okay this is as good a place as any to
begin hello
Johnny from Eurogamer here recently
Aoife and I went to Universal Studios in
California to get hands-on with jurassic
world evolution as you've hopefully seen
already from our other coverage on the
channel strange though it may seem for a
park simulator game evolution actually
boasts a proper story featuring a whole
cast of characters with wildly divergent
senses of basic morality including of
course dr. Ian Malcolm himself life it
begins the man behind the story is
writer John Z platen who's worked on all
sorts of games from fear effect to
transformers to The Chronicles of
Riddick
i sat down with John at Universal in a
room with disgustingly nice lighting to
talk about the game's story writing for
Jeff Goldblum and retconning the series
fiction here's what happened next I
guess my first question yeah like what
are the challenges in writing a
narrative for a game that's so deeply
systemic I mean this is a simulator how
are you how so the trick here is really
you know where the game is very open
world and very free to let the player
just kind of explore and do what they
want the goal is to set the table the
goal is to provide some context to
entice the player to do certain things
but ultimately the freedoms there also
so I've always believed I've written a
tremendous amount of video games over
the years and I've always believed that
the player themselves is a co-creator of
the story with me so I look at their
involvement as essential to the story
that plays out so this was kind of a fun
thing where I just kind of I sort of put
things in place and then knit yours
that being said there's also a campaign
that you can play there are three
branches within the game that you can
explore there's science entertainment
security each of those branches has
unique characters and unique storylines
that take place that are sort of
structured in a linear fashion and when
you get through all of them together
they all equal something so but of
course the choice is up to you so if you
wanna start with security or you want to
do some security and then jump over to
entertainment your choice yeah I have to
say when we were playing through the
demo I was playing with my colleague and
I insisted that we avoid the
entertainment path just because they're
the main PR manager is such a snake I
just thought it's intentionally yes
which I thought was was really really
great I liked how you brought out the
element of kind of morality and yeah
well you know the Jurassic Park property
is it's about dinosaurs and course but
it's it's really also about the hubris
of man and you know the idea that that
man the humanity can find a way to take
something that was extinct bring it back
to life and then somehow control them
right is that the essence of the
property and so when you look at saying
okay so you start with this notion of
somebody who's not fully understanding
what they're doing and then you build
out on that into sort of like a
character that kind of fills a number of
slots for us you know sort of the the
corporate guy he's willing to cut
corners he's always kind of looking at
the bottom line yeah no harm no foul
kind of character and then you try and
build that into something interesting
that's not just a cliche you know that's
a fun thing to do and to be able to
create some characters that are new to
the Jurassic world and Jurassic Park
property but do it in a way that kind of
pays tribute to other characters you've
seen before of course yeah that was
really fun yeah yeah of course you've
got they you know the scientists you
can't help seeing these things two
specimens rather than actual living
creature exactly presumably the security
guy is all too aware of that
yeah everyone sort of blinded to a bit
by their own sort of bias and and so you
know the scientists doctor do is she's
just enthralled by the science and so
the consequences of the science don't
really mean much to her yeah the
entertainment division either just wants
to put on a great show
we're here to entertain people we're
here to make money we're here to be
bigger and better than
and right this is what we're all about
we got to do it right and so
occasionally when things go wrong oops
right and and then Lambert is so focused
on trying to keep things under control
that he doesn't really realize he has no
control you know it's it's that sort of
thing and then you've got Malcolm sort
of sitting him outside it all kind of
going hmm
seen that before seen that before know
how that goes wrong yeah you're gonna
screw that up and that's the fun thing
with that character is that he pops in
to kind of not only rib the other
characters in the game but to kind of
nudge the player to say yeah think about
that it's interesting that he does pop
in it a very poignant yeah intervals
when I think if I were in your position
I would have been tempted to just use
him ceaselessly across the board was it
difficult to avoid the temptation to
just he's so great and the character is
so fun to write and he brings so much to
the property and he's you know he's an
icon an icon and so yeah you just wanted
like just give us more blow bloom you
know that's that's that's the answer
just as much an Ian Malcolm as you can
put in there but yeah we decided that we
really wanted to make sure that Malcolm
felt like he was there for a reason
right you know people ask well isn't he
pretty much anti everything that's going
on at Jurassic world and to a certain
degree yes but also to a certain degree
know in that sense that this genies out
of the bottle and he knows it's not
going back so he feels a certain
responsibility since he's had
so much hands-on experience in tragic
ways with with the research of the
Hammond foundation in the dress park
world he feels sort of almost
responsibility to be there even if he
doesn't like even if he's like there are
times when he's still kind of awed by
yeah and so we felt it was an
interesting way to create a dynamic
relationship between Malcolm and
ultimately the player and that pays off
an interesting way when you get to the
anything chill just kind of clear where
the game sits in terms of the timeline
oh yeah you know when you you hear from
from alchemy has had this bird first
time experiences yes how dangerous these
these things are but correct me if I'm
wrong the game does jump about a bit in
terms it does when it's second you just
sort of clarify yes so the game
basically has it sort of exists in
multiple time there's actually homage to
the original Jurassic Park which is
fantastic and I think players will
really enjoy that and we go back and
kind of put a little more context on a
little more story and the things you may
think you know but maybe you don't and
then and then the the vast majority the
game itself sort of lives right towards
the end of this film you look for the
film coming out fallen Kingdom and and
and then it's it also sort of integrates
with other timelines that sort of happen
in between those two things
so yeah it's a little bit squishy and
it's tricky because you know we're
trying to be completely true to the
franchise and not step on anything where
the film may be going next or where the
franchise is and still be able to create
a really compelling experience for the
player that hooks in to everything that
they want yeah so yeah it's a bit of a
balancing act I think we pulled it off
anything you would sort of tempted to
try and retcon off but I did try and
retcon a character's motivation from the
original film and
everyone liked it except the people that
had the ability to say yes and no and
they was a great idea we're not doing
that was it the guy who plays the slice
of pie with all the shaving foam
anything uh because that guy really you
can fit a lot of the whole friends yeah
there's a there's a there's a lot of
backstory that's sort of implied in the
Jurassic Park universe yeah that that's
been really great and it's been explored
in the Jurassic world films as part in
the original Jurassic Park films and
actually goes all the way back to
Michael Crichton's no but uh wherever
you have this wherever you have a world
a chaotic world it's doing something
different
opportunists appear and and the
opportunists that basically in essence
created the calamity and chaos in the
original Jurassic Park film a presence
like that is is in this game as well and
so yeah there's that kind of those exist
what you might mean and it may be a
character you've known for a long time
yeah I think before I get you in trouble
it might to say thank you way to pick up
on that thread and see see what you yeah
exactly what you don't buy that awesome
yeah thank you so much kids yeah
and there you have it a little insight
into the story of Jurassic world
evolution hopefully you found it
illuminating but feel free to share your
thoughts in the comments below we've got
loads more videos on Jurassic world
evolution for you to watch including one
in which Aoife actually talks to Jeff
Goldblum so feel free to give one of
those a watch if you fancy either way
thank you very much for watching this
one bye
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