Interview with a former Rare employee: Don Murphy!

Folt Warlock Necromancer from Hollow Bastion! >=D Since: Jun, 2010

Warlock Necromancer

#1: Aug 22nd 2012 at 6:57:37 AM

Full name: Donnchadh Murphy! He goes by Don Murphy in game credits (at least the ones I've seen). The interviewer, Emily Rogers, is from Not Enough Shaders.

Link here.

What I found interesting was what he said about Killer Instinct, a project called Savannah that was never greenlit, his talk about Conkers Bad Fur Day and Nintendo's view on it, and Rare's secretiveness:

On Killer Instinct:

Probably the same game every Rare fan wants to see and that’s KI 3 (Killer Instinct 3). We all wanted to make KI 3, but Microsoft [was] more interested in broadening their demographic than making another fighting game. So it never got made, I doubt it ever will.

On Savannah, a project that was never greenlit:

“Savannah” was the brain child of Phil Dunne. Phil’s concept was to create a realistic savannah environment where you raised a lion cub from birth to its adult life, teaching it survival and social skills to survive the harsh life in the wild. We knew of the Kinect coming out but we had no real info on how good it was, but the plan was to try and use that technology in “Savannah”.

It was an interesting concept and it was fun to work on, we really tried to push the technology of the 360 to get the most out of the graphics. The lions and Hyenas were using a custom shell system for the fur, and with the help of a great programmer called Cliff Ramshaw, I think we got some of the nicest looking in-game fur I’ve seen. It was only ever a prototype, and it never got a green light.

On Nintendo's stance on Conkers Bad Fur Day:

Back in those days Rare was the golden child, so when they announced that we were changing direction there was no objections, none that I knew about anyway. I’m so glad it did change, because “Twelve Tales”, to put it politely, was not a good game. Chris Seavor took the reins in BFD and took it a direction nobody expected.

On Conkers Bad Fur Day itself:

I don’t remember much being cut. Most of those ideas came from Chris Seavor, he was the twisted genius who came up with them. I do remember us joking about the mighty poo, saying it would be hilarious if we had a giant pile of poo that sang classical music. Like a lot of the gags they started out as a joke, and then Chris would announce that it was going in the game, so I’d draw up some concepts and model up the characters and the rest is history.

On Rare's secretiveness:

Sorry I can’t shed more light on this, Lee Musgrave was leading the project, but I never actually got a chance to see it. As I said before Rare was very secretive, the employees didn’t have access to the other buildings, so projects were going on internally that you may never see in full or at all in some cases. It was actually one of the things I disliked about Rare at that time. I believe the concept was to encourage the teams to be more competitive between themselves, therefore pushing the boundaries all the time. But it often led to people feeling a little distrusted.

All in all, I found it quite interesting.

Fantastic Supreme Überkaiser Emperor Folt of The Infinity and Beyond" ... "The First"!

RomanG Since: Jul, 2012

#2: Aug 22nd 2012 at 8:43:29 AM

Remember me? :p

Yes, this interview was highly interesting, Emily is impressively adamant in looking for new business insiders to talk to. We strive to continue delivering exclusive content like this to you.

Folt Warlock Necromancer from Hollow Bastion! >=D Since: Jun, 2010

Warlock Necromancer

#3: Aug 22nd 2012 at 9:33:30 AM

Yay!

I am especially interested in info regarding Rare's relationship with Nintendo, so his answer regarding Nintendo's view on Conker's Bad Fur Day got my attention. It was not at all what I thought he'd say.

Fantastic Supreme Überkaiser Emperor Folt of The Infinity and Beyond" ... "The First"!

romanticaveman Sidekick from Catan Since: Jan, 2001

Sidekick

#4: Aug 23rd 2012 at 9:38:27 PM

Great article! It's really unfortunate that Rare had several ideas shot down working under Mircosoft. While I still have a bias towards Nintendo, it doesn't really bother me who Rare's working under as long as they're able to thrive, and it doesn't look like they've been so fortunate lately.

Despite the general fan hatred around Nuts & Bolts, I enjoyed it, and it really showed what Rare could do when it got to flex its creativity muscles. They need more projects like that these days.

Admittedly about fifty percent enlightenmentCaveman too.

PippingFool Eclipse the Moon from A Floridian Prison Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...

Eclipse the Moon

#5: Aug 24th 2012 at 1:19:22 AM

Fand hated Nuts & Bolts not because it was a bad game per see, but because it was a subpar Banjo game.

Much like how Journey Of Dreams isn't a bad game, just a subpar Ni GHTS game.

I'm having to learn to pay the price

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