Dark Souls Interview held by Kadoman Otsuka in 'Dark Souls: Design Works'
Featuring:
- Hidetaka Miyazaki
- Daisuke Satake
- Hiroshi Nakamura
- Masamori Waragai
- Mai Hatsuyama
"KADOMAN OTSUKA (HEREINAFTER OTSUKA):
I'd like to start this interview by asking Miyazaki about the process of ordering designs.
MIYAZAKI: The design ordering process for "Dark Souls" can be divided into two main categories. The first involves providing the designers with simple keywords we brainstormed during the early stages of project development and allowing them to design freely. We take the images they produce and provide feedback, make adjustments as necessary, or incorporate their ideas into our plans. Characters like Gaping Dragon, Egg Burdened, and Gravelord Nito came out of this process. The second process comes into play once we've settled on the basic details of the game world. At that point we are able to make more detailed design requests. These requests usually include information like how the design will be used, where in the game the design will be used, and the specific purpose of the design in terms of what it will represent in the game. In this case, I generally have a pretty good idea of what I want. Characters like Mimic and Gargoyle were created through this process. Either way, I am the one who hands out the orders and I work directly with each designer instead of having a middleman between us."
I find it really interesting that a lot of the concept generation took place from Miyazaki feeding the designers a few keywords and leaving the rest up to them. Design with such a small amount of restrictions can be overwhelming and aimless but I suppose if the little information that is given is informative and inspiring, a lot can come from it.
"OTSUKA: Did you have any concerns that giving your designers too much freedom would result in a lack of unity in the game art?
MIYAZAKI: It's true that a game's art work needs a certain level of solidarity, but I still decided to give our designers as much freedom as possible. As the one who makes the final call on everything, I have some unique quirks and I know the designers do too. It was my hope that these quirks would somehow work together to produce a special kind of harmony. I feel like enjoying the collaborative experience with a great team of unique designers will build a rich and intricate world. I've found that each designer has their own "in" when it comes to design work. While some designers like to approach a design from a philosophical angle, others do better when they have a character backstory to work off of. In this way, the different designers are able to bring their own touch to the project and possibly inspire new ideas in their teammates, eventually leading to a new level of depth in the final product. Having said all of that, I will add that every project requires a certain degree of direction to keep everyone on track (laughs) For "Dark Souls", I put three major guidelines in place: Gods and knights centered around Anor Londo, demonic chaos and flames centered around Lost Izalith, and the theme of death centered around Gravelord Nito. To these themes we added the special concept of ancient dragons that predate all life, and this formed the basis for "Dark Souls". The rest was left to the somewhat "free design" philosophy I described earlier. Another possibly surprising tactic that we used was to have every designer involved in every aspect of the game instead of assigning individual designers to things like maps, characters and equipment."
Miyazaki shows that he tailors his way of working to the individuals he is working with at the time. Additionally, on the topic of vagueness in concept generation, I find it very insightful that Dark Souls had a lot of its lore, story and characters built around visual concepts first. Usually script would come first, or some kind of backstory with already established characters and locations to some extent.
"OTSUKA: Do your design orders tend to be more abstract in nature?
MIYAZAKI: ...I'll do my best to throw a variety of keywords into our conversations to stimulate each designer's imagination. If we were to take Nakamura as an example, I often discussed topics like philosophy and the world as a whole with him.
WARAGAI: He'll start talking about the wonders of the universe at the slightest provocation, (laughs)
MIYAZAKI: Totally, especially at the beginning. We often discussed topics like how the world began, life and death, the meaning of fire, and the position of the Four Kings relative to humans. I find these conversations inspiring, which helps to keep me from trapping myself in a creative corner."
Nakamura's philosophical approach is quite inspiring to me, I like the idea that Nakamura approaches concept design in more ways than the obvious. Giving a character/creature some pre-thought out story can help the visual style a lot.
"OTSUKA: I'd like to move on to discuss in detail the design work associated with each area of the game. Shall we start with the Northern Undead Asylum?
MIYAZAKI: It might sound counter-intuitive to work on the tutorial area last, but by pretty much finishing the rest of the game first we can go into the creation of the tutorial stage with a complete list of everything that will be vital for the player to learn at the beginning with regards to how the game works, the lore, and other information. If I recall correctly, we decided to make the Undead Asylum a place that would summarize the world of "Dark Souls" and its dark fantasy vibe. We decided to be straightforward with themes like a dank dungeon, unfeeling stonework, as well as the chilling and sorrowful flavor I mentioned earlier. "
I've never thougth of this before but now I've read this, it seems obvious. It's a great idea with perfect reasoning, to create the tutorial last as once a game is practically finished the designers are going to have a better understanding of the journey the player has to make and therefore can provide better lessons for the player to learn when introduced to the game. I also really like the fact that Miyazaki wanted to reflect the entire games tone and character in the tutorial level. it sets the tone, mood and gives the player a taster of what to expect in the rest of the game.
"OTSUKA: Okay, let's move north now to Sen's Fortress.
MIYAZAKI: As I recall, we took a lot of time just to get to the rough draft of the map, and had quite a bit of trouble fitting it into the game.
WARAGAI: It's true, we did. The "gauntlet of traps" was a fairly easy concept to figure out, with things like a pendulum, rolling boulders, and such. I just laid out a bunch of archetypical traps that players would easily be able to identify or that they would fine easy to relate to."
Very simple point but I shall take this into consideration when making my own level, just writing down various potential traps, objectives and goals for the player to overcome can help me form a better idea of how I want my level to be built.
"OTSUKA: Was the idea that he is just constantly suffering from a sense of starvation?
NAKAMURA: Pretty much, yes. That's all he thinks about and the obsession literally consumed him to the point where things like his head and other physical features degenerated severely. Now, rather than eating with his mouth, he uses his whole body to directly consume anything he perceives as food. Adopting this form was the only way he could survive. With all of his other abilities similarly dissolved, the Gaping Dragon turned into a specialized creature that only lives to devour. I think his location also contributed to his change, as he lives in a very remote place that is rare visited by other creatures like humans. As a result, he was forced to survive by eating things like nasty rotten carcasses."
I think this is exactly the type of thing I have been thinking of when keeping the design of my NPC Guide in mind. I want some kind of inner emotion, intangible feeling/sacrifice/mental state to reflect in the physical nature of the NPC's design. The way Nakamura describes the The Gaping Dragon is so very in-tune with how it physically appears to the player, it's a instant visual representation of the creatures emotions - great storytelling.
"OTSUKA: Speaking of motion, the way the Attack Dogs in the Depths moved was quite unsettling.
MIYAZAKI: Technically speaking, that motion is a little off but we found the somewhat unnatural movement to have an unsettling quality to it, as you said, so we decided to leave it that way. If you make everything in a game too perfect, you lose that creepy otherworldly vibe that you can only get from something that feels more organic."
I like that Miyazaki mentions sometimes keeping imperfections in your work can make it feel more organic. This particular comment also nicely fits in with the style that I want, as aiming for that otherworldly, unsettling appearance when it comes to my NPC Guide design is my goal and clearly imperfections can help the design process well.
I'd like to start this interview by asking Miyazaki about the process of ordering designs.
MIYAZAKI: The design ordering process for "Dark Souls" can be divided into two main categories. The first involves providing the designers with simple keywords we brainstormed during the early stages of project development and allowing them to design freely. We take the images they produce and provide feedback, make adjustments as necessary, or incorporate their ideas into our plans. Characters like Gaping Dragon, Egg Burdened, and Gravelord Nito came out of this process. The second process comes into play once we've settled on the basic details of the game world. At that point we are able to make more detailed design requests. These requests usually include information like how the design will be used, where in the game the design will be used, and the specific purpose of the design in terms of what it will represent in the game. In this case, I generally have a pretty good idea of what I want. Characters like Mimic and Gargoyle were created through this process. Either way, I am the one who hands out the orders and I work directly with each designer instead of having a middleman between us."
I find it really interesting that a lot of the concept generation took place from Miyazaki feeding the designers a few keywords and leaving the rest up to them. Design with such a small amount of restrictions can be overwhelming and aimless but I suppose if the little information that is given is informative and inspiring, a lot can come from it.
"OTSUKA: Did you have any concerns that giving your designers too much freedom would result in a lack of unity in the game art?
MIYAZAKI: It's true that a game's art work needs a certain level of solidarity, but I still decided to give our designers as much freedom as possible. As the one who makes the final call on everything, I have some unique quirks and I know the designers do too. It was my hope that these quirks would somehow work together to produce a special kind of harmony. I feel like enjoying the collaborative experience with a great team of unique designers will build a rich and intricate world. I've found that each designer has their own "in" when it comes to design work. While some designers like to approach a design from a philosophical angle, others do better when they have a character backstory to work off of. In this way, the different designers are able to bring their own touch to the project and possibly inspire new ideas in their teammates, eventually leading to a new level of depth in the final product. Having said all of that, I will add that every project requires a certain degree of direction to keep everyone on track (laughs) For "Dark Souls", I put three major guidelines in place: Gods and knights centered around Anor Londo, demonic chaos and flames centered around Lost Izalith, and the theme of death centered around Gravelord Nito. To these themes we added the special concept of ancient dragons that predate all life, and this formed the basis for "Dark Souls". The rest was left to the somewhat "free design" philosophy I described earlier. Another possibly surprising tactic that we used was to have every designer involved in every aspect of the game instead of assigning individual designers to things like maps, characters and equipment."
Miyazaki shows that he tailors his way of working to the individuals he is working with at the time. Additionally, on the topic of vagueness in concept generation, I find it very insightful that Dark Souls had a lot of its lore, story and characters built around visual concepts first. Usually script would come first, or some kind of backstory with already established characters and locations to some extent.
"OTSUKA: Do your design orders tend to be more abstract in nature?
MIYAZAKI: ...I'll do my best to throw a variety of keywords into our conversations to stimulate each designer's imagination. If we were to take Nakamura as an example, I often discussed topics like philosophy and the world as a whole with him.
WARAGAI: He'll start talking about the wonders of the universe at the slightest provocation, (laughs)
MIYAZAKI: Totally, especially at the beginning. We often discussed topics like how the world began, life and death, the meaning of fire, and the position of the Four Kings relative to humans. I find these conversations inspiring, which helps to keep me from trapping myself in a creative corner."
Nakamura's philosophical approach is quite inspiring to me, I like the idea that Nakamura approaches concept design in more ways than the obvious. Giving a character/creature some pre-thought out story can help the visual style a lot.
"OTSUKA: I'd like to move on to discuss in detail the design work associated with each area of the game. Shall we start with the Northern Undead Asylum?
MIYAZAKI: It might sound counter-intuitive to work on the tutorial area last, but by pretty much finishing the rest of the game first we can go into the creation of the tutorial stage with a complete list of everything that will be vital for the player to learn at the beginning with regards to how the game works, the lore, and other information. If I recall correctly, we decided to make the Undead Asylum a place that would summarize the world of "Dark Souls" and its dark fantasy vibe. We decided to be straightforward with themes like a dank dungeon, unfeeling stonework, as well as the chilling and sorrowful flavor I mentioned earlier. "
I've never thougth of this before but now I've read this, it seems obvious. It's a great idea with perfect reasoning, to create the tutorial last as once a game is practically finished the designers are going to have a better understanding of the journey the player has to make and therefore can provide better lessons for the player to learn when introduced to the game. I also really like the fact that Miyazaki wanted to reflect the entire games tone and character in the tutorial level. it sets the tone, mood and gives the player a taster of what to expect in the rest of the game.
"OTSUKA: Okay, let's move north now to Sen's Fortress.
MIYAZAKI: As I recall, we took a lot of time just to get to the rough draft of the map, and had quite a bit of trouble fitting it into the game.
WARAGAI: It's true, we did. The "gauntlet of traps" was a fairly easy concept to figure out, with things like a pendulum, rolling boulders, and such. I just laid out a bunch of archetypical traps that players would easily be able to identify or that they would fine easy to relate to."
Very simple point but I shall take this into consideration when making my own level, just writing down various potential traps, objectives and goals for the player to overcome can help me form a better idea of how I want my level to be built.
"OTSUKA: Was the idea that he is just constantly suffering from a sense of starvation?
NAKAMURA: Pretty much, yes. That's all he thinks about and the obsession literally consumed him to the point where things like his head and other physical features degenerated severely. Now, rather than eating with his mouth, he uses his whole body to directly consume anything he perceives as food. Adopting this form was the only way he could survive. With all of his other abilities similarly dissolved, the Gaping Dragon turned into a specialized creature that only lives to devour. I think his location also contributed to his change, as he lives in a very remote place that is rare visited by other creatures like humans. As a result, he was forced to survive by eating things like nasty rotten carcasses."
I think this is exactly the type of thing I have been thinking of when keeping the design of my NPC Guide in mind. I want some kind of inner emotion, intangible feeling/sacrifice/mental state to reflect in the physical nature of the NPC's design. The way Nakamura describes the The Gaping Dragon is so very in-tune with how it physically appears to the player, it's a instant visual representation of the creatures emotions - great storytelling.
"OTSUKA: Speaking of motion, the way the Attack Dogs in the Depths moved was quite unsettling.
MIYAZAKI: Technically speaking, that motion is a little off but we found the somewhat unnatural movement to have an unsettling quality to it, as you said, so we decided to leave it that way. If you make everything in a game too perfect, you lose that creepy otherworldly vibe that you can only get from something that feels more organic."
I like that Miyazaki mentions sometimes keeping imperfections in your work can make it feel more organic. This particular comment also nicely fits in with the style that I want, as aiming for that otherworldly, unsettling appearance when it comes to my NPC Guide design is my goal and clearly imperfections can help the design process well.
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