The 2006 DICE Summit in Las Vegas concluded Friday evening with "Outside the Shadows: A Conversation with the Creators of
Ico and
Shadow of the Colossus," a Q&A with game creators Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido about the making of their two critically acclaimed games for the PlayStation 2, and Frank Cifaldi has written up the fascinating session for Gamasutra.
The Q&A section of the talk revealed some particularly interesting answers, as follows:
"Pushed by a question, Ueda finally revealed the significance of Ico's horns. "Actually, there really wasn't any special meaning to that, it was just that the camera was far away, and it was sometimes hard to tell which character was which."
Speaking about the industry in general, Ueda lamented, "If you look right now the industry, it's full of sequels. Which is fine, I play a lot of sequels, because they're fun, but I don't think we can leave it like that. If that's all there is, I'm afraid the market will start to diminish. We need new games that we can challenge ourselves to."
As far as recent examples of game designs Ueda has enjoyed, he had a few kind words for Valve's Half-Life 2. "It's a such a natural setting, and the puzzles are incorporated in that natural setting, and the players don't get lost. And that's something we put a lot of effort into for Ico, so I understand what went into that."
You can now
read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including more excellent information on the making of these two evolutionary titles (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).
