The outgoing year can be called the year Command & Conquer. In the spring, Command & Conquer 4: Epilogue – the last and not the most successful game of the franchise. In the summer, the series exchanged a spot – however, fans of this anniversary were more likely survived than celebrated. And in the fall there was information that Epilogue is not an epilogue at all. In winter, Gambling hopes for the best and recalls who invented the genre of strategies in real time and how “Dune 3 in a fabulous environment” has turned into Command & Conquer.
In which business should two friends from Las Vegas should invest money? Build a casino sparkling with dazzling lights? Remove the basement of the basement under the strip bar and dive there busty dancers? Grump the hotel and earn money for sin arriving in the city by tourists? Or maybe open a car dealership on the rental of gorgeous convertibles? All this sounds tempting, but Brett Spirri and Luis Castle took up a non-core business for Las Vegas-game. Not where one -armed bandits and poker machines, but to those where computer games.
In 1979, the Spirri family moved to Las Vegas from Connecticut-through the whole country. Brett treated the video for a pleasant hobby: they say, fun, they will not bring big money. He entered the faculty of architecture and psychology of Arizona State University, but at the same time was engaged in programming: “Computers were always interested in me. I was fond of them back at school, but it was just a hobby. There was no question of any career. I had to go to college and think about how to earn a living, because then the game industry was not developed as it is now. ".
Louis Castle was not so reasonable. From childhood, he raved video games, painted on sheets of paper of imaginary heroes. But the home computer for a long time was a pipe dream for him: “I learned about computers in secondary school. Went to visit a friend, we played together. I was delighted. I also really wanted a computer, but my father said that we could not afford it. And I decided to save the money myself: I got a job, getting a dollar and twenty -five cents per hour. And raised $ 2100 on Apple II ".
Give him a printer
Like much more, series Command & Conquer and other wonderful games Westwood Studios would not be born if not for one happy chance. At the end of 1983, Brett Spirri worked as a programmer in one educational office and ported games for the company Epyx. Once he looked at the Century 23 computer store, behind the counter of which Luis Castle stood. They quickly found a common language. “Brett was for me something like a hero-because he made games, but I only dreamed about it. I envied him terribly, ”Castle admits.
Once in 1984, it took something to print something. Brett did not have his printer, and he went to Castle. Louis took advantage of the moment and showed one of his creations to the authoritative guest-a technical demo with a pseudo-3D picture. “I tried to make a three-dimensional graphics, but Apple II did not pull the full-color 3D-image in real time, so I had to create an illusion of 3D,” says Louis. “The demo really looked very original. Let it be not three -dimensional graphics, but it looked like a real 3D. It was then that I realized how talented Luis, ”Brett continues.
Friends started working together. Brett did not have his own computer, so he stayed in the office at night and programmed there. Soon, however, he was caught – and kicked out. “I did not regret that I had lost a good job. After all, it was these night gatherings that prompted us to create Westwood. We often gathered and talked, more precisely, dreamed of how it feels to work in the company and create a game that millions would play in. So we could speak forever. However, then I realized that there was no sense in this. Enough to dream, it's time to act!"
In the summer of 1985, Brett and Louis hit their hands, called Epyx and said that they wanted to sign a joint contract.
At the beginning of glorious affairs
The new company was called Brelous Software (derivative of the names of the founders – Brett and Louis). But ten weeks later, the friends decided that it was “too lame”, and came up with another – Westwood Associates – in honor of a small California town with a population of two thousand people. The developers often went there to watch movies, go shopping and drink a coffee.
Friends did not have money for a normal office, so I had to put tables with computers in the garage. At first, the young company traded in black work: ported games from 8-bit consoles to 16-bit. In 1985, friends transferred a role to Amiga The Temple of apshai trilogy and received for this their first fee – $ 18,000. “Then our business grip was zero. When we were given the first check, we had no idea how to exchange it for money, ”says Castle.
A clear separation of roles was established in the tandem. Louis was engaged in animation and programming, and Brett took the design and was responsible for all financial affairs. A little later, they were joined by the programmer Barry Green – also a friend of the Century 23 store. Together, friends spent the Super Cycle motorbikes, Winter Games and World Games, a step -by -step strategy Wargame Construction Set, Summer Summer Sports California Games and even cards Blackjack Academy Symbol Sports.
By 1987, the team has grown up to six people. The developers signed a contract with the Strategic Simulations publishing house and received an order to create an IBM version of the role-playing game Phantasie 3: The Wrath of Nikademus (the engine for her Louis wrote in some two weeks). Then there were Roadwar 2000 and Roadwar Europe, the first completely independent project – RPG Mars Saga for Electronic Arts, and then – one and a half dozen full -fledged games for Strategic Simulations, Infocom, Monarch Software, Disney Software.
The Higher League
The turning point in the life of the Westwavives was the release of the trilogy Eye of the Beholder , RPG in the popular Forgotten Realms universe. Having released it, the developers decided to tie with porting of other people's projects and the creation of simple games. Now they make only first -class titles.
At the end of 1991, when the company consisted of 30 people, Westwood Associates became property Virgin Games (the deal cost $ 10 million). Virgin was lucky: in 1989, the head tried to buy Sierra Entertainment Ken Williams, however, the proposed conditions did not arrange a castle and sperm – their freedom of creativity was too limited. Virgin offered less money, but did not go into development: the company was worried about whether the game was making profit, and what kind of game it was the tenth business. After the merger, Westwood Associates renamed Westwood Studios.
By the way, it is interesting that shortly before the sale of Westwood Brett and Louis showed Ken Willyas Adventuru The Legend of Kyrandia. They were especially proud of Point & then Click interface and thought that Ken would impress it very much. But it wasn’t there: after watching the game, Ken turned on a secret demo with a fifth part on the computer King’s Quest – with exactly the same interface, which subsequently became a business card of all Sierra quests. Friends' jaws.
With the transition under the wing of Virgin Games, the gold era of Westwood began. First came out The Legend of Kyrandia, then, in December 1992,-the legendary Dune 2: The Building of A Dynasty. The number “Two” in the title took up the fact that the publishing house ordered a game from Frank Herbert's books at once to two companies. Advenchura from Cryo Interactive Entertainment appeared a little earlier, and the game Westwood Studios automatically assigned the status of a sequel.
“Dune 2 is the result of many experiments with the interface and design. Development reminded me of the collection of a puzzle. I tried to figure out how to create a game on a weak platform, but at the same time provide with fresh ideas, make it interesting. We worked on the principle of “what if you try it and like this …” – shares the secret of success Brett Spirri. From the novel in the game there was only a setting Slots Muse sister sites and the names of two opposing forces – Atreides and Harkonnenov. The third party, Ordos, the developers came up with themselves.
Dune 2 is considered the ancestor of the RTS genre – real -time strategies, but many argue with this. Strategic elements were borrowed from the early game of the Westwavives, BatTletech: The Cresscent Hawk’s Inception ; In addition to this, connoisseurs of the history of computer games are called the very first RTS spectrumovskaya Stonkers 1983. But, whatever one may say, it was in the second “dune” that a number of distinguishing features appeared (mini-card, team panel, war fog, resource mining), which can still be found in any RTS. By the way, the phrase “Real Time Strategy” came up with Spirri when he was asked what to write on a box with a game.
Battle for Tiberius
And so we approach the most interesting – to the appearance Command & Conquer, which was originally conceived as a kind of branch from Dune 2. At first, they were going to make a game about the Second World War at Virgin. For some time she even wore the code name Dune 3. Then at some stage they decided that we needed a fantasy strategy in real time: with warriors, wizards and other fairy-tale characters. Then Brett Spirri proposed an option in which the modern world would parody. “The war was in the news, the threat of terrorism settled in everyone in my head,” recalls Luis Castle. – Definitely, it had a great effect on the fictional world of Command & Conquer ".
At first, only six were engaged in the game – and those are half -hearted, because I constantly had to be distracted by three parallel projects. But over time, Dune 3 has overgrown with original ideas and turned into a completely independent game. Instead of Spice, Harvesters began to extract Tiberius from deposits – a unique substance that pulled various useful minerals from the bowels of the Earth and crystallized them inside, gradually increasing in size. It was impossible to come up with a more practical mineral and it was impossible to come up with – if not one side effect: the territory around the fields with Tiberia became lifeless, the ambient temperature fell, ion storms occurred. So the basis for the strategy appeared. “We solved one of the main problems that developers face when creating RTS. We wanted to have a central, anchor resource for which everyone would fight. In Dune 2, they were spice, in Command & Conquer became Tiberius. He gave wealth and power, but was final, and people fought for him, ”explains Luis Castle.
One of the warring parties, a secret society called the Brotherhood of NOD, advocates the spread of Tiberius. The stronger the alien mineral spreads on the ground, the more supporters the brotherhood. The second side, the confederation of GDI, sees only danger in Tiberia. “We swung on a classic story about the confrontation between good and evil,” recalls sperm. – wanted to stir the deepest fears of people. Once they were afraid of the Soviet Union, now they are afraid of terrorism. What will happen if you take a really strong charismatic guy who will create an organization that can capture the whole world?"
Iron issue
Command & Conquer was created on the improved Dune 2 engine: The Building of a Dynasty, but the screen resolution was still modest 320×200 points. The developers used an unusual interface at that time. The construction and repair of factories, as well as the hiring of units, was carried out using the control panel located on the right side of the screen. Players did not need to choose a special building – it was enough to click on the icon on the side panel. The classic of the genre, however, did not become this interface: a couple of months later it came out Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness with a much more convenient vertical interface, which is used in RTS so far.
“It was the most difficult thing for us to place hundreds of units on the screen, calculate where they could go and not overload the central processor of the computer,” Castle recalls. The developers were not sure that everything would work as it should. But then they arranged several battles in the office-and "realized that they came up with something special".
Perhaps the main highlight of Command & Conquer has become a multiplayer regime. Four people could simultaneously play on a network or through a modem-at that time for RTS it was something out of the ordinary due to very low data transfer speeds between computers.
Let’s Rock!
Musical accompaniment for the game was written by Frank Clepaki. In 1990, sixteen-year-old Frank began his career in Westwood Associates as a beta tester, and a year later composed music for Eye of the Beholder 2: The Legend of Darkmoon And for a long time he stuck the place of the full -time composer of the company. For Command & Conquer Klepaki wrote in 1994 22 tracks-slabing techno-short-compounds organically combined with gameplay.
Casting for filming in numerous intermissions were engaged in one good acquaintance Westwood Studios – thirty -year -old Joseph David Kukan, who played in C & C Kane and voiced the characters of The Legend of Kyrandia. To the honor of Joseph, he managed to put a pretty good team from unknown actors.
Filming took place in the pavilion against the background of a special green fabric – chromakes; Later, the developers filled the background with different three -dimensional objects. In total, about 40 minutes of video were created for the game. They took up so much space that Command & Conquer had to be released on a new carrier for those times-CD. The game, by the way, easily climbed into one CD, but Westwood sold boxes with two disks so that the buyer could immediately try out the multiplayer: “You have a friend? Destroy it!"
Another Command & Conquer
If you carefully look at the illustrations on the back of the box, you will find that they differ from screenshots of the final version of the game. Say, the developers changed the command panel located in the right corner at the very last moment, but the design of the box was agreed in advance, so screenshots from beta version were printed on the cover. By the way, they can also be seen in several Western magazines that published reviews before the release of the game. Fans, for example, are highly appreciated by July release PC Gamer for 1995 – with "non -existent" screenshots.
In general, a lot of things changed in the development process – the appearance of heavy transport aircraft, infantry power costumes; The four -wheeled buggy of the fraternity was at first like two drops of water looked like a quad from Dune 2, and the attacking motorcycle drove on three wheels. Even the play logo – and he was redrawn.
The developers left part of the ideas for later. So, in the second part of the series, the weapons and clothing of the Brotherhood NOD migrated weapons and clothes. When creating attack aircraft in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars The sketch of an energy suit from the first C & C was used. Finally, in the early design, you can find images of screenshots. The alien race first appears in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, And as a playable faction, it is available only in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.
The feeling of the game
Westwood Studios showed the game to the general public at the very first exhibition E3. From May 11 to 13, 1995, 38 thousand visitors of Los Angeles Convention Center could observe a cut of three -dimensional videos. Producer Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Amer Ajami says that for the first time he saw C& C precisely on E3: “I walked past the Westwood stand and noticed a video in which the plane crashes against the tower of the Arabic minaret and turns into a ball of fire. The scene lasted only five seconds, but it struck me ".
Command & Conquer turned out to be very addictive. Instead of checking the game for errors, the testers were unexpectedly forgotten and simply enjoyed the passage. “I often noticed how they start a campaign and check a certain element, but then they are distracted and play for fun,” one of the developers says proudly. “I noticed that the testers spend their free time behind the game, which, in theory, was just a job for them,” another echoes him.
* * *
Immediately after the release of Command & Conquer has for a long time stabbed a place on the tops of various charts. The counter fled – one million boxes, the other. Given the reprints, the game was sold by a circulation of over ten million copies – with this achievement of Westwood Studios was included in the Guinness Book of Records.
“It's funny, but many believe that the developers perceive their work only as a business. Money for us is undoubtedly important – as well as for all the other people who want to feed their family, says Castle. – But with us, I think, the feeling of the game has not yet cooled. We are still gamers – part of a large community. Over time, my passion for games only increases – like responsibility to fans. At any time I have the right to change the whole project and glad that I can pass on my imagination to people. This is exactly what brings me. And absolutely does not matter if success or failure awaits me. The appearance of each game for me is akin to the birth of a child ".