With all the negative press that the upcoming PSN title Fat Princess has been given (and for no good reason), we thought we’d go to the source and set some records straight. In this interview I talk to Chris Millar, from DarkStar Industries, on behalf of Girls Don’t Game. He was nice enough to provide us with some answers to some questions we had. If you think Fat Princess looks impossibly fun like we do, or if you’re one of those people who finds it offensive on all counts, read on anyway. You may surprised what you find.

Brittany: What inspired you guys to create this title exclusively for the PS3?

Chris Miller: When we first demonstrated the idea to the team over at Sony, they immediately saw the potential in FP and then asked us to see more. Shortly after that, we put together a little playable demo and they loved it. With their support and our drive to create something unique, Fat Princess was born and began to grow into a big heavy multiplayer title for PSN.

Brittany: Is it always going to be an exclusive? Do PSP and DS owners have hope for a port?

Chris: Being a Sony published game, it probably won’t be on any other platforms that aren’t under the Sony umbrella

Brittany: Enough about the game for a few, what are some of you guys’ favorite titles? What are you guys enjoying at the moment?

Chris: We’re playing a little bit of everything, old and new. Currently we’re playing TF2, some PixelJunk Monsters, GTA IV and anticipating the release of LittleBigPlanet…that Kratos Sack Boy is just too damn cool! A few here are also checking out a bunch of new apps on the iPhone, like Aurora Feint.

Brittany: How do the maps play into challenges for Fat Princess - like in the popular FPS, Counter-strike, there are different modes of gameplay. What kind of maps will Fat Princess use? Will users ever be able to make their own someday?

Chris: We have several game modes in FP including Rescue the Princess, Team Deathmatch and Invasion. Each map is designed to work with all game modes, but with added tweaks to ensure each environment contains different strategies for the different game rules. The maps have a great variety with some environments designed to be smaller and tighter for maximum confrontation, whereas others are larger with lots of secret paths and hidden shortcuts to discover.

Each environment is based on a set theme, with each theme containing its own unique gameplay features and strategies for teams to discover. There are island maps with tides that affect gameplay, and volcano maps with lava that moves and explodes to change the battlefield, and some others that are yet to be seen. In short, we wanted the game to just be fun and exploring different themes for the maps allowed for gameplay to be a lot better. We have spent a lot of time with the map creation to ensure the gameplay evolves as players discover the nuisances of each level.

Although we’d love players to add to the map creation process, the maps in our engine are pretty complex. There are also a lot of gameplay balancing and tweaking that goes into each map, as it’s important that all the resources and layouts for each side are well balanced for a fair and fun experience.

Brittany: The beauty of Fat Princess is it’s such a basic and fun title. Sometimes the simplest things are the most fun, like Solitaire. What did Fat Princess start out as in conception–capture the flag with a twist? A tongue-in-cheek remark about obesity?

Chris: Fat Princess started out as a simple castle siege game. We had originally envisioned a game where you storm a castle with your friends, and how fun that would be. As the game evolved, we thought, well, what do you want to do once you storm the castle, why are you trying to get in? The whole idea of capturing royalty fitted perfectly and it was a concept that quickly gained ground. Once we had the base, the rest of the ingredients came thick and fast. Add team cooperation, class based hats popping out of machines, castle upgrades, fun toys to build, dynamic environments, an awesome art style, 1 bucket of humor and cake and “tada!” you get Fat Princess.

Every step of the way the game has been designed to be light-hearted and fun, a pick up and play experience where players could dive straight in and start destroying the enemy. That said, the game is
also designed to have hidden depths and strategy for longevity. The game is like a great big cake, super tasty frosting on the top for an instant sugar rush, but dig your teeth in and you will discover the amazingly delicious center that just makes you want to eat it all up.

Brittany: Will there be a ranking system in place as with Call of Duty 4?

Chris: Fat Princess does contain both a ranking system and PS3 trophies, plus other ways for players to have bragging rights about their mad skills. The ranking system will also be used for match making to ensure games contain players of equal skill to maximize fun and challenge of the experience.

Brittany: Tell us your reaction to the negative attention the game has earned–were you expecting people to react in the manner in which they have?

Chris: We were surprised. But, with the game winning a number of awards including Best Downloadable Game from IGN, it definitely got the attention of the negative bloggers out there. It was also funny that during the onslaught of MASSIVE E3 announcements, where so many big-budget titles were shown, that the press was storming the Sony Press area to find out more about this game called Fat Princess. The reaction from those able to get their hands-on the title was very positive, and it was cool to see that people were having fun playing the game and found it refreshing, especially so early in the development.

It was also wild to see that we had created a game where characters take arrows to the head, die horrible exaggerated deaths, bled out all over the place and then we hear that people were horrified to see a princess being handed a piece of cake. LOL! People took it to allkinds of extremes that she was being force fed, that she couldn’t be rescued, etc. That just isn’t true.

Brittany: Anything you’d like to say to people who are enraged about your game and its title?

Chris: Those who think we’re making social comment on the health of society have no idea how many Pop Tarts we go through in a week! Those maple brown sugar ones are simply amazing. But seriously, can’t we just Feed the Children and Save the Whales?

Brittany: Thanks for the interview. Anything else you’d like to say to Girls Don’t Game?

Chris: Thanks for your time, we’re looking forward to hearing about your hands-on impression after Fat Princess ships next Spring 2009.

And there you have it, everyone. Perhaps a bit more light has been shed on this “offensive” game and its creators’ intentions. All I know is that I’m definitely going to be checking it out. If anything, I was sold on the fact that these adorable little characters are going to die horrible, twisted deaths. That puts a smile on my face.

After getting information straight from the source, does this game seem a bit more plausible to you? Do you feel that it’s still promoting the stereotype that fat people are hilarious? Perhaps, like me, you found this whole fiasco to be a bit ridiculous and unnecessary, and this interview sealed your decision to purchase the game. Whatever you have to say, your opinion’s always valuable to us as well as the good people over ar DarkStar Industries.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Playstation 3, Video Games, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.