Welcome back to the Dev Blog!

As I’d promised in the first entry, I’ve got a bunch of interviews with our developers for you. Walking the halls of “the bunker,” I see an awful lot of our devs sporting t-shirts emblazoned with the codenames of past projects they have worked on for Ubisoft (Avatar: The Game has had a few codenames of its own over the last few years of development). So, the first thing I wanted to do as your humble Community Developer was acquaint you with some of the key members of our team and show off their experience and talent. To that end, I presented these developers with five questions regarding their past and present work.

Without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to Kevin Shortt, our “Story Guy.”

ComDevGabe: What games have you worked on previously?

Kevin Shortt: I’ve been a scriptwriter and story designer with Ubisoft Montreal since 2006. I’ve shipped two games: Far Cry 2 and Lost - Via Domus.

CDG: What did you feel were the biggest innovations with those titles?

Kevin: Far Cry 2 was especially exciting for me since we attempted to create a dynamic story that shows tangible results based on multiple player choices. I worked with Patrick Redding, the lead story designer for FC2 and Clint Hocking, the creative director. They’re both an inspiration to work with and I’m extremely proud of the work we did on that game. I think we’ve still got lots of work ahead to make dynamic narrative a true success story, and Far Cry 2 represents a significant stepping stone.

CDG: What are you doing on Avatar?

Kevin: I’m the lead scriptwriter and story designer on Avatar. I’m responsible for coming up with the story for our game and ensuring it enhances the game experience and expands on the universe that James Cameron has created. To do that we’ve worked closely with James Cameron and his team. They opened their doors to us. We got a close-up look at all their working assets. And they were wonderfully receptive to our ideas.

CDG: How has your past experience helped you?

Kevin: By past experience, I’m guessing you mean my life before game development. Before joining Ubisoft, I was a filmmaker and a writer & producer for television. That experience has been invaluable. Storytelling in film is all about shorthand. How do you convey an idea or emotion in the simplest ways, with a single shot, with a single word – or no words at all? Storytelling in games is so often in support of the game design. The last thing we want is that a story takes over the adventure. If you wanted to sit and watch a story, you’d rent a movie or see a play, right? Well, a game is all about interacting. So my job is to find ways to tell the story in the simplest fashion that enhances the game experience without getting in the way. And without a doubt, my experiences with scriptwriting for film has been key to my success in video game writing.

CDG: Do you have any anecdotes from your history as a developer or from Avatar’s development?

Kevin: The most unusual thing about working on Avatar is the intense level of security. Within the Ubisoft studio, the Avatar team has been cordoned off from the rest of the building. Access is highly restricted and we’re tucked in a corner of the studio affectionately called the bunker. It’s unusual for a project to be so removed from the rest of the studio in this way.

Thanks Kevin!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.