Nickname: Phil or Bitchmonkey

Irrational Title: Assistant Producer, when I applied for the job it came with the description that I would most likely be called AssProd. I am also the System Admin and QA manager.

Qualifications: Aside from my Bachelor of Creative Arts, which doesn't really mean much, I worked previously in Bondi Junction [Sydney] with a company called Brilliant Interactive Ideas with Ben Lee and quiet a few other people. I got into the 3D industry pretty much after high school and I have been into it in some degree since. This is a logical step I guess, I started off as an artist and I still like to think I am to a certain degree although I haven't much practice lately. I applied for an artist position and John [Chey] said "we have a couple of other things going do you want to have a go at these?" and since I like to see myself as a jack of all trades, I have done system admin before to some degree at my last job, I covered all the bases when it came to the Assistant Producers and QA manager role. They obviously liked what they saw and went with me.

Previous games worked on: None

Soooo shiny

Hardest moment in development of any game you have worked on: I haven't been here for that long so it is hard to get anything firm in my mind. The most challenging I guess I making it fun, anyone can wack a couple of enemies in a level or make a map but the making it fun part is the most challenging part for me probably.

First Gaming system: My first true gaming system was a [Sega] Master System II Earliest gaming memories: Playing around on the Master System, WonderBoy III. Dragons Trap was probably my first really immersive gaming moment type thingy. Although, I can also remember on my first PC I got a book of BASIC games like with the BASIC programming language. I went and typed in all these games straight out of the book, none of it worked but I would amuse myself with that, hacking around with Nibbles. I have been playing around with stuff for a while.

Favourite game of all time and why: I was actually talking about this recently with a couple of other guys and my favourite is Betrayal At Krondor. I was about 12 at the time I played it, I was into the [Raymond E. Feist] books at the time. I can remember for months and months at a time my cousin would come down to my place and we would sit there playing the game for hours. It was the best game play experience that I can remember having.

Games currently playing: I am currently playing Vice City on PC. I am getting into the sports games at the moment so I am playing a little bit of Cricket 2004. I also play a little bit of DOD and Battlefield, the general multiplayer games.

Home PC rig: 2.4Ghz P4, 512MB and a shitty video card, a geforce 2 that I can't afford to upgrade just yet.

Console or PC: I guess PC, I have an Xbox at home and I really enjoy playing with that, but as far as games go PC.

Single player or multi-player or co-op: Each has got its place. I played through Max Payne 2 a couple of weeks ago and absolutely loved that and that was all single play. Then again we will have a game of DOD in the office and have a fantastic multiplayer experience too. I think it is any/all of the above, I don't really have a preference, if they can make a good single player game with a good story I will love that just as much as a multiplayer game.

You were talking about making it fun. Can you elaborate on that? How do make a game fun, is it combination of things or is it having AI that is smart enough to give you a challenge but not too good to kill you?
I think that you have pretty much hit the nail on the head there. With me at least when I designed levels on freedom force, when playing games like Max Payne I don't really play them for the challenge, if that makes any sense, I like to be able to play through the story and for that reason I like linear games. I like experiencing and immersing myself in the story. I think that anything that makes me go back and do something if I die a hundred times, I don't think that is as fun. Where I come from with my levels is that I try and make it so that it poses you a challenge, you have to try and think creatively to get around it [the level] but it's not overly difficult and don't get frustrated from trying to kill the same enemy 300 times.

So you are not into learning through death?
I hate that.

How do you see Tribes going, is it going to be an immersive story without a challenge or a balance of both? How do you see it shaping up?
I am not a designer on Tribes so...

But you are QAing right?
I haven't actually played too many of the single player levels through, but I think they are going for more sort of Half-lifeish. Half-life was a good example, it wasn't terribly difficult; I suppose that in some places it was. Have you guys heard of F-Zero X for the gamecube? It is meant to be insanely hard and you have got to play the levels over hundreds and hundreds of times to get anywhere in the game or get any sense of achievement out of it. I am hoping that they do it [not to difficult] with Tribes and it looks like they are so far but it is more story based. It is like training for the multiplayer essentially with a cool story.

How is your system admining going?
A lot of "fun", lets put it that way and I say fun in inverted commas.

You shouldn't have too many stupid users though right?
No, that is actually one of the good things about it, everyone patches up. I don't have too many problems with that. Most of the problems we have are our ISP will go down or something like that.

After the Half-life 2 source code theft was there a bigger push for security?
Most definitely, it is a big worry for me because I don't want it to be on my head if the Tribes stuff gets leaked out some how.

I would imagine that losing that sort of intellectual property and code is a huge kick in the teeth for any company.
With the Half-life 2 leak from an every cloud type perspective it did have a positive effect, I didn't actually play it myself but a lot of people I spoke to that played the leak were really impressed by it and it made them want to buy the game even more. Leaking source code is not something that you want to do deliberately.

You have done some level design?
I am doing the Freedom Force expansion at the moment.

Is there a level in any game that particularly stands out above the rest?
Only because it is a recent example and it has stuck in my head is fun park level is Max Payne 2. You play it through 3 different times, which normally would grate me because I don't like playing through the same thing twice. Each way has a different theme, the first time that you play it through there are no enemies, it is just you going through this level with all the interest characters popping up from everywhere in fun park mode. You play it through again when it is on fire and I think you play it again when there are enemies. It is the same level, it is the versatility that I really like. You can take it from totally different angles and add one feature to it and have it play a totally different way. It was not maze like, it was sort of back to the way I like to play my games. It was straight forward, I knew pretty much where I had to go, I didn't get lost. Despite the fact it was like a train track there were 3 different ways and times to play it and it provided a new and interesting game play experience. I really liked that.

Thanks for the interview Phil.