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?).