project that was sort of the "Weird Al" of games. And are they still in the industry?

 

- Find someone responsible for bringing Big Rigs: Over the Road racing to market and ask: why? how? who thought this was shippable? http://cinemassacre.com/2014/03/19/avgn-big-rigs-over-the-road-racing/

 

- Interview people who were big in the game industry a long time ago and got out, like Roberta Williams or Chris Crawford.

 

- Interview people notable for their failures, like John Romero or George Broussard

 

- Interview people who work for the ultra obscure corners of the industry, like Derek Smart or one of the guys who makes those $90 hardcore wargames. 

 

- Find a developer who used to work for Nintendo. As in, we all know that there's tons of good games for Nintendo systems like Super Mario 3D World and Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, but outside of a few visible people like Miyamoto, who knows who works on these games? I would imagine a ton of people work on them but you never hear from them, ever. 

[Jake]

Wait, you mean Steve's idea, right?

[sclpls]

I think he means J Allard's idea.

[pabosher]

You mean Cool Uncle.

[Schnapple]

Wait, you mean Steve's idea, right?

 

I thought you were the one who joked they should find the PYST guys.

 

Might have my voices confused again...

[Steve]

I thought you were the one who joked they should find the PYST guys.

 

Might have my voices confused again...

 

Jake is the one. Though I do remember Pyst existing in a Babbage's in 1995.

[your name here]

f/congrats steve.

[monkehhh]

Cheers for these Steve (and guests) - I've really enjoyed the series. The amount of video game stuff I'm ingesting at the moment is making me trying to make a game inevitable!

[feelthedarkness]

Yeah, congrats on the series. All in all I thought it was really spectacular and enlightening, though it also filled me with a kind of horror and malaise that I don't get to be a part of games.

 

I know it's probably not a pleasant question to ask, or maybe too confrontational for somebody you're friendly with, but I would have loved to ask Ken Levine: Are you happy with how BS:I turned out? Thoughts on the violence in the game, and how it got to be that way,  in that it's kind of rote/default in a game that seems to have greater ambitions? (sidebar, i still mostly like BS:I)

 

Also, like Diablo 3, I would love to have heard what didn't make it into the game, or really about the versions of the game that didn't ship. 

[Spenny]

I really enjoyed this series so I hope there is a second season of Tone Control. As someone starting out in this industry it's super great to hear the stories of people whose work I greatly respect, it's great to hear most of them have very humble beginnings. Thanks for making a great podcast Steve.

[}?pZ'o@8~4$b@!t?]

Thanks for the great season. Always looked forward to listen to the next one.

I listen to the Gambit Looking Glass Podcast series you mentioned and it's also great. For learning about game development in general and throughout the 90s PC Game industry especially. Read "Masters of Doom" recently  and although it's a tad more dramatized than a interview series like Tone Control or the Gambit Looking Glass Studios Podcast. It was a facinating contrast of the range of 90s PC development.

So I recommend the Looking Glass Studios Podcast http://gambit.mit.edu/updates/audio/looking_glass_studios_podcast/ to everyone waiting for the new Tone Control Season.