Twisted Metal Trivia
Okay - little trip down memory lane to eleven years ago - when SingleTrac was developing one of our two initial games for the then-semi-secret Sony Playstation. Nobody heard of it, and everyone was talking about whether Nintendo or Sega would win the upcoming console wars for the next generation. I was a new "hotshot" college grad with a love of games and a desire to prove myself. I found myself surrounded by engineers and artists who admitted they had no clue how to make videogames, but they were extremely BRILLIANT bunch and they knew fun when they experienced it. And of course we were in communication with the guys from Sony - in particular David Jaffe and Mike Giam.

So here's some bizarro tales from creating the first Twisted Metal game. Remember - nobody knew if it would flop, or even if the Playstation would flop. And almost none of us at SingleTrac had ever worked on creating a commercial videogame before. It was about as risky and unexplored territory as you could be in. Fortunately, we were pretty successful on all counts, and Twisted Metal became a "signature" Playstation title. I am not privy to what my old coworkers are doing in downtown Salt Lake City, but I'd not be surprised if there's another Twisted Metal for the Playstation 3 in the works.

There's a dog in Twisted Metal 1 that cannot be killed in one of the city levels (I think it's the second level). Why not? Well, as we were finishing up the game in beta test or so, preparing for submission --- and wired as all with caffeine and lack of sleep --- we came across a Sony rule that stated that in order for a game to be approved, it cannot show violence or cruelty to animals. We thought this was really funny, as violence against PEOPLE was all fine and dandy, but violence to animals was a no-no. Now, we probably could have gotten away with allowing the player to kill the dog that was crossing the street. But we thought it would be funny if, in compliance with Sony rules, the dog was somehow miraculously immune to tires, bumpers, missiles, and bullets. And so it was.

Originally, the second level was an absolutely HUGE world that was about three times its final size. It included the highway from level 3 (I think there are some barriers in level 2 across accessways that originally allowed you to go on to the freeway). We built it, we played it --- and it SUCKED. It was too big. You'd spend five minutes just finding the other cars. So we broke it up, shrank things down, and thus you have the smaller levels of Twisted Metal.

I think I mentioned in a previous blog how the cars in Twisted Metal used to gang up on you - and it was No Fun. The game was most fun when it was always moving, so we made all but two cars purposefully avoid you. And even the ones currently engaged with you would often flee from you, firing all kinds of rear-mounted attacks.

The wild explosion physics that became a signature for the series was actually a bug. I was programmer assigned to do weapon logic, and I had a long-standing bug where a lot of weapons would incorrectly be identified as the "catapult" weapon (a weapon which turned out to be Not Much Fun and never appeared in later Twisted Metal Games, as far as I know). The catapult would hurl you in the air, and hopefully over your opponent and into the range of his guns (or at least into a wall). I had the bug in the code forever, but fixing it hadn't been high on my list of priorities. Finally I got around to doing it, and EVERYONE COMPLAINED. The whole getting tossed into the air thing by nearly every weapon except bullets was a tremendous part of the fun. I was commanded to put it back in the game - albeit toned down a bit. I ended up making it based on the amount of damage a weapon did.

Oh - in most (all?) the levels in Twisted Metal 1, there are two unmarked, completely secret spots that if you line up your car EXACTLY right in the right spot, you will be fully healed up. These spots are only usable once per match. These little cheat spots were put in by Steve Paulson, the guy who did the physics and AI for the cars, because he was sick of getting beaten by the other people around the office when we had impromptu matches (which happened a lot - sometimes just to keep us AWAKE in the long hours of development).

There was a technical reason that we couldn't have same-car matches in Twisted Metal. Our engine supported instancing, but not state differences between instances of the same object type. There was some talk of creating completely separate cars that resembled each other, there was too much coded into the engine that would have had to be revamped to allow Specter to fight against Specter or Sweet Tooth versus another Sweet Tooth, so schedule prevented us from doing that.

There were end-level movies that were filmed for Twisted Metal. I think Sony spent a good deal of money on them, and I know Sandi Geary (our audio & video superwoman) spent a good deal of time processing those videos. They were extremely cheesey (about as cheesey as the MST-3K-worthy Warhawk videos, which ended up staying in). I think there was some mildly offensive material in one or two of them, so someone up refused to put them in. Since there was no time or money to re-shoot the missing endings, we pulled all of them out. I don't know if they still exist anymore. Maybe David Jaffe still has them in Beta format out at Sony.

Oh, and speaking of Dave Jaffe - if memory serves, the drivers of Hammerhead , the green Monster Truck, were named "Dave and Mike," after Dave Jaffe and Mike Giam. Dave also makes a cameo in Twisted Metal 2, as a pedestrian who can be blown up, shot, or run over. I think he's the guy cheering on the competition waving the penants around.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. If I think of any more, I'll be sure and post 'em. It's been a long time, but it was an extremely intense time in my life. The pain and lack of sleep have faded, leaving me with a lot of fond memories of the time.

Labels: retro

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