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Interview: Otto Matic's Brian Greenstone
October 2, 2001 | Tuncer Deniz | |
Over the last few months Pangea Software's Brian Greenstone has been busily working on his new game, Otto Matic. Scheduled for release in the next few months, Otto Matic will be published by Aspyr Media.We recently received some brand new screenshots from Otto Matic and conducted a short interview with Brian on various subjects including Otto Matic, OS X, and more. IMG: First, can you give us an update on how the game is coming along and when do you expect to ship? Greenstone: Otto Matic is coming along better than we could have ever hoped! Every time we think we've done the coolest thing in the game, we do something new that's even better. The diversity of gameplay in Otto Matic is really amazing. You get to do so much cool stuff from riding bumper cars, rocket sleds, zip-lines, etc. You even get to pilot a flying saucer and wreak havoc on an alien fort! The game will definitely ship in December - probably in the first week.
IMG: Up until now you published all your games yourself. Recently you signed a deal with Aspyr to have Otto Matic be published by them. Why did you decide to go with an outside publisher?Greenstone: Well, to be blunt: publishing sucks. I'm a developer, and my talents are in developing. I'm a lousy salesman, and I don't have the patience for kissing ass. I think I was pretty good at marketing, however, since we did a good job of marketing Bugdom and Cro-Mag Rally. But I really wanted to get the professionals take care of the publishing for Otto Matic, and Aspyr was clearly the best choice. Those guys are great! Lots of fun to work with, and they're very good at what they do. IMG: You've often said that Otto Matic is without question the best game you've ever created. How so? Greenstone: In addition to the stuff I mentioned above, the game is simply well designed. Previously, the 3D technology and horsepower simply wasn't good enough to really design a very complex game. It was fairly easy to make the games look good, but giving them complex gameplay was next to impossible at 233mhz and a Rage II accelerator. Otto Matic, however, requires at least a Rage 128, so we make full use of that power. The concept of the game was made very clear from the beginning and it really shows. There is a flow to the game that really makes it play out like a story even though there's no narrative going on. It's the best looking game we've ever done, it's got the most gameplay of any game we've done, and it's simply the most fun.
IMG: What are some of the "cool things" that people will see in Otto Matic? Greenstone: My favorite thing to see is when humans get abducted by the alien saucers. That just cracks me up every time! They also get to see saucers irradiate a farmer's crop which creates giant, mutant, killer vegetables. On the Slime planet they'll get to use a freeze gun to freeze the enemies and then shatter them with a quick punch of the fist. On the Jungle planet they'll see Otto drink a growth potion which makes him turn into a giant so he can do battle with the giant lizards and insects there. On the Planet of Fire & Ice they'll see volcanoes grow up out of the ground right before their eyes and then explode shooting out flaming lava boulders! I don't want to give it all away, but suffice to say that there's just tons of cool stuff to see in Otto Matic!
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