ECTS 1998 Ubi Soft Enter…inment Press Kit (Europe)/ECTS 1998 Ubi Soft Entertainment Press Kit (Europe).bin/text/INTER/GB.cst/00019_Field_FWM.txt

Text File | 1998-08-21 | 6KB | 210 lines

Interview with Daniel Blackburn  -
Producer of Football World Manager.


1.  Not heard of Caffeine before.  How
long has the company been going?

The company was set up in October
1996 and has been working on
Football
World Manager ever since.

2.  What have Caffeine done before?

This is Caffeine's first title.  However,
the Directors have been involved in the
computer games business for very
many years.  Dave Martin used to have
his own publishing label, Martech,
which was very successful on the early
8 bit and 16 bit computers during the
80's.  He then spent some time at
Gremlin as their Marketing Director so
has been involved with Premier
Manager, plus many other hit titles.
Roger Womack has worked on strategy
games for years, including his own
successful football 'Play-by-Mail' game
plus 'Football Director', 'Player
Manager', 'HeroQuest' and 'Space
Crusade' to name a few.  I joined the
company straight from University
although I
have always been involved in computer
games and I'm a very keen gamer and
a devoted football fan.  We also have a
great team of programmers, artists and
 researchers with a good blend of youth
and experience.  There is also a real
love of football running through the
team which is imperative when creating
 a game like World Manager.

3.  A keen gamer.  What are your
favourites at the moment?

After football management games the
game that I play most has got to be
quake,  network death-matches are
excellent.

4.  A football fan.  Huddersfield I
suppose?

No, we do have three Huddersfield fans
 here but I'm a Hull City fan.  We have a
good spread of football fans in the
office, including L**ds, Sheffield United,
Rotherham and Chesterfield fans.
This obviously leads to some good banter
around the office.  Everyone can't wait
for the season to start, I'm particularly
looking forward to Hulls first match at
Rotherham, especially after last
seasons nine goal thriller.

5.  How many staff has the company
got?


We've got 12 staff on the books at the
moment, but are just now looking to
recruit two new programmers and a
concept artist.  We reckon we'll have
about 20 staff by the year 2000.

6.  Where are you based?

We are based in the Kirklees Media
Centre in Huddersfield, a brilliant
location for a games company.   We
are moving into 2500 square feet of new
offices next month that are now being
modernised courtesy of a 1.2 million
pound lottery grant to the centre and
these will be sufficient for our longer
term plans.  Also, as a tenant of the
centre we have permanent online
access via a  leased line, a real bonus
for our team of database researchers.

7.   In as few words as you can, what
are the key things that are going to
make this game successful?

Realism, Data and innovative new
features.


8.  There are a lot of fans of games
such as 'Championship Manager' and
'Premier Manager'.  What would you
 say to them to convince them to buy this
game?

I would tell them how In World Manager
you can manage any team from over 50
countries, about  our unique Match
Action feature, about World Managers
easy to use interface and ……


9.  The interactive Match Action sounds
novel.  What was the thinking behind
this?

We felt that the level of interaction and
detail in current management games
was poor and that much more could
be achieved.  We designed the match
action feature to give the user the a
greater level of information someone
watching a football match on TV would
get and to display this information in a
way that would be instantly understood
by football fans.  We also wanted to
give the user the same level of control
that a real manager would have.
This means that as well as being able to
make substitutions and changes to
your tactics you will also be able to
change your teams style of play.  Like
your teams level of aggression and
how attacking or defensive you want
your team to play.


10.  The accuracy and depth of detail of
the data is very important to football
game fans.  What are you doing to
ensure this is comprehensive and up
to date?

We have several full time football
researchers whose job it is to ensure
that our database is as up to date and
accurate as possible.  The internet has
been an invaluable tool, not just in
collecting data on teams and
competition structures from around the
world but also as a way of making
contacts to.

11.  Football World Manager looks like
a big game.  How many countries,
clubs and players are there in the
game?

World Manager is a massive game
with over 20,000 players playing for
approximately 1,000 club in division
from over 50 countries.  All these
countries are being simulated each
week, this means that you will be able
to do anything from manage a club or
scour the transfer markets in these
countries.

12.  Sounds like the game could have
real international appeal.  Was that
one of the intentions?

Yes, although we are a predominantly
English team we wanted to create a
game that reflected the international
elements of football.  We feel this is
especially important where player
transfers are concerned,  a fact reflect
by the number of overseas players
playing for English Clubs.

13.  With all that information in the
game isn't finding it going to be a real
bind?

Not at all, in fact the interface is
incredibly easy and intuitive to use,  the
main form of navigation is the toolbar,
allowing you to get to virtually any
screen in just two mouse clicks.  We
also use a tree control to select data by
country, if for example you where
playing an English club and looking at
your squad you could quickly and easily
view the squad of any other club in the
game using the tree.

14.  The face editor for the manager
sounds different.  What about players
faces?

We use a kind of photofit system in the
game this not only allows users to
create a likeness for their manager but
also allows our researchers to create
likenesses for players from any one of
hundreds of thousands of
combinations.