I interviewed dudes who made The Last Express

[Chris]

Anyone here remember The Last Express?

It was an adventure game made by Jordan Mechner (Prince of Persia, Karateka) in 1997, set on the eve of World War I and played essentially in sped-up real time with the assistance of a time rewind mechanic later revisited by Mechner in The Sands of Time.

The game was amazing and ambitious, but a bunch of terrible coincidences, mainly having to do with publisher Broderbund, meant the game was only on sale for a couple months and had basically no chance to catch on in the marketplace -- it also had what ended up being an unexpectedly exorbitant budget.

I recently tracked down the original producer and tech lead and interviewed them for about an hour about the experience of developing the game. I think it's pretty fascinating (I can say that because it's all their words) and I hope people actually read it. We kind of buried the article in the Thanksgiving holiday because it's about a ten-year-old game that didn't sell well, but I think it's worthwhile, because a lot of what it achieved is still rarely attempted in games.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3862/the_last_express_revisiting_an_.php

[brkl]

Oh, man, I'll definitely give this a read tomorrow. That's one awesome game.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Awesome, I'm definitely going to read that!

I remember reading something about how they found the last remaining original Orient Express cart and photographed the fuck out of it so that the ingame one was entirely accurate. Apparently before they found it no-one knew it existed.

I'd love to see it translated into a fully 3D enviroment, I bet it would totally rock.

[Marek]

Absolutely great interview. Loved it.

And it's cool that Jordan Mechner left a comment.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Man, it really makes me want to go back and play Last Express again. Nice job!

Maybe Mechner would be interested in doing an interview, too?

[Roderick]

Great to read all of that! I never really played The Last Express, it flew under the radar. But the setting seems extraordinary and the level of detail great. Plus, the visual style. Gotta score this somewhere, even though adventure games generally bore me a bit nowadays. But this seems different.

Good interview, Chris =)

[Marek]

Maybe Mechner would be interested in doing an interview, too?

I'd definitely read that. He's got very interesting things to say about game design, especially considering that he comes from a very different film background. At least, I remember really liking his interview in the book Game Design: Theory & Practice.