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Oni: Difference between revisions
→Troubles: adding an Evans quote on the crunch; correcting Seattle back to Redmond!
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The second half of 1999 saw the replacement of the AI programmer and the departure of one of the level designers, followed by Brent Pease himself at the very end of the year (with his Project Lead title being passed to Michael Evans). LeBel and the team began honing the gameplay, shaping the final story, and figuring out what features or content would have to be dropped in order to ship the game before it was too late; Bungie was secretly suffering from serious money problems (see "Buyout" section below). In May of 2000, it was announced that multiplayer was being removed from the game due to latency issues and lack of time to create suitable arena levels for network play. | The second half of 1999 saw the replacement of the AI programmer and the departure of one of the level designers, followed by Brent Pease himself at the very end of the year (with his Project Lead title being passed to Michael Evans). LeBel and the team began honing the gameplay, shaping the final story, and figuring out what features or content would have to be dropped in order to ship the game before it was too late; Bungie was secretly suffering from serious money problems (see "Buyout" section below). In May of 2000, it was announced that multiplayer was being removed from the game due to latency issues and lack of time to create suitable arena levels for network play. | ||
In June of 2000, it was announced that Bungie had been acquired by Microsoft. This caused an upset among Bungie's fan base, which mostly consisted of Mac users. They considered Microsoft to be Apple's nemesis, and now the company behind the upcoming Xbox console had taken the most popular game developer from the Mac world and would be incorporating them into their | In June of 2000, it was announced that Bungie had been acquired by Microsoft. This caused an upset among Bungie's fan base, which mostly consisted of Mac users. They considered Microsoft to be Apple's nemesis, and now the company behind the upcoming Xbox console had taken the most popular game developer from the Mac world and would be incorporating them into their office complex. The effect this had on Oni's development was dire: it meant that Bungie West needed to finish their work as soon as possible in order to join the rest of Bungie in Redmond, Washington. | ||
In order to ship the game by year-end, the Bungie West staff worked massive overtime for several months straight. During this "crunch" period, the unexpected departure of the graphics programmer led to his replacement and a minor overhaul of the graphics code.<ref>[https://archive.is/njEe3#:~:text=Fun%20fact eBay, "Bungie Oni for Macintosh - Autographed", May 17, 2021]. Stefan tells the story in the Description section.<!--By the way, we know that he replaced the previous programmer by August because that's when Stefan started asking questions on a 3D graphics forum about OpenGL ^_^ --></ref> Technical and/or gameplay issues required all 14 levels to have their geometry significantly altered over the course of 7 months.<ref name=conquer /><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=19648 OCF post by Hardy LeBel, "Re: Oni basic questionare", Jul. 6, 2002].</ref><ref>Also see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v_elVuwx0c&t=698s Hardy LeBel, "Learn Level Design Class 9 - Integrating Game Mechanics", Dec. 17, 2016], at 11'38", where he talks about a "month of weekends" spent adding the [[Jello-cam|jello-fix boxes]].</ref> According to Hardy LeBel, "It was as bad a crunch as there has ever been in the video games industry."<ref>[https://youtu.be/jbrPu15jjPs?t=960 mrixrt, "Bungie's Forgotten Franchise - Oni", Mar. 11, 2019], 16 minute mark.</ref> It is only due to this final push that a playable and enjoyable game was forged out of | In order to ship the game by year-end, the Bungie West staff worked massive overtime for several months straight.<ref>Michael Evans said "Most of us were working 14 hours a day 7 days a week" in [https://web.archive.org/web/20010128191200/http://hypothermia.gamershardware.com/interviews/interview_oni.html this interview].</ref> During this "crunch" period, the unexpected departure of the graphics programmer led to his replacement and a minor overhaul of the graphics code.<ref>[https://archive.is/njEe3#:~:text=Fun%20fact eBay, "Bungie Oni for Macintosh - Autographed", May 17, 2021]. Stefan tells the story in the Description section.<!--By the way, we know that he replaced the previous programmer by August because that's when Stefan started asking questions on a 3D graphics forum about OpenGL ^_^ --></ref> Technical and/or gameplay issues required all 14 levels to have their geometry significantly altered over the course of 7 months.<ref name=conquer /><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=19648 OCF post by Hardy LeBel, "Re: Oni basic questionare", Jul. 6, 2002].</ref><ref>Also see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v_elVuwx0c&t=698s Hardy LeBel, "Learn Level Design Class 9 - Integrating Game Mechanics", Dec. 17, 2016], at 11'38", where he talks about a "month of weekends" spent adding the [[Jello-cam|jello-fix boxes]].</ref> According to Hardy LeBel, "It was as bad a crunch as there has ever been in the video games industry."<ref>[https://youtu.be/jbrPu15jjPs?t=960 mrixrt, "Bungie's Forgotten Franchise - Oni", Mar. 11, 2019], 16 minute mark.</ref> It is only due to this final push that a playable and enjoyable game was forged out of their years of prior work. | ||
==Completion== | ==Completion== | ||