Earlier this week, Kombo was invited to partake in a roundtable discussion with Double Fine President and Brütal Legend Creative Director Tim Schafer. Fun was had by all as we discussed the game, his dark secrets and inner demons, and where to get a really good barbecue pulled pork sandwich.
Okay, not that last one (though I sort of wish I had). And the dark secrets question came from another guy. Still, we had our turn, and he answered our questions. See what was discussed in our transcript of the conversation below.
Kombo: (referencing Activision dropping the game to focus more on “franchise” titles) So, you’ve got Brütal Legend here, and it’s looking great; do you see potential for a Brütal Legend 2, or some other sort of sequel, spin-off, etc.?
Tim Schafer: Well, you know, I think it’s really well suited to that. We made a world with a story in mind, but I wrote a whole set of creation myths for this world, so there’s a story for how this world came to be, and how it got the elements of blood and fire and noise and metal.
It’s heavily inspired by Norse mythology, which I’ve been reading a lot of, and especially at the start of this game, I was reading up on it. So there’s that kind of backstory to the world itself, and I think that other stories besides this first one could definitely be told in it.
And also, we had a lot of stuff we wanted to get in this game that we couldn’t get in. I would love to revisit this world in the future, but there’s nothing officially going on at this point.
Moderator interjects: Just to confirm, that’s not a confirmation. *he and Tim laugh*
TS: Yeah, to confirm that’s not a confirmation. *laughs*
I’d like to unconfirm any mention– I’m just saying, here’s my statement: Wouldn’t that be cool? That would be cool.
Kombo: It’s not a closed book when you beat the game, is basically what you’re saying?
TS: Yeah.
Kombo: I’ll confess something here: I’m not technically a big-time metalhead or anything…
Someone says “Bastard!” jokingly, some laughter ensues.
…but I have listened to some through some friends, and checking out the game, I’ve actually gotten really into it.
TS: See? Mission accomplished!
Kombo: That’s actually what I was wondering; how much appeal do you think this game might have to the audience beyond those who would be into the whole metal aspect of it?
TS: Yeah, I mean, first I wanted to make sure the game was going to do right by real metalheads; there was nothing on the soundtrack that was obviously placed there by the marketing department, or that was put there for business reasons.
But everything that’s on there is put there because it’s an authentic metal, just awesome song, or perfect for that point in the game.
And then, in general, the game itself is essentially an action game, just set in this world of the age of metal. So, it’s got a lot of humor and a lot of action, and I think that stuff has a really broad appeal. In the same way that you don’t have to be a pirate to like Monkey Island, you don’t have to be a metalhead to like Brütal Legend, it’s just that’s the fantasy world we picked for it, and I think it is really accessible.
If you love it, you’ll jump in, in a really serious way, and if you’re not a metalhead, you might appreciate more the humor aspect, or the part that’s more of a satire. But by the end of the game, I hope that we’ll have converted a few people, because I think we picked some of the really best songs out there. And I think if there’s any chance that someone might be turned on to metal, it would be by playing this game…
…which is awesome.
Kombo: I know you probably can’t discuss any specifics, but I was kind of curious: I know that Jack Black is a fan of Psychonauts, and of course he joined you on this. I was just wondering if the two of you have discussed any possible future projects or anything where you’d be working together?
TS: Our children are the same age, so we’re sort of secretly hoping that they’ll get married. But other than that… *laughs*
It’s really been fun hanging out with Jack and we got to spend a lot of time with him; he has almost 3,000 lines of dialogue in the game, so it was many, many recording sessions. And he’s been such a supporter of the game; I mean, every time we give him a Brütal Legend t-shirt, he wears it on TV.
So he’s been really supportive of it, and really into the concept, and you know, we’ve talked about how you could do other things with the story and go other places with it, but there’s really nothing decided on.
I mean, it’d be fun; I’d love to work with Jack again, but there’s nothing really planned right now.
Kombo: Anything you’ve discussed that’s not Brütal Legend, like something else?
TS: They’re saying they want a third-person Tenacious D; could that be me? But I was so busy with Brütal Legend that I had to pass. *laughter*
Kombo: Right at the beginning of the game, you’ve got the mountains of skulls, the evil altars, the red skies; all that fun stuff. Basically, it looks like it could be the last level of half the games out there, but that’s right in the first ten minutes or so.
So I was wondering how hard it was to escalate the setting of the game from there, and make things bigger and better and grander?
TS: Well, it makes progression from– I’d equate it to the heavy metal version of the Shire. Heavy metal has this highlands, tranquil, viking side to it. You know, you could have a green meadow in a heavy metal video, and you can have a forest…
So we kind of start in those lands, the viking-inspired territory, and we move into a more glam area. Where you fight General Lionwhite, you go through what looks like a pleasure palace from 1980’s Los Angeles, excess going crazy, and then you go into a more frozen wasteland. And as we get to the heart of the enemy territory, things start to get more dark and more evil and more influenced by, say, black metal.
And eventually, when you fight the demons, the music starts to progress into more industrial metal; the creatures are so much more grotesque, giving birth on the battlefield in these crazy ways.
It’s something much more bloody, and you realize that the first stuff you saw with heavy metal meteor showers was not as heavy as it was going to get. So yeah, somehow, we do make a progression into heavier territory as the music progresses and as the scenery becomes darker.
Kombo: Was it a challenge to reach that level?
TS: I think it was always in the plan, we always wanted it to have it go from kind of a– like if you listen to the music itself, there’s this power metal which sings about heroism and fighting against evil, and then there are just these darker songs that are about evil itself, or about insanity and alienation.
And I think there’s that whole spectrum of the music, and the game just makes that whole progression visually, so the answer to it was all in the music itself.
And that was our portion of the roundtable. Others involved in the roundtable were Aaron from Gaming Age, Mike from GameZone, Chris from GamersHell.com, and Charles Husemann from GamingNexus.com, who provided us with the recording of the interview.
Some of their posts for the roundtable don’t seem to be up yet, but here are the ones that are, and we’ll add the others as they come:
And we would just like to extend our thanks to Mr. Schafer and Electronic Arts for allowing us to partake in this discussion.
