Sucker Punch interview: the dream behind inFAMOUS's success, industry risk

 

Recently I got a great chance to have an interview with Brian Fleming from Sucker Punch Productions, the studio that created both the Sly Cooper series and the big PS3 exclusive inFAMOUS.

I wanted to rewind back to the history behind inFAMOUS after it already had its big debut, as well as see the studio's technical approach, their perspecitve on a changing industry, and a couple of fun factoids to relieve tension.


Beginning 

1. What was the very first inspiration that induced the team to start on a radically different project such as inFAMOUS? That sudden dream vision, so to speak.

The dream for inFAMOUS – which became our decision making razor throughout the project – was to give players the feeling of what it might be like if they suddenly started developing a super power.  We talked about the psychological aspects of it a lot – would you think you were going crazy and go see a shrink?  Would you hide it?  Would people you love believe in you?  And perhaps the most important question of all – would power corrupt you?   We’ve all seen super hero narratives, in comics, in cinema, explore these choices – but nobody has really given the player this experience for himself.  That is what we wanted inFAMOUS to do… 
 

2. Did the realistic atmosphere, as opposed to your past work in the Sly Cooper series, bring a huge challenge to art direction?

We thought it would be massive undertaking, and we underestimated it!  It was without question a huge shift for us--and it took a lot of hard work by everyone at the studio to teach ourselves how to think and work differently.  The good news is that having done both a stylized game like Sly and now a much more realistic game like inFAMOUS, we’re now a much more versatile and capable studio! 
 

3. In previous interviews, it has been said that the city in inFAMOUS is based on several major cities around the world. How did you avoid making Empire City too generic?

Much of the creative parts of the city design were inspired by the bosses and enemies who live there.  So for example the design of the second island of the game, The Warren, was inspired by the Dust Men gang, and their leader Alden… So the slums, prison, and giant tower were all built off of these story elements… These characters and their gang were established before city construction began—which allows the areas of the game featuring the gang to amplify on the personality and back-story elements.  
 

4. Cole is easily recognized by his tipping pedestal between good and evil. Would you classify him according to a more traditional or modern super hero ethos, or perhaps both?

I think he’s a little in both worlds… Visual design wise, he’s clearly a modern super hero – no cape, no underwear on the outside, etc.   But story wise, and in terms of the game structure, inFAMOUS follows a traditional origins storyline.   
 

5. Do you think it is possible that the story of Cole will provide more attention into the comic book business?

It would be nice if that were true, but I can’t say that I think it’s going to have much of an impact…  
 

Brief technical questions   
 

6. In terms of programming the PS3's Cell SPUs, what kinds of special bells, whistles, or features did they allow the team to create?

The Cell SPUs are ridiculously powerful. The phrase I use often is that they are a limitless abyss of computing power.  Whenever we had real problems with the performance of our game, we’d pick a subsystem, move it to the SPUs, and the SPUs would complete the job so quickly it would effectively disappear from our performance traces.  To give a concrete example, when players are playing the game, we are often decompressing 50+ MP3 audio files simultaneously.  A handful are for music, but in addition each part of each sound effect is MP3 encoded too – and the SPUs are so powerful that this was not only possible, but didn’t impact all the other things we were doing on the SPUs already (visibility, particle systems, animation, mesh processing, etc).  They’re incredible.  

7. The controls in InFAMOUS are surprisingly easy. In some ways, as easy as any 2D platforming game, in my opinion. Could you give some insight into how the controls were made so simple for rather complex movements?

It took a long time and a lot of work to get them there!  Our Game Director, Nate Fox, has a rule of thumb:  “Fifth time’s the charm”.  And in this case it’s really true.  We did at least four other full implementations of the control scheme – radically different approaches to climbing than what we shipped – before settling on the final scheme.  Each time we learned more about what we needed to do, but we weren’t just making incremental changes – it was throw out the baby with the bath water and start over type work.   To be successful, the controls had to be simple, the animations had to look great.  Getting one or the other was easy in the early going.  Getting them both right at the same time was hard!  
 

Wrapping up questions  
 

8. This generation of consoles may have a noticeably longer lifecycle than the previous ones. Will that encourage more long and enduring ' AAA' type projects to be started?

It’s an interesting question – but I think the key issue is less about the console lifecycle, and more about the costs involved in building and launching new franchises.  A new project like inFAMOUS is a huge undertaking in combined development and marketing – and as the prices continue to rise for AAA title production, I think publishers have been, and will continue to be, more risk averse.

You’ll see more sequels, less new AAA franchises per year, and those new franchises will on average be more “safe” in terms of genre, setting, and art styles.  It’s not the end of new, highly creative AAA projects, it just means for guys like us it’ll be harder to get them green lit in the first place… 
 

9. What are some favorite pieces of PS3 software played or used by Sucker Punch developers?

We’re an eclectic group so of course the mainstream titles like Little Big Planet, Uncharted and Resistance get lots of play.  There’s some hardcore Rock Band/Guitar Hero fans of course.  But for some more off-the-beaten path titles, I’d include Valkyria Chronicles and Flower.  
 

10. Now for curiosity. Where did the name Sucker Punch first come from?

The four of us who founded the company all worked at Microsoft in the 90’s.  New projects there always got a code-name before they were shipped, and one of my partners, Chris, tried multiple times to get his project code-named “Sucker Punch”.  It was always rejected by the management as too irreverent, too childish.   When we decided to start the company, we had our chance to make it stick!  

Cheers to Sucker Punch Productions and Sony Computer Entertainment of America for taking the time to help me get this done!