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066 NOVEMBER 2015
Lara's back!We chat to senior designer
at Crystal Dynamics, Mike Brinker.
W e can’t remember how the conversation
headed in this direction, but when it’s
revealed to Mike Brinker, senior
designer at Crystal Dynamics, that we struggle
with the puzzles in the Uncharted franchise
because of colour blindness, he’s over the moon.
“I’m so glad you brought that up. We have
several people in the team who are colour blind
and we always run through tests with people
to make sure it works,” he replies. “When we
do our colour layering, we run it past the game
director who is also colour blind. Ironically, quite
a few members of our art team are colour blind,
so we try to stay away from colour palette shifts
and more in tunnel shifts, so you have a big
contrast.“
From colour blindness we move to puzzles;
the conversation is lurching like a container ship
in the midst of a storm. So intrinsic to the Tomb
Raider experience, puzzles are back – bigger and
better – in Rise of the Tomb Raider ; and we're
keen to learn how they
come together.
“We have a team
called the SRL team,
which stands for the
Smart Resources Lara
team,” he explains.
“What that basically
means is we spend all
of our time working out
how we build our puzzles, how we build our
mechanics to speak to Lara’s character, and how
she tackles situations in a smart, resourceful way.
“When we start to build puzzles, we go back
to what our layers of history are and what our
narrative is. You start to structure things around
that, and then, when you find those myths and
those stories that play along with the main story,
we start to work on the puzzles and how they
would feel in the specified time period.
“What’s cool about how we build puzzles
is that it’s not just about, ‘hey, go build one’.
It’s about, ‘hey, let’s start with a micro set of
concepts and then build up this beautiful ramp
where we have all these options’, and that
becomes a very diverse and very cool puzzle.”
Brinker reveals that for a triple-A studio,
Crystal Dynamics has a relatively low staff count.
What this means is that everybody is required
to, in his words, “wear more than one hat”.
This extends to the writing team, too. Although
Rhianna Pratchett writes the bulk of the narrative,
the overall story arc is very much a collaborative
effort, and this all begins with researching history.
“We start with an overall look at our research
for a history and what the story is that we want
to tell,” Brinker says. “So, we look at what some
of the myths that surround immortality are and
start with that layer of history, and then we start
to broaden it from there.
“We then write sections of the story and
present it back to the team, and we also do a
lot of focus stuff, so we have people come in
who have never seen the game before and we
bounce ideas off of them, saying, 'Hey, what do
you think about this?'
“We very quickly get a clear picture of what
people understand, are going to understand,
what they like, what they don’t like, and that
starts to formulate not just our team in-house but
also what comes from the external writers.”
Crystal Dynamics have been in charge of the
Tomb Raider legacy now for almost a decade,
replacing franchise progenitors Core Design
in 2006. Just what is it about Lara Croft that
appeals to so many gamers?
“She is absolutely driven to go and uncover
the mysteries of the world,” Brinker says. “if
you look at the evolution of the franchise, look
who Lara is, what appeals to people is that sense
of adventure and that sense of purpose. She’s
always been about uncovering those truths and
the risks and sacrifices that she has to make
in order to do that. I believe that's what really
appeals to people.”
She is absolutely driven
to uncover the mysteries
of the world
The
TOMB RAIDER
• Rise of the
Tomb Raider
is out Nov 10.
Crystal Dynamics was actually
founded way back in 1992.
Remember the 3DO? Well,
Crystal Dynamics was the first
licensed developer for the console
back in 1993. By 1996, the 3DO
was nothing but a memory.
The studio’s first game was
the racer Crash N Burn in 1993; a
launch title for the 3DO.
The critically acclaimed
platformer Gex, one of the best
selling titles on the 3DO, was a
Crystal Dynamics game.
Crystal Dynamics took control
of the Tomb Raider franchise
in 2003. Tomb Raider: Legend,
released in 2006, became the
fastest selling game in the series.
Tomb Raider Developer,
Crystal Dynamics