Orson Scott Card Interview

The famed author talks about Ender, Bean, and how he got involved with Advent Rising.

GamePro recently got a chance to sit down with award-winning author science fiction author Orson Scott Card to talk about (among other things) Majesco's upcoming Xbox game Advent Rising. Card is the writer of Ender's Game, a "modern classic" of interstellar war, which is on its way to becoming a major film. Here's what he had to say about Advent, Ender, and lots of other stuff.

GamePro: How did you get involved in Advent?

Orson Scott Card: Well, they contacted me. I get contacted a lot, I?ve got to say. People want to make games or whatever and I just sort of routinely turn them down, I?m not a game guy. But these guys?for one thing, they?re really nice, and I?m always polite to people, and I liked their attitude toward what they wanted to do with the game. They were talking about really concentrating on having a story that amounted to something and it wasn?t just about a lot of killing and cool techno stuff. In other words, they wanted to have it be?what are the best movie comparisons??they didn?t want it to be like most video games, which are kind of like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where the characters just barely exist. They wanted to have a story, and they wanted to give me more freedom than I had on my previous outings, obviously when I was doing things with LucasFilm games years ago, there wasn?t really that much freedom, I would just come into a fully developed game and punch up dialog and stuff. But this time they wanted me there for story development and to give me a lot of freedom to make the characters do things for the reasons that I felt made sense, so I was give the chance to be a real collaborator, and since I absolutely love good computer games, I was aboard.

GP: What was the last computer game you actually really liked?

OSC: Well, you got to realize that I gave up on the shoot-?em-ups a really long time ago. I just don?t twitch fast enough, and it really does become mind-numbing to just sit there and kill kill kill, or just sit there and learn a complicated set of maneuvers on a game controller in order to go through the hoops. The games I tended toward were map-based games like civilization or the old pre-FPS Ultima games. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which really dates me?what were you then, seven? [laughs]

The series will never die GP: Actually, they just released the eighth one. They?re still doing them!

OSC: You?re kidding, I didn?t know there were any after the first one! That tells you how connected I am. But I really was delighted with what Lucasfilm Games was doing. I loved Monkey Island. I thought Loom was really innovative. Those aren?t first person?there?s actually a character who says stuff and does stuff. In first person, of course, the player is the hero, and you can?t give the player that much freedom, there?s no way to anticipate what a player?s gonna think of and you have to channel him into certain activities and mainly, the activities are martial arts, weapons firing, and vehicle manipulation?there?s not too much beyond that that you can do.

GP: How many games did you work on with LucasArts?

OSC: Just a few. They brought me in to consult now and then, I really like the guys, but the truth is I wasn?t a game designer, and wasn?t doing the things one has to do to become one. We toyed with the idea of me designing a game, but then I saw the work that Hal Barwood [producer on the Dragonslayer movie, and the PC game Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis] was doing?and it was wonderful, but it consumed his life for a year. I didn?t have a year.

GP: What?s different about writing for a video game than writing a novel?

OSC: One of the problems is that there?s simply not time. When I write a novel, I can have a scene that is merely charming, where you enjoy it but you know it?s going to be over in a few seconds. But in a computer game, the player wants to feel like he?s in control. And that means you can?t stop the action for long bits of time and just show the players things because it gets boring. The player starts to itch to be doing something. You don?t play a game to be a spectator, you play a game to be a participant, and so the space is limited. In a way it?s kind of like movie writing. You have to keep the story going forward at all times?but one of the complications is that if you?re going to have any kind of morally complicated choices for the player to make, then you have to devote some time explaining to the player what those choices are. Of course, explanation time is dead time. So I constantly have to balance the need to have the player understand with the need to keep the player active. That?s probably the biggest single challenge.

GP: Donald [Mustard] says the game is going to have ?branching points.? Is it difficult to write for that?

Advent Rising OSC: There are branching points that make a huge difference in the game, but it?s not like the huge difference where one branch takes you into one whole world and another branch takes you into another whole world, because you can?t afford to waste world creation time. So what it does is your team consists of various people that associate with you and you make some choices early on that determine who is in that team; and they mean something to you. This is not a team of strangers, like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is of course I think the worst movie of the year so far, and I would be amazed to see what movie tops it. When they did Spider-Man, they knew what to do, same thing with X-Men. They made them into people that we can care about; and they barely did that with Daredevil. And they didn?t even try with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Not all comics adapt as well, but I think it has more to do with the writer?but in a way, comics face the same sort of problem that computer games face?and that is, how do you characterize, when the face, when the body language, the facial expressions really are not versatile. Computer games can be a littler bit better in those terms than a comic book, because you can use a voice, and show inflection of the voice?but it?s not much. And so I have to put the characterization in other terms.

GP: Do you like writing other people?s stories, running with other peoples? ideas?

OSC: No, I actually find that very hard. I?m used to having complete freedom to make decisions, and those decisions stick. In this one, it?s collaborative. I?ve done it before; I started off as a playwright, and as a playwright you have to work with the limitations of the actors, you have to please the director?the director has to please you too, and the back and forth is exhilarating, but it?s hard to get used to some of the limitations. At the same time, it?s kind of cool to be essentially back on the stage.

GP: What are you doing with stuff beyond the game? There?s talk of a book, and perhaps a screenplay.

OSC: I?m working on a novel, and we hope to get that out soon after the game. It?s probably not going to be out before, just because the lead times are different, and the things you have to do are different. And I can?t really write the novel until the game is set, because I have to have the novel fit in the game?just like doing a novelization. And even though I have a lot of freedom to make the characters do things for my reasons in the novel, I still have to have the dialogue locked.

GP: Is it just going to be a straight-up novelization of the game?s storyline?

OSC: I?m going to be able to include a lot more, it?s going to have sidestories, and things like that, characters?kind of like what Jim Cameron gave me the freedom to do with The Abyss, which is not at all your traditional novelization. He gave me the chance to really invent the alien society, which barely shows up in the movie, and I was able to do some backstory. It?s that kind of thing, only more so.

The enemy's gate is down! GP: I?d like to ask you about the Ender?s Game movie?last I heard Wolfgang Peterson was lined up to direct.

OSC: Yes, and that?s all still in place. I did my draft and now, as is usual in a big budget film they?re bringing in another writer. I keep being assured that this doesn?t mean anything in terms of ?oh, they hated me.? Of course, every writer wants to think that ?oh, what I did was brilliant,? but in fact, when you?re putting that much money into a film, you want to make sure everything is optimum and so ?let?s put it this way?nobody?s going to lose their job if they bring a big name writer into work on the script. But if the thing tanks, and I?m the only writer they used, then somebody might get blamed for it. And I?m hoping whatever writer they get will do a wonderful job, and see things I couldn?t see. See, the thing I found when I was a playwright is that I wasn?t the best director of my own plays. I needed to have somebody else?s eyes?either that, or very confident actors who would be innovative because no one eye can see all possibilities. It?s going to be to the advantage of the film.

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