Interview With Mike Rubin
Vespers 3D: An Exploration Into 3D Interactive Fiction

At the Utah Indie Game Developer's Meet in July, I had the chance to meet Mike Rubin (aka "Rubes"), who really impressed me with a demo of the upcoming game "Vespers 3D." Vespers 3D is actually a 3D Interactive Fiction (I.F.) project, based upon the award-winning text-only Interactive Fiction game called, coincidentally enough, "Vespers."

My discussion with Mike was split between discussion of his adaptation of Torque Technology to drive this project, and a conversation about the design issues he faced coupling the explorative, deliberate gameplay of Interactive Fiction (AKA "Adventure Games") with the visceral, immersive experience of first-person perspective, fully 3D graphics. Mike seemed very soft-spoken and unassuming, and kept praising the artists he'd worked with to create this demo. While he was very open with the possibility that this experiment might fail, I was struck by his passion for the project, and how well he'd thought through the design issues. When the opportunity struck to interview him about his project, I was thrilled by the chance to pick his brain a little more. I hope you'll find it as fascinating as I did!

Rampant Coyote: So tell us a little about yourself. Who is Mike Rubin? Mike Rubin: Best I can tell from Wikipedia, I'm a videographer with ties to Apple and Lucasfilm, a middle east scholar, and a musician whose best known work is on "Blue's Clues." I really don't recall anything like that in my past, but then again there's a lot of my life I don't remember well. Mostly what I know is a life predominantly in medical research, now as an assistant professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine. It's an interesting hobby while I pursue my life dream of getting my own personal entry in Wikipedia as the father of three-dimensional interactive fiction. Rampant Coyote: Steve Taylor of NinjaBee told me to ask you about Missions of the Reliant. Was that you? Want to tell us about that one? Steve tells me he played it a TON, and wanted to know if you have another version planned. Mike Rubin: Yeah, that was the game that was supposed to "get it out of my system." It was a shareware game I made for the Mac back in the early/mid-90's while I was in graduate school, mostly because I had always wanted to make a game and I had to give it a try. I based it on that old ASCII Star Trek game, where you moved around from sector to sector wiping out Klingons, only this time I made it with isometric 2D graphics and a different storyline. It was a lot of fun, and I learned an incredible amount -- particularly how bad I was at marketing and post-production crap. But it got some recognition in MacUser's annual shareware awards and it made enough money to buy a few more beers and brats in grad school. The fact that Steve remembered it is amazing, although I'm not sure he should really be admitting to playing a "ton" of it. I've thought about trying to go back and modify the code to release the full game for free, but I've got enough on my plate right now as it is. Interesting, now that I think about it; in that game I took what was originally a "text"-based game and put a nifty graphics front end on it. Now I find myself doing the same thing with Vespers and text IF. I wonder what that means.

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Rampant Coyote: It's gotta be destiny, man! Back when I was a kid, "Interactive Fiction" was just called "Adventure Games." The early Colossal Cave adventures, and the timeless Infocom games like Zork and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, motivated me to learn to program myself so I could create these absolutely incredible experiences. I came across the term, "Interactive Fiction" about ten years ago. Is there a difference between "adventure games" and "interactive fiction?"

Mike Rubin: I think there are some differences, but the fundamental concept is pretty much the same. I would say that the term Interactive Fiction evolved as a way of reflecting the greater literary approach that is now being taken in the writing of these games. Many IF authors spend a great deal of effort on the quality of the writing and its contribution to the game experience, rather than focusing entirely on the puzzles. And there are some experimental IF games that have taken this approach to new and interesting places. I really cut my teeth on some of those old games; I remember spending far too much time playing Original Adventure on my dad's hulking Northstar computer, followed later by Scott Adams's wonderful, albeit laconic, adventure games. Those early games, although certainly literary in their own style, concentrated more on relatively simple puzzle-solving; any semblance of story was thin and basically emergent from the puzzles. Then Infocom came about, and I would say that most people would identify that as the start of real IF. The games shifted focus from being centered around puzzles to being centered around stories. The puzzles were still there, of course, but it became more about the writing, and the quality thereof. I think those were probably the first games that you would begin to identify with the term "fiction". The term "adventure game" can still apply in many cases, though. Lots of IF games are about exploration and adventure, but many also additionally have some of the components of true fiction, such as plot, characterization, dialogue, and so forth. IF has come a long way since the 80's, and there are some really sophisticated works out there.

Rampant Coyote: What technology was Vespers originally built with?

Mike Rubin: Vespers was written using Inform (version 6). A newer version has come out since then (Inform 7), which is a real advance in writing text IF games because it uses more natural language.

Rampant Coyote: So what made you decide to implement Interactive Fiction in 3D? What made you think it would be good match, and what do you hope to accomplish with this title?

Mike Rubin: I'm still not sure if it's a good match, to be honest; that's what we're looking to find out with this experiment. I guess there are two main reasons I thought it was worth trying. One reason is that I've always enjoyed the freedom of movement and exploration that first-person games (FPS) provide, particularly those with really compelling worlds. But typically, FPS games don't want you to spend a lot of time exploring and experimenting with things; usually you have a straightforward goal and the idea is to complete it and get to the next level. Well, text IF is all about exploring and experimenting, so this would be a way of incorporating those things into the 3D world. The other reason is that I think there is a growing sense of dissatisfaction with mainstream games, particularly FPS-style games. So much emphasis is placed on the graphics, and story is really just an afterthought used to loosely tie together the various levels. Half-Life got all this credit for having a great "story", but come on -- that was a fragfest, not a story. But again, text IF is all about developing story and characters and interactivity, so once again this would be a way of giving 3D games something they've been missing. There are other reasons as well, like trying to bring a greater sense of interaction to 3D games by using a text parser and forcing the player to really think about what to do next -- not just click click click. Some of the recent graphical adventure games do this to some extent, but I like the increased options that a text parser can provide compared with mouse clicking.

Rampant Games: So why did you choose a 3D remake of "Vespers," rather than an original title?

Mike Rubin: Well, I decided if I was going to try this, I needed to start with a reasonable goal: create a small prototype game, like a proof-of-concept. I thought the best approach would be to base the prototype on an existing IF game -- and specifically a really good one, so people would hopefully enjoy it while they're trying it out. So I checked out the latest entries from the 2005 IFComp (the annual IF Competition, at www.ifcomp.org), which is open only to IF games that can be completed in two hours or less. The first one I looked at was Vespers, a game by Jason Devlin, which had just been voted the winner of the competition. It was fantastic, and it had all the elements I was looking for: a compelling story, great characters, a perfect setting (small but well visualized) -- and it was short. It was easy to envision bringing the game to 3D life. So I e-mailed him after I finished playing it, presented him with the idea, and he was sold. He remains intimately involved in the project -- probably the way an author would be when his book is being made into a movie.

Rampant Coyote: I imagine that going from a text-only game to a full-blown 3D world came with a lot of challenges. What sort of challenges did you face, and were any of them unexpected?

Mike Rubin: It's probably safe to say that most things were unexpected, since I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Although many of the challenges are difficult and problematic, I'd probably also say that they are a source of great enjoyment. Jason, N.R. Bharathae (our modeler and artistic lead), and myself have had many great e-mail conversations about how to implement a particular feature of IF which is simple to do in text but horrendously complicated in 3D. (Well, *I* think they're great, those guys are probably sick of me e-mailing them all the time to complain about something else.) One of the earliest issues that came up was the concept of "scope." In text IF, the game world is divided up into well-defined rooms or locations. So at any one point in time, you can easily determine which game objects are "in scope" (those objects the player can interact with). Usually that's whatever is in that room, plus whatever the player is carrying in inventory, and it's simple to calculate. But in 3D, rooms are more difficult to define. I tried defining scope as whichever objects fall within a particular radius of the player, but then you have to take into account walls (if an object is behind a wall, you can't really interact with it), field of view (if an object is behind the player, should he be able to interact with it?), and so on. You don't have to take these things into account in text. Most of the other problems are similar in that they deal with the issues raised by introducing spatial relationships into the equation. How to drop objects when the player is standing right in front of a wall; how to deal with certain commands when the player is standing at funny, unexpected angles; how to handle placing objects inside or on top of other objects. The list goes on and on, and there are still lots of outstanding issues that we haven't worked out yet.

Rampant Coyote: When you move from a more abstract representation of a world to a more concrete one, those kinds of things are bound to come up. I've heard similar things from experienced "Pen and Paper" RPG designers moving to computer games. And even from doing conversions of board games to computer games. I would imagine that you aren't the first one to think of pairing up Interactive Fiction with a 3D environment. Do you know of anyone else who has succeeded? If not, why do you think they failed? If so, what are you doing that's different (other than telling a different story)?

Mike Rubin: Well, I can't say I'm completely familiar with all of the different attempts that have been made in the recent past with respect to graphical adventure games. But I'm pretty sure that nobody else has taken the approach of incorporating this much text into the game. The text in traditional IF performs many functions; it is descriptive, narrative, informative, aesthetic; and of course it is used for interaction. Is there no role for that in a graphical adventure game? I think there certainly is. Perhaps not in the descriptive sense (that would probably be redundant), but certainly in its other roles. And I don't know of any real-time 3D games where a text parser is used for command entry. So in that sense I don't know of other games which have really tried to incorporate interactive fiction per se. I think people will always point to the Myst series as the best-known implementation, and they did use real-time 3D in their later efforts. Some people really liked those, but I have not played them all. Our story is different, yes, but I also think we will differ in how we tell the story and how the player experiences it.

Rampant Coyote: How do you think the Interactive Fiction community will respond to a real-time 3D I.F. game? Do you worry they'll cry out for your blood for polluting their beloved text with something that looks like a First-Person Shooter? Or is this something that the community has already been asking for?

Mike Rubin: It's a fascinating discussion to me, and on one hand I'm eager to see the reaction and on the other I'm dreading it. I'm sure there are people in both camps, although I couldn't really tell you which outnumbers the other. I've spent some time lurking in groups like rec.arts.interactive.fiction and there have been dicsussions in the past about making 3D adaptations of IF, but most were met with strong skepticism. I think there are definitely some IF people who would like to see this, but there are probably a lot who will reject it. There are, after all, hard feelings still lingering towards people like Roberta Williams (of Sierra On-Line) for initiating the demise of the text adventure game when the first graphical adventures came along. One thing that I think will lead to some indifference is that 3DIF is much less accessible to the individual developer than text IF. Most text games can be developed by a single person over a relatively short period of time, and with some of the new tools like Inform 7, very little programming skills or knowledge is needed. I think that's one of the things that binds the IF community together; it's not a commercial enterprise, it's a group of like-minded individuals working on their own projects and helping each other out and playing each other's games -- and they're all free. A 3DIF game takes a group of people with different sets of skills, some cash, and a lot of time. When the community gets their hands on this I'm sure one of the first reactions will be, "can I do this with my game, too?" The answer will probably turn many of them off because it's very different from traditional IF. I think some parts of the community are really looking for something new to spice up the IF world, and I hope this fills that role. But it's hard to say if it will.

Rampant Coyote: Do you think that Vespers 3D will help expand Interactive Fiction to a new audience? What kind of market do you expect to find for a game like this?

Mike Rubin: The IF community always seems to be looking for ways to expand their audience, and if this project can do that, I would be happy about it. I don't suspect that will necessarily be the case, but you never know. What I would like to see is people trying Vespers3D, and then trying the original text version to see how they compare. If that happens, I'm sure there will be a number of people who find they like the text version better, and perhaps they will be inspired to try other text games as well. I'm considering distributing the text version and its IF interpreter with the game, along with some information to direct players to online repositories where they can try other IF games. I think that might be an interesting tact and something of an offering to the IF community, since I'm still really an IF enthusiast at heart. I'm not sure what kind of market we will find, but I'm certain there is a market for it. I think Myst showed that you can be very successful with games that are slower paced and focus more on creative problem solving rather than fast-twitch reaction times. But Myst succeeded for a number of reasons that don't necessarily apply to our project, so it's hard to say. I think it will definitely be a niche product, but I also think people will appreciate it for what it offers.

Rampant Coyote: Do you have any projections for when Vespers 3D will be complete? Is Vespers 3D a commercial project? How will you be distributing it?

Mike Rubin: I would like to be able to project that, but I really don't know. We're still at a very early stage, and a lot will depend on finding additional help for some areas of development. Whether or not Vespers3D will be a commercial product was and continues to be a topic of considerable debate amongst our team. Originally, we planned on producing only part of Vespers; the text game takes place over three days, and we considered producing only the first day as our proof-of-concept prototype. But I think we all agree now that it will have a much greater impact as a complete game. That said, it will require a significantly greater investment to do the whole thing, which complicates matters. I'd still like to do the whole thing and release it for free, but only if that's feasible and if we believe it will help us with a future (commerical) game. As for distribution, we haven't really discussed that yet, and of course it will depend heavily upon the decision above.

Rampant Coyote: So what other games have inspired you? Any indie games?

Mike Rubin: All indie games inspire me. Any individual or small group who can start and finish a game deserves a great deal of credit, and that includes IF authors. But I'm more inspired by those games that try to do something new and different, which is really what the indie game dev community is all about...doing the things that the big game companies won't take risks on. I wasn't really part of the indie community until I got involved with the Torque Game Engine, and now I've met some pretty inspiring people. Two games that were recently completed using TGE are "Minions of Mirth" and "Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa", and it was pretty cool to watch them progress through to completion. WT:VA was a finalist at SlamDance last year, and now you can find it on store shelves at places like Best Buy, which is just amazing to think about. I can't imagine how it would feel to walk into a Best Buy and see Vespers3D sitting on a shelf.

Rampant Coyote: What are you most proud of in Vespers 3D?

Mike Rubin: I'm pretty darn proud of the text parser, which is a form of punishment I wouldn't wish on anyone. Text parsers in IF games may seem pretty simplistic, but there is an incredible amount of complexity to them. The funny thing is that they have evolved to handle some pretty complex commands -- but the reality is that the vast majority of commands they handle are still simple one or two word phrases. But the expectation now is that a good parser should be able to handle those difficult phrases, so the bar has been raised and people will expect your parser to live up to that standard. I think ours for the most part will. But really the thing I'm most proud of is that we've made it this far. Indie game projects are kind of like fish eggs; thousands are laid but only a handful survive to adulthood. We're not anywhere near the end, but we've reached something of a milestone this month. There's a tangible sense that the concept will work and the team we have is good enough and committed enough to pull it off. It feels like we have passed the point of no return, so to speak.

Rampant Coyote: Incidentally, two of the few games I actually "finished" in the Commodore 64 days as a budding wannabe game programmer were text adventures, and I remember all the effort I put into the text parser, and how proud I was of it. They still weren't quite up to Infocom standards, but I felt I could take on the Scott Adams adventures pretty handily. So, getting even more technical for a moment here: What made you decide to use the Torque Game Engine for Vesper 3D? Is this your first project in Torque? What has been your experience with Torque so far?

Mike Rubin: I chose Torque because I wanted an engine that was inexpensive, cross-platform, simple to license, and came with full access to the code. I also wanted one with a simple scripting language. Torque fit those criteria well, although one or two others did as well. I looked for a long time at Unity, which was appealing because I'm predominantly a Mac user. I chose to go with Torque mostly because of the great community there, which seemed a bit more established than Unity's. People at GarageGames.com have been really helpful and there are just an incredible number of resources there to help make your game better. This is my first project in Torque, and it's amazing to think about how much I know now compared to when I started last fall. And it's just as amazing to think of all that I still don't know. Working with Torque is one of those experiences that is hard to characterize. It's probably in some small way similar to raising a child; it's incredibly difficult and when you start out you have no idea what to do or how to do it, and you spend a lot of time struggling. But every now and then you stop and look at what you've accomplished, and you realize you've actually enjoyed it all and you're really proud of what you've been able to do. But then again, I don't have kids, so I can't say. (At least that's what all my friends with kids tell me.)

Rampant Coyote: I'm still fussing with my first Torque project myself. I know I get a little embarassed by some of the earlier code I did --- it seems like after a point you quit kicking and screaming at the engine and things just start to "click." So, is there anything else you'd like to mention here?

Mike Rubin: Just that any project like this is almost never attributable to just one person. I owe a lot to Jason, N.R., Jon Jorajuria (our sound designer) and a few others for all of their help and their skills, and for making this project both attainable and a lot of fun. And I should really be thanking my wife for not kicking me out when I spend far too much time coding on my spare time.

Once again, thank you, Mike, for this interview!  

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