DGC Ep 255: Bonus Interview with James Ohlen

Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return to our series on Baldur's Gate with an interview with James Ohlen, who was lead designer on the title. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown: 0:50 Interview 52:50 Break 53:21 Outro

Issues covered: starting a comic book store at 19 right before the market crashed, the origin of Minsc, starting at BioWare, building an IP bible as a way to start, working the killer hours and becoming the lead designer, putting in the 25000 hours, getting lucky and selling millions of copies, the impossibility of faking love, the choice between real-time and turn-based leading to pause-and-play, being delayed by Diablo, having contributions from everyone for design, sharing credit, feeling of playing D&D more important than perfect translation, balancing being easy due to so many party members, feeling smart, finding patterns in your party, relying on save and load, random numbers, the team testing the game, using characters from the binder, finding the voice for Minsc, writers taking ownership of voice, the passing of a player, bringing in characters from more players, growing the Sword Coast, staying away from the main space others were used, the perks of working for Wizards, four types of player, learning to respect player types, the end of a game being less tested, fighting the "dumbing down" due to overplay, engaging with the community, Karzak the Half-Orc and Gromnir and criticism, incorporating another player's character in to some coming work, caring so much for the license, being able to put infinite hours in.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Arcanum Worlds, Odyssey of the Dragon Lords, Wizards of the Coast, Kevin Martens, Image Comics, Magic: The Gathering, Cameron Tofer, Augustine Yip, Warcraft, Doom, Dungeons & Dragons, Shattered Steel, Scott Grieg, Malcolm Gladwell, Fallout, Civilization, Gold Box (series), TSR, Interplay/Black Isle, Chris Avellone, Chris Parker, Feargus Urquhart, Blizzard, Diablo, David Brevik, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Michael Backus, Chris King, Lukas Kristjanson, Gary Gygax, Ross Gardner, Dean Anderson, Icewind Dale, Trent Oster, Beamdog, Richard Bartle, David Gaider, Drew Karpyshyn, LucasArts, Starfighter, Mark Garcia, Sands of Tim/Brett-e Davis, Hitman 3, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, Troika, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time: More Prince of Persia!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub [e-mail]