From its
inception, The X-Files Game was expected to set a new standard
for the full-motion video game genre. By addressing aesthetic and production-value
issues generally neglected by FMV games-specifically the quality of
the script, acting, and photography - as well as the technical compromises
needed to have video play on a computer - The X-Files Game was
to combine engaging gameplay with the narrative interest of an "interactive
movie." With the genuine success of the X-Files television
series, the game had a running start in achieving its ambitious goals.
It already had a rich, fully-developed backstory to use, the same award-winning
production company that shot the weekly episodes set to produce the
game video, and a prospective audience that included not only gamers,
but a much larger universe of people who both owned a computer and liked
the X-Files.
The intended
audience of The X-Files Game was - first and foremost - the fans
of the show. Therefore, game design had to appeal to people who were
not traditional gamers, and who would expect the same artistic quality
that attracted them to the show to appear in the game. At the same time,
we also wanted the game to engage the typical adventure gamer, and thus
we had to be mindful of the need to include other aspects of traditional
adventure games (combat sequences, interesting puzzles, explorable environments,
etc). We essentially had to create two games in the same title: one
that met both the standards of the fans of the show, and fans of adventure
games.
FMV games,
as a rule, are difficult to execute well. Traditionally, production
standards for games have been mediocre to grindingly bad. As a result,
the genre now suffers from an image problem. Many consumers avoid the
concept of an exclusively FMV game simply because all previous examples
have been so poor. Overcoming such ingrained market expectation was
a daunting proposal, and convincing Fox Interactive of the wisdom of
producing such a game was daunting in the extreme. Indeed, it's safe
to say that it was primarily the X-Files' creator Chris Carter's
interest in an FMV title, coupled with the strength of the license,
that allowed the game to be made. HyperBole Studios had completed two
FMV titles prior to The X-Files, Quantum Gate and The
Vortex, so the company was well-suited to address particular needs
of an FMV game.
Considerable effort was invested in creating a game that would be wholly
consistent with the television show. Nearly a year of pre-production
was spent in developing the story and writing the script; the central
plot was developed by Carter himself, and the majority of the script
written by Richard Dowdy, a writer from the show. The X-Files Game
also melds relatively seamlessly into the greater X-Files mythology.
The game was given its own "case number" (or episode number)
- 3X99 - which placed the games' events, in X-Files dramatic
time, somewhere between the end of the third and the beginning of the
fourth television seasons.
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The
look and feel of the X-Files game was to be just like that of
a television episode.
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Many hours
were spent to ensure that the video for the game was on a par - aesthetically
and technically - with an X-Files episode. No corners were cut
in the production; crew, lighting, and even smoke machines were perfect
down to the detail. Our association with Chris Carter's production company
Ten-Thirteen allowed us the use of A-list technical and acting talent
from the outset. Our Director of Photography had worked on several of
the shows from the series. David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and the
other actors from the show were secured for their appearances through
Fox Interactive. Location shooting at realistic times of day was also
made much easier by having a big-name production company on-board, and
I think the results of shooting in actual warehouses or woods instead
of on a sound stage speak for themselves. I feel confident in declaring
the game footage equal to or better than that of most independent or
mid-budget feature films.
But shooting
on location was just the beginning. One of the largest technical hurdles
was the creation of high-quality video that would both play well on
a minimum-spec computer and fit on a reasonable number of CDs. Previous
FMV games (such as Phantasmagoria and The 7th Guest) had
been forced to significantly reduce image quality and frame rate to
get playable video. The "postage stamp" phenomenon of a tiny
video window surrounded by an immense border, or the "black-line"
technique that interlaced active video lines with black, were both common
solutions to the bandwidth problem. Everyone involved knew that the
X-Files had to somehow achieve what no one had done before, which
was to display full-frame, full-color video on a computer that real
people actually owned. Anything less would undermine the quality of
the game.
For the
PC/Mac version of The X-Files, we concluded QuickTime was the
best possible video playback format. We felt the tools this choice made
available to our video team and its codecs would allow us the greatest
hope of producing the first FMV game that made no sacrifices in image
quality and gave the player a true cinematic experience. While we did
letterbox the image, giving the player a cinematic and not a TV experience,
that was the only concession made to bandwidth. In this pursuit of quality,
we largely succeeded. If the player had a relatively new computer, we
were able to provide video quality that was comparable to VHS. Players
with older computers could achieve respectable video playback, as we
provided a great deal of control over the image quality and video playback
configuration. We correctly anticipated that players with older systems
- or oddball BIOSes or video cards - would need to experiment to find
settings that worked best for them. In this way, QuickTime also gave
us many more options for dealing with nonstandard hardware than, say,
AVI. As a result, we were able to achieve image quality that was simply
the best we'd ever seen in an FMV game.
PSX video
playback was also a challenge, as the Sony standard 16-bit video format
didn't meet our quality standards. After several disappointing attempts,
we had the good fortune of being introduced to Nick Pelling's FPQ library,
a 24-bit video playback technology that gave us stunning results at
a compression ratio that allowed us to stream off the CD at single-speed.
We were the first title to use this new technology.
The interface
for the game and the gameplay design were similarly refined over a long
period, with much attention paid to finding the common ground between
the seasoned gamer and the X-Phile. The game uses a proprietary in-house
technology called VirtualCinema. VirtualCinema was designed to be an
enabling technology for cinematic interaction that could be used to
develop titles that were primarily composed of FMV sequences connected
with video loops or static navigation views. Implemented as an authoring
tool for directors, editors, and other end-users, VirtualCinema's intention
was to allow developers to make sophisticated game worlds with minimal
need for additional programming resources. VirtualCinema was also seen
as being useful to education and WebTV, where it would allow teachers,
advertisers or content creators to quickly make intricate, high-quality
"interactive" story worlds.