Oni: Difference between revisions

'''Oni''' is an action video game developed by [[Bungie West]], a satellite studio of [[wp:Bungie|Bungie]], and released in the U.S. on January 29, 2001<ref name=GOD-release>[https://web.archive.org/web/20010617133132/http://www.godgames.com/main.php?section=news&page=press&pr=ONI_Ships Godgames.com, "Gathering of Developers Ships Oni Nationwide for the PC and Macintosh", Jan. 29, 2001]. This is referring to the U.S. release; see "Release" section for info on other releases.</ref><ref>[https://www.gamespot.com/articles/oni-receives-final-approval/1100-2676645/ GameSpot, "Oni Receives Final Approval", unknown date].</ref> for Windows, Macintosh, and PlayStation 2.

Work on Oni began in 1997 when Bungie decided to found a second studio, Bungie West, with the initial employees being Brent Pease and Michael Evans. The concept for Bungie West's first project was devised by Pease, whose primary influence was the animé film ''[[Ghost in the Shell]]''. <ref>It took one year of conversation before the project started ([http://oni.bungie.org/special/part1/brent.html Bungie.org, "Interview with Brent Pease", 1999]). Also see [http://web.archive.org/web/20010302193919/http://www.insidemacgames.com/previews/99/oni/oni2.shtml Inside Mac Games, "Sneak Preview: Oni", 1999] where Michael Evans gets the credit for taking Pease to see the movie.</ref> Pease and Evans had been programmers at Apple working on game-related technology, and their first step was to begin programming Oni's engine while gradually hiring employees to produce concept art and game content. "Oni" was meant to be a development code name that referenced the game's inspiration – Pease considered "oni"'s meaning to be "ghost".<ref>The meaning of "oni" is usually given by those familiar with Japanese mythology as either "demon" or "ogre". Pease explained the origin of the code name [http://oni.bungie.org/special/part1/brent.html here], and seemed to still think the word meant "ghost"; however, Hardy, his eventual replacement, indicated [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=19851 here] and [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=18292 here] that he understood "oni" to mean "demon" and had written the final story with that in mind (the script itself uses the word "monster", as explored [[Oni (myth)#Monsters|here]]).</ref><ref>At one time during development, the name "Mnemonic Shadow" was considered according to the [https://marathon.bungie.org/story/newjan-feb01.html Marathon Story Page].</ref> The characters [[Konoko]] and [[Griffin|Commander Griffin]] of the Technology Crimes Task Force are analogous to [[wp:Motoko Kusanagi|Motoko Kusanagi]] and [[wp:List of Ghost in the Shell characters#Chief Daisuke Aramaki|Chief Aramaki]] of Section 9 in ''Ghost in the Shell''. Early development presented Konoko as a [[wp:Cyborg|cyborg]], furthering her resemblance to Motoko.

An additional influence came through Oni's concept artist [[Alex Okita]] who was a fan of ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]'', calling it and ''Ghost in the Shell'' "the two main influences at the time."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170705124855/http://www.glixel.com/interviews/oni-bungies-classic-inspired-by-ghost-in-the-shell-w474297 Glixel, "Flashback: 'Oni', Bungie's Cult Classic Inspired by 'Ghost in the Shell'", Mar. 30, 2017].</ref> He particularly cited Kenichi Sonoda, character designer of ''Bubblegum Crisis'', as an influence on his work.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20010118230100/http://www.onicore.com/interviews/alexokita.html OniCore, Interview with Alex Okita, 1999].</ref> Later, [[Lorraine Reyes]] also showed her familiarity with Sonoda and ''Ghost in the Shell'' creator Masamune Shirow in [[:Image:Konoko_Variants.jpg|a sketch]] showing Konoko in three different styles. In August of 1999, Hardy LeBel was brought in as Design Lead and revamped the story.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20010727151534/www.insidemacgames.com/features/00/lebel/ Inside Mac Games, "Interview: Oni's Hardy LeBel", 2000].</ref> He cited ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' as a personal influence when doing so.<ref name=conquer>[https://web.archive.org/web/20041209033107/http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2001/02/oni/ Apple.com, "Conquering Demons: Bungie on Oni", Feb. 2001].</ref><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4618 Oni Central Forum, "Re: The Analytical reasons behind Oni's influences", Sep. 2, 2000].</ref> The final version of Oni abandoned the cyborg nature of the heroine and introduced original concepts such as the [[Daodan Chrysalis]] and [[SLD]]s.

After an initial onslaught of advertising which saw Konoko appear on many gaming magazine covers, Oni's development stalled (as discussed below), and Bungie suspended the advertising of the game so as not to expend their marketing budget before Oni was even released.<ref name=advert>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4570 Oni Central Forum, "Re: Matt- could you address this?", Aug. 29, 2000].</ref> At the same time, Bungie's HQ in Chicago had their own game under development; previously known only by its code name "Blam!", in 1999 it came to be known as "Halo" and slowly drew attention away from the oft-delayed Oni as images and trailers for it began to appear.

Oni was originally expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 1999,<ref name=advert /> but as that time approached, the release date was pushed back. This occurred repeatedly, until finally the rumored release date was as late as March 2001.<ref>Discussions on Oni Central Forum of: a [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=2533 fall 1999] release date, a [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=1129 summer 2000] release date, a [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4084 fall 2000] release date, and finally a [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4699 spring 2001] release date. These "release dates" were generally rumors, ephemeral dates used by online stores for pre-orders, or vague estimates by Bungie PR, not official statements. Nevertheless, it was clear that Oni was taking longer than planned to finish, which was a cause of some concern among Bungie fans.</ref> Some of the uncertainty came from Bungie's typical reluctance to announce or adhere to fixed release dates.

However, unbeknownst to the public, development of Oni was troubled from the start. The team was young and inexperienced, and development suffered from a lack of direction. A great deal of code had been written and assets created without producing a game with a story mode that was playable from start to finish. Transferring data from the software used for level modeling and animation into Oni wasn't possible until the very end of 1997.<ref>"After almost a year all they had were some stick figures walking in a box; hardly a killer demo, much less a new frontier in gaming. […] Eventually, Brent had a 'eureka' - just before New Year's Eve 1998, he had a breakthrough. He was able to match the power of these professional tools with their new engine."[http://web.archive.org/web/20010302193919/http://www.insidemacgames.com/previews/99/oni/oni2.shtml Inside Mac Games, "Sneak Preview: Oni", 1999].</ref> By mid-1999 it became clear to management back in Chicago that the game was not going to be ready by year-end, so Hardy LeBel was added to the team with the goal of bringing focus to the development efforts and producing a shippable product.

At the same time, turnover at the Bungie West office began with the departure of the AI programmer in the summer of 1999 (a replacement would not be hired until January 2000<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=1808 Oni Central Forum, "I'm pretty sure Chris Butcher has joined Oni", Jan. 23, 2000].</ref>). The end of 1999 saw the departure of one of the level designers and then Brent Pease himself (with his Project Lead title being passed to Michael Evans).

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 Oni Central Forum, "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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbrPu15jjPs&t=960s 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.

Oni went through a short period of beta testing, starting just before September 2000,<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=4556 Oni Central Forum, "New news groups?", Aug. 28, 2000].</ref> during which leaked beta builds of the game surfaced on the Internet.<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=6634 Oni Central Forum, "Leakage?", Nov. 27, 2000].</ref><ref>[https://groups.google.com/g/alt.games.tombraider/c/vB9G_SbOrmU/m/i6D6zJQvNngJ Usenet alt.games.tombraider thread, "ok wtf!", Nov. 5, 2000].</ref> As Bungie West reached the end of development, Oni's publisher, Take-Two Interactive, granted them an extra month to polish the game, even though it would mean missing the holiday season.<!--No official citation for this because it's in the private full interview video with Hardy, but see 33:48 in that video.--> This final period of asset development apparently spanned October 2000, during which time the training level was added.<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=5646 Oni Central Forum, "Re: is the "new' movie really the old trailer", Oct. 30, 2000]. Also, a [[wikt:gold master|GM]] candidate produced on Oct. 30, 2000 already contained the training level. The timestamp on the Windows retail game data is Nov. 3, 2000, so all assets were done by that point.</ref>

Development of the Windows version was finished in November 2000<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=6377 Oni Central Forum, "ONI gone GOLD", Nov. 20, 2000].</ref> and the Mac version in December.<ref name=MacGM>See [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=7653 Oni Central Forum, "Re: It's coming... soon", Dec. 18, 2000], which showed that the Mac demo would not be ready until the Mac version of the game reached Gold Master status, and [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=8412 Oni Central Forum, "MAC DEMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", Dec. 22, 2000], celebrating the release of the demo. However, the official confirmation of Mac GM status didn't come [http://oni.bungie.org/newsarchives/2001/jan01.html#gold until Jan. 3, 2001].</ref> The PlayStation 2 version was not GMed until January 22, 2001, one week before the release date that had been announced in November 2000.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20010128150200/http://www.dailyradar.com/news/game_news_6691.html Daily Radar, "Oni Gets SCEA's Approval ", Jan. 22, 2001].</ref> The Windows demo, released in mid-December,<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=7479 Oni Central Forum, "ONI DEMO!", Dec. 17, 2000].</ref> contained Chapters [[CHAPTER_01_._TRIAL_RUN|1]] and [[CHAPTER 04 . TIGER BY THE TAIL|4]]. A later demo was released with Chapters 1 and [[CHAPTER 02 . ENGINES OF EVIL|2]] instead. The Mac demo, released a few days after the original Windows demo,<ref name=MacGM /> only ever contained Chapters 1 and 4.

Oni was translated into other languages: Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.<ref>[http://oni.bungie.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2102 Oni Central Forum, "What language is your copy of Oni in?", Sep. 2011].</ref> These localizations included re-dubbed dialogue except for the Chinese localization which only translated the in-game text. The localizations were critical to building Oni's fan base, much of which is outside of primarily-English-speaking countries. Additional distributions of the game such as [[:Image:Windows (pt-BR) box back.jpg|Brazilian Portuguese]] and [[Slovak game manual|Slovak]] only translated the manual and did not change any of the data on the game disc. The European-language releases for Mac and PlayStation 2 were delayed until March 2001. The Japanese releases for Windows and Mac didn't come out until the fall of 2001.

Some previously hyped features were missing, such as the AI characters being able to dodge gunfire and work together. This was attributed to the turnover in the AI engineering position after the original programmer was not able to complete all the tasks in the timeframe that she stated she would.<ref name=HL-cuts>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=19661 Oni Central Forum, "Re: More questions... (mainly for chef...)", Jul. 7, 2002].</ref> (However some hidden AI abilities have been found in Oni's engine, either disabled, unfinished, or not utilized by the game's mission scripts.)

Finally, Bungie did not hold to their usual practice of releasing level-building tools for their games, since professional and costly software was used to produce Oni's levels:

--><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=2805 Oni Central Forum, "Re: Professional Tools (doh)"].</ref><!--

--><ref name="OBO Brent interview">[http://oni.bungie.org/special/part1/brent.html, "Interview with Brent Pease", 1999].</ref><!--

--><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=5996 Oni Central Forum, "Re: Really?", Nov. 13, 2000].</ref><!--

--> for use by the architects in modeling the levels,<!--

--><ref name="OBO Brent interview"/><!--

--><ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20010302193919/http://www.insidemacgames.com/previews/99/oni/oni2.shtml Inside Mac Games, "Sneak Preview: Oni", 1999]</ref><!--

--><ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20000817001446/http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/00/dunn/p2.shtml Inside Mac Games, "Interview: Oni Level Designer David Dunn"].</ref><!--

--> but as Oni's release neared, it was pointed out by Matt Soell, Bungie's PR person, that since ownership had transferred to Take-Two, Bungie could not release these things.<!--

--><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=5185 Oni Central Forum, "Re: Ok Matt, you knew we'd ask...", Oct. 5, 2000].</ref><!--

--> Thus, it was left to the fans to create modding tools after investigating the inner workings of the game on their own.