And since Croteam rather admirably let us do our own thing, we felt comfortable going quite far in terms of complex ideas. I don’t think we, the writers, spent much time thinking about who our audience might be, beyond people who might enjoy puzzle games. As game developers, where do you draw the line between realism/fidelity in visuals and historical facts, and entertaining gameplay? Who did you think your audience was going to be for Talos, and have you heard from other archaeologists or historians who were either impressed by (or critical of) the game? The Great Pyramid in The Talos Principle.Ĥ. So that’s very much intentional, but also a reaction to the object, so to speak, we were presented with. We did, in interviews, describe the game as being archaeological, both in how you have to figure out how the elements fit together, and in how it has a multiplicity of layers you can dig into. We had to ask ourselves: what could this be? Who could have made this? (Of course, over the many months we worked on this, Croteam did make sure that things then conformed to the story we’d created.) The player then experiences our journey backwards. Why did you settle on these environments instead of other cultures, or something completely futuristic (as one sees in Portal)?Ĭontinuing from what I said above, we didn’t really make any choices about the world we were presented with rather, as a kind of reverse archaeology, we had to make sense of what was there and extend meaning backwards in time. As writers of the game, you chose to have Elohim and the world’s human makers situate the puzzles in historic places, facsimiles that approximate Rome and ancient Egypt for example, yet are not actually Rome and Egypt. We, the writers, were only brought in when quite an elaborate structure had already been created.ģ. The puzzles turned out to be fun, and some people at Croteam kept making more of them, until slowly an entire new game emerged. Originally, it was just a series of puzzles for Serious Sam 4, which is also where some of the graphics come from. However, in terms of why things were done as they were, you have to keep in mind that The Talos Principle happened messily and unexpectedly. (My wife, who is obsessed with Pompeii, immediately recognized a ton of details.) I can’t help but think this would be a fantastic technique for creating a 3D simulation of Pompeii. The graphics were created by Croteam using photogrammetry, for which they visited the actual locations themselves. I’m also wondering why Diocletian’s Palace (Spalato/Split) did not make an appearance (or maybe it did, and I totally missed it!). Did you work with existing laser scans of these features, and if so, what was the source? I’ve played other Rome-based games (e.g., Ryse), but the photorealism of Talos actually fooled the experts. Trajan’s Market makes an appearance, too, along with mosaics and wall paintings. They were amazed at the level of detail and texturing of the plaster and brick. I showed my archaeologist friends who work in Rome and Pompeii screengrabs and a video walkthrough of the first level of the game (and its puzzle areas). I received a gracious reply from Jonas on behalf of the team, and I have reproduced my questions and his answers in full below:Ģ. I was curious about the integration of archaeology and philosophy into such a beautiful and engaging game, and worked up the courage to write to the game’s writers, Tom Jubert and Jonas Kyratzes. The story also drew me in with its masterclass in Western philosophy, a re-introduction to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and a thorough debate on artificial v. As I played, I was distracted from the puzzles by the art and architecture. As soon as I launched it, I was hooked by the most stunning visuals I had ever seen in a game set in antiquity, with the opening screen, scene, and first level of puzzles set among the plastered bricks and wall paintings of a reimagined Rome, Ostia, and Pompeii. Although The Talos Principle was published at the end of 2014 for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, in May 2015 for Android, and in October 2015 for PlayStation 4 by Croatian game developer Croteam, developer of the Serious Sam series, I didn’t play it until March 2017. freewill, and considerable exploration of reality and the virtual. The Talos Principle combines photorealistic settings of Rome/Ostia/Pompeii (and ancient Egypt and elsewhere) with diabolical puzzles and a plot chock full of ancient and modern philosophy, a debate of fate v. An “ancient” aqueduct in The Talos Principle.
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