One of the most interesting games we saw at the E3 this year (we’re
really milking this E3 stuff aren’t we!) was without a doubt Forever
Worlds.  There’s just something about a big green virtual lizard
slinking across a monitor screen that draws your attention.

The game, as described by its developers, takes place “When world
famous paleontologist, Doc Maitland, finds the powerful, mythic
tree he’s been searching for all his life, he has no idea of the
enormous extent of its power. When he vanishes, his daughter Nancy
and her partner, Doctor Jack Lanser, archaeological detective,
pick up the Doc’s trail in the deep jungle of the Amazon headwaters.

While trying to find his senior mentor, Jack gets caught by a spell of a different
nature and must find his own way through a chain of non-parallel dimensions
and figure out how to prevent it all from taking place before it even happens.
In danger of being lost for an eternity, Jack has to find his way through
a strange and amazing universe to save himself and Doc Maitland from the
Forever Worlds.”

Forever Worlds developers – Peter Faulsi & Courtland Shakespeare
– are a joy to speak with and their pride in creating a game that
we predict will be the ‘sleeper’ adventure hit of 2004 is evident
(btw, if you’re wondering why my questions are so short– it’s REALLY
NOISY at the E3!):

JA – How would
you describe Forever Worlds – pure adventure, part puzzle, any
action?

This game is
pure adventure in a very traditional sense. You have a simple point
and click interface and a first person POV and you’re on a quest
to find a missing scientist. But what is not traditional is the
story and the locations. We don’t go to Egypt or visit Mayan ruins
or any of those traditional historical locations. You go back into
other times, but they are just as easily other dimensions with
all new rules. It’s more of a fantasy. There are puzzles in the
sense of problems to solve, yes, but they are very integrated into
the game. You may find a bucket and you may find some water, but
those two items may not go together. They may be useful somewhere
else. It’s a matter of finding the right place and using the right
item. It is also a very calm and peaceful environment where you
can soak up some atmosphere, so, no, it doesn’t have action like
a shooter or anything. There’s a lot of magic and unusual situations
and a tongue-in-cheek approach to some of the typical aspects of
adventure. We like to have a little fun with things. 

JA – What’s
the deal with the lizard crawling across the screen?

We really like
cute little reptiles – virtual ones, that is. There is one that
gets rescued out of an ancient piece of amber and is brought back
to life and actually helps you through part of the game, but there
is also Ix, who is your buddy. We thought it would be fun to show
his influence by having him walk over some of the images from the
game.

JA – Tell us some more about the main character

The main character
is Jack Lanser who is an archaeological detective. He is old friends
with the Doc and his daughter Nancy. That’s who the player is supposed
to be, but right from the start you get put into an unusual situation
where you can’t just be Jack who is simply on the trail of a missing
person. Instead, you begin by getting yourself physically taken
over and your body stolen by a magical person from the other side
of Foreverness. So now you have to save yourself too. You do have
a main companion, however, known as Ix. He is a little, enchanted
lizard guy who wants you to rescue him too and get him out of the
rather repetitive worlds of suspension. He talks, naturally, and
fills you in on how things work. He also has his own editorial
comments he adds in.

JA – What games have you worked on in the past?

One of the first
games was Jewels of the Oracle that came out in the Spring of 1995.
We started the idea back in ’93 when there really weren’t very
many CD-ROM games, because not everybody had CD drives back then.
It was a pure puzzle game where you went from room to room and
solved each device and got a jewel. We had to leave a lot of the
story and 3D navigation out of the game, because we couldn’t cram
another K of data onto the one CD-ROM. But it became a “classic” of
3D art combined with moody, exotic music and is considered the
grandfather of puzzle games. It was extremely well received and
you can still buy it today. It’s gone through a lot of editions.
It went into a lot of other languages too and onto other platforms.
I’ve seen packages where the only thing I recognize is the artwork – not
the name. It was also DreamCatcher’s first title and helped get
them into the adventure game industry.

After that, we
did Jewels II (originally called Gems of Darkness) and did all
the 3D on SGI processors so we could have high-end textures and
use more sophisticated lighting. We came up with more puzzles and
more versions of them and revised the interface so players could
get around really easy using a map to navigate if they wanted to.
It was pure puzzle too, but on a bigger scale – hey, we were on
3 CDs that time. People used to write me and say they played the
Jewels games by candlelight. I thought that was an interesting
attitude and said a lot about the feeling of the games.

JA – What
type of engine are you using?

We are using
the Virtools Dev 2.5 application, which can be used for action
3D, but is also very good at creating an interface to a 3D environment
quickly and handles all the media that gets added to it with object
oriented code in the form of building blocks. It is amazingly powerful.
We still do all our 3D outside of it with programs like 3D Studio
Max, Maya and Lightwave and pre-render it, but the programming
shell is all Dev.

JA – How many hours of gameplay?

We estimate the
gameplay at 25 – 30 hours with 22 integrated challenges to keep
the players guessing and figuring out the story. It all depends
on how accustomed the player is to some of the more traditional
gameplay of adventure games. It’s up to you. I know people who
can be stumped for hours on one conundrum, because they just can’t
visualize, but somebody else might see through it in minutes. Our
intention, though, in the end, is that you’ll have fun and we’ll
make you smile.

JA -Projected release date?

DreamCatcher
has us scheduled for the first Quarter of 2004.

Thanks guys.  Now
get back to work!

So if you’re
a fan of 1950’s sci-fi and you love cheesy humor (albeit done purposely!),
then the wait for Forever Worlds won’t seem like an eternity (betcha
thought I was going to say forever – didn’t’ you?).