Beowulf: The Game [PC]

GABRIELLE SHRAGER

Gabrielle Shrager

Job Function: Writer, Lead Narrative Design

Gabrielle has been writing and designing games since 1999: creating stories, scripts and interactive dialog systems, and building universes for video games. She began her career as a game and sound designer on Arthur's Knights 1 and 2 and was Editorial Director on MMORPG, The Saga of Ryzom, before joining Tiwak. For Beowulf, Gabrielle was responsible for the narrative game concept and wrote the game story and original dialogues adapted from the movie. She worked closely with Creative Director, Gilles Matouba, and Audio Producer, Alex Carlotti, in developing the dynamic dialogue system, whereby all of the main NPCs feed back to the player with respect to his Carnal or Heroic state: each according to his or her unique relationship with Beowulf-"and it's not always pretty... the characters don't mince words! When the player is being a selfish bastard, you better believe he's going to get an earful!"

In imagining an original storyline for the 30-year period not treated by the movie or epic and during which the core game design plays out, Gabrielle drew heavily on the original poem and research surrounding it, as well as Norse culture and mythology in addition to the fundamental game and movie visions. "Act 2, the Monster Within, is based on Joseph Campbell's path of the hero, naturally, and might be described as a kind of 'physical psychotherapy' for warrior types..." She also contributed to world-building via location, character and creature bibles. Gabrielle cast the voice talent and directed the voice-recording sessions for the game with A-list talents, Ray Winstone, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Brendan Gleeson, among others. "We could have hired "sound-alikes" and cut costs, but the fact that these actors knew their roles so profoundly, and their outrageous talent, truly adds an amazing dimension to the game in terms of its emotional impact on the player.

FREDERIC CONDOLO

Frederic Condolo

Job Function: Gameplay Programming Technical Director

Frederic's job consists of leading a programming team to transform game designers' ideas into innovative gameplay.

One of his main focuses has been to improve the AI of the Yeti engine, the platform that powers Beowulf. "We hope to deliver some important innovations in adaptative NPC behavior in Beowulf."

Enemies for instance will develop strategies according to your combat style. This forces the player to constantly adapt and improvise, to pick up a new weapon - or better steal it from your enemy - dodge a strike and then counter-attack. "It's much more tactical than you think."

The Thanes' AI too is a huge part of the game experience. They automatically react to your actions -carnal or heroic-and that'll change the output of battles. Fred and his team tried to introduce emotional elements into their code: your men will become more efficient in all the actions they accomplish (helping the player in critical situations, engaging enemies, opening new paths, etc.) if you boost their morale and stand by them. "The real challenge for us has been to develop a full AI cooperative system where collective AI i.e. - the sums of all individual AI - is more efficient than all individual AI. It's like a 2+2=5 equation."

As you progress in the game enemies will tend to have more efficient group strategies, they'll try to corner you and separate you from your thanes. If you try to run, trolls that are too slow will throw at you worshippers to get back at you.

Frederic was involved on numerous projects in the past including Far Cry Instincts and Far Cry Predator as Lead Programmer. Lucky Luke Western Fever (PSX - engine andf gameplay programmer), Nightmare Creatures 2 (PSX - engine and gameplay programmer), Rush Down (Animation tools programmer), Time Commando (- Sound programmer).

CEDRIC TOTON

Cedric Toton

Cedric is Graphic Technical Director on Beowulf. His team is responsible for designing the new graphical features of the latest version of the Yeti engine, baptized Yeti 3.0.

Few people are aware that Yeti is the engine that powered GRAW and GRAW2, for which Tiwak won a BAFTA Award in 2006. As Cedric explains "Yeti is an extremely powerful tool, one of the very few next gen-only engines available on the market place today." It was entirely created and developed in-house at Tiwak and for Cedric "it is a major strength to sit just next to the engineers and programmers that built it."

With an additional year of development since GRAW2, Yeti now supports new exclusive graphical innovations for Beowulf. Among them the most visually and technically impressive are the Animated Fur, Procedural Cloth and the Dynamic Post-FX tool box.

The Procedural Cloth feature as explain Cedric "enables all in-game soft bodies such as clothes, hair, and flags to dynamically interact with the environment and elements such as gravity, wind and water. Therefore, they will get heavier when wet, they'll be floating in water and hair will move accordingly to the character's motion and the wind's conditions. If Beowulf goes through a pool of blood, his trousers will be soaked and stained too." Similarly the team also designed and implemented realistic and dynamically animated fur in the engine. The fastidious task of fur shells creation is now automatic, and it's fully editable with more than 20 parameters. It adds a lot to the sense of realism and the overall immersion when you play the game.

Last but not least, the dynamic post FX, perhaps the most stunning visually, includes all kind of dynamic blurs (motion blur, zoom blur), editable depth of field and color remap. "Our artists have now full access and control to a vast range of cinematographic effects that really define the visual style of the game and make it a truly cinematographic experience."

Cedric Toton has been working in the game industry for 10 years now on award winning titles such as GRAW, Evil Twin and Tork.