We spent months poring through reference material and books about the station, and the various systems in place to deal with the multitude of problems that might arise.Īside from that, a library of movies from the last five decades helped inform the atmosphere and tone. McKellan: The majority of situational "problems" the player faces in the game come from us theorizing about what could go wrong on the International Space Station and how you might solve it. : What sci-fi franchises and real-life experiences did you draw from to build the game? It's all as grounded and believable as possible, while still being exciting and unusual for the audience. Instead, the game is about trying to stabilize an experimental and miniaturized fusion reactor, or to deal with airlock compression between modules. There's no putting-gems-in-a-statue's-eye-to-unveil-a-secret-pathway type puzzle. In the case of "Observation," it's also about science. The gameplay we ask the player to take part in is both appropriate to the moment and characters, and believable in terms of its presentation. Signing took a while! We actually road-tested some gameplay concepts for "Observation" in "Stories Untold." Our primary objective has always been telling great interactive stories, where player agency is in lockstep with the character's development. McKellan: We had pitched - and were in the process of signing - "Observation" when we made an experimental adventure game, "Stories Untold" (2017). : How similar or different is this game from other ones you or your company have made in the past? The modules and interior of Observation's space station bear striking resemblance to real-life orbital outposts like the International Space Station. I immediately jumped to " 2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) and thought about what the computer HAL might be going through - what it might feel like to suddenly have a consciousness, or to have a sudden existential awakening - and that became the seeds of the game. So I started to think about other favorite films and stories that could go through a similar process. It's about a creature that is born in a hostile environment with a crew trying to kill it, and all it wants to do is eat! I had just finished five years of working on survival horror game "Alien: Isolation" (2014), and I was heavily immersed in "Alien." Seeing the film from the alien's perspective was eye-opening. The example it cited was the alien from the original " Alien" (1979) movie.
#OBSERVATION GAME MOVIE#
Jon McKellan: The idea came from an article I had read years ago, taking an antagonist from a movie and recontextualizing the movie with them as a protagonist.
: What was the inspiration behind "Observation"?