Game designer Tim Schafer talks about his new venture, Brutal Legend

“You don’t have to be a pirate to love Monkey Island and you don’t have to be a metal-head to play Brutal Legend.”

Tim Schafer knows his way around quirky video-game titles. Just take a look at his resume and you will find titles like 1990’s The Secret of Monkey Island (co-writer), Grim Fandango (project leader as well as one of the writers and designers), 2005’s Psychonauts (designer, creative director and co-writer) among others.

His current project, Brutal Legend, published by EA Games, is set to release on the PS3 and 360 platforms in mid-October. It is the story of Eddie Riggs, a roadie who dreams of being so much more and who finally gets his wish when contact with an arcane belt buckle transports him into a world ruled by an evil emperor, Doviculus, and his demon army. Eddie organizes the human revolt and leads the humans through the land populated with hot rods, stacks of Marshall amplifiers and heavy metal music.

The game features a lot of diverse personalities, and those are backed up by some familiar names in the music and entertainment industry. Jack Black, who has made his share of music-based movies and is part of the metal cult group known as Tenacious D, voices Riggs, but other stars include Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford.

Tim Schafer

Recently Tim sat in on a round-table teleconference to talk about the game. One of the first questions concerned a trend seen in several of Schafer’s games; that trend that seems to center on central characters and deep dark secrets. Schafer was asked if his deepest and darkest secrets find expression in the game.

“I think my deepest, darkest secrets are embedded in every line of dialogue and design choices in the game,” he said.

The conversation rolled around to meeting some of the celebrities that he has listened to. He spoke about how they would enter the studio to record the voice tracks and how the relationship transitioned from fan to a different level. Kilmister was the first rock star to enter the studio, and others soon followed. “By the end of it I was really comfortable hanging around with all those celebs,” he stated.

The inspiration for the game was derived from the covers of heavy metal rock albums. He cited that the inspiration was drawn from years and years of listening to heavy metal where the songs always touched on fantasy. Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden were some of the influences for the world of Brutal Legend, and the covers of some of the classic albums helped to visualize the world Eddie Riggs finds himself in. “I like how anything goes in the world of heavy metal,” he said.

“Epic scenery, crazy ladies, high tech – they are really uninhibited,” Schafer said. “These images were creatively so free.”

Schafer backtracked a bit to talk about his relationship with heavy metal music. “I was 14-years old in 1981 and first album I bought was Diary of a Madman by Ozzy Osbourne. I spent a lot of my teen-age years in my room listening to heavy metal and playing video-games. That connection between heavy metal and video-games was always there for me.”

As for the music itself … “Heavy metal has a staying power.” He said. “Seems like every generation of teen-agers discovers heavy metal and takes it into their own.”

Other inspirations finding their way into the game came from the artwork of Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth, who drew outlandish creatures in hot rods that were chrome and pipes. The cars in Brutal Legend bear some resemblance to the art of Roth.

And some of the celebrities provided a few surprises as well.

“Rob Halford was such a fun actor. We added a character just so we could have him wearing his classy leathers and using a deeper voice,” Schafer said. And “it was not envisioned at the beginning that it would be Jack Black (as Eddie Riggs),” but as the character evolved, it became apparent that it could be Jack Black and the dialogue was written for Jack Black’s personality.

When it came to Ozzy Osbourne’s character, knowing the former Black Sabbath lead singer’s penchant for swearing, the character Osbourne voiced was given some ‘colorful’ dialogue (and yes, there is a profanity filter added to the game to block the onslaught of expletives if so wished), but Osbourne’s ad-libs, at times, were even more colorful than the original dialogue.

Ad-libs did make their way into the game, especially in the instance of Jack Black. “Jack Black would read a line over and over to get the feel,” Schafer said, “and then there was Jack goofing off and we ended up using it. With Jack there was some improv, but the others – the  musicians – stuck to the script, except for Ozzy, who swore more than was scripted.”

How would they know if the game’s humor was funny?

“When we worked on Monkey Island, we would write in a room together. If the joke got a big laugh in the room, we knew it was good,” Schafer said. “We always tested it with co-workers. You can kind of pick up on whether stuff is funny or not by how the team reacts to it.” The same process found its way into Brutal Legend, and there was focus testing as well.

What lessons did you learn in developing Brutal Legend?

“We approached this differently than we did Psychonauts,” Schafer said. “On Brutal Legend we started with a playable but simpler version of the game, we had Eddie and an axe, so from the very beginning the experience was there. Then we built out from that center.

“Things I learned after is you can’t start music licensing soon enough.”

He also joked that the music in the game would be an accurate representation of the song selection on his iPod. (Once players unlock a song, it is available to play on the MP3 player in the hot rod they drive in the game.)

How much appeal do you think this game might have?

“You don’t have to be a pirate to love Monkey Island,” Schafer said, and “you don’t have to be a metal-head to play Brutal Legend.”

Do you see the potential for a Brutal Legend 2?

Schafer said the world was made with the story in mind, but there was a lot of material written for how the world came to be. “We had a lot of stuff we wanted to get into the game that we couldn’t get to …,” which means that it might be cool if there is a Brutal Legend 2, but no plans are currently in the hopper for that.

Combining heavy metal music and video-games, is this like a parents’ worse nightmare?

“I think it may have been before. But this is the third generation of metal-heads … the metal crowd is a surprisingly friendly affable crowd. I think the world has matured to the point where people with Brutal Legend with their kids. Heavy metal and video-games didn’t ruin my life,” Schafer said.