Jon speaks about titles he had in the pipeline at the time, and other interesting things.

Hardware manufacturers and arses,
clueless games designing sheep, bad acid trips, sex, drugs and rock
'n' roll -- it all came out when we started splitting poppadoms
with Jon Hare, the relatively acceptable public face of Sensible
Software (Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder) and the man who gave game
journos the opportunity to talk about Sensi in print.

Name: Jon Hare

Job: Partner/director Sensible Software Ltd.

Fave Curry: Lamb Patia

Fave Game: Scrabble



[PO -- Paragon Online. JH -- Jon Hare]

PO: What makes a good game?

JH: A good game needs several things:



a. A well thought out totally watertight universe in which to operate.

b. A well defined and logical set of rules.

c. A brilliant control system.

d. Just the right balance between what the computer automatically
does for you and what you have to do for yourself.

e. High 'easy to play, hard to master' factor.

f. Non linearity and hidden depth to keep you coming back for more
-- so even when you've "finished" it once, you can still
try it again another way.

g. To suck you into the extent that your psychology is altered so
that you think you really were within the game. Therefore you automatically
start to ignore the keyboard or the mouse or the joypad or the screen
or the fancy graphics, because they just are, you don't question
them anymore, they have become part of you and your world. (Yes
kids this really is possible without virtual reality and no it does
not warp your brayne (sic)).



PO: Who thinks up Sensible's games? How do you decide which ideas
to begin work on?

JH: Basic game ides have always been an amalgamation of ideas from
myself and my partner Chris Yates dreamt up on the spin and then
honed over a week or so.



Once we have got the basic idea sorted out, it is generally me who
gets down to the nitty gritty of the finer details of how the thing
will work in terms of writing up the initial "game spec."
This is if you like, my specialised area, the boring bit about the
infrastructure underpinning the whole game as well as many, many
specific details, but I love it. Then as the game is written, the
game spec is basically used as a guide, but always programmers and
artists working on the game will build different things in to the
game, or leave bits of the Game Spec out because they are crap,
or because we are running out if time. The control system can never
be written down initially, it is something the programmer has to
evolve under our guidance.



We are working on three ideas at the moment. Another football game,
Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll on the PC and a PlayStation number
called Have A Nice Day. The source of inspiration for the football
game is obvious, SnDnRnR is based on a game which we initially intended
to design on the Spectrum about nine years ago called Drugged Out
Hippy about a guy on the dole who has to support his seven different
drug habits by drug dealing and constantly swinging between overdose
and cold turkey. We always wanted to do it but we knew that first
we had to modify the idea slightly and wait for a more adventurous
market to evolve. And here we are. Have A Nice Day is inspired by
a game design called Office Chair Massacre that is in itself about
five or six years old and was thought up originally with the Amstrad
CPC in mind. We are working on these ideas because they are the
ones that we felt could be best adapted to the machines that we
are now writing for.



PO: Is developing for the new machines any more fun than the
ones you used to?

JH: The PC is a machine we have been avoiding for nearly 10 years
now. I am beginning to realise why. The amount of manpower it now
takes to provide the graphics for a game is frightening. In general
the new machines are much harder work, but at least the money's
better.



PO: Now you've got staff and everything, how much actual work
do you still do?

JH: I was a graphics artist/designer for the first seven years and
now I am a sort of designer/director/manager. I would say that about
two thirds of my time is still spent on game design either thinking/typing
it up directing artists/programmers.



PO: Why do so many games copy someone else's hit formula? Are
companies lazy, thick or what?

JH: It's mainly because most of the people buying games into retail
haven't got a clue about what a good game is so there are three
main ways to get them to take it:



a. A really fancy intro with glossy graphics, requiring no interaction
whatsoever.

b. A game that looks remarkably similar to something that they have
sold before and therefore they do not really need to play it in
order to judge it.

c. a game incorporating both of the above features.



Therefore publishers are no longer prepared to take the risk on
titles that look too original or unusual for fear that they may
not cut the mustard with those who choose which games go into the
shops. Also, a lot of so called creative people in this industry
are utterly clueless sheep.



PO: Do you think the PlayStation can change this?

JH: There will be a handful of original titles out on the PlayStation
(Which will all probably look fairly familiar anyway) and then everyone
else will rip them off until all the punters become disillusioned
and then they will buy a new machine and so the cycle will repeat
itself.



PO: Ok, moving on, video games were once famously labelled the
new rock and roll, what happened?

JH: Perhaps the reference was financial. What happened? Rock 'n'
Roll is full of personalities for people to worship, love, hate,
relate to and aspire to, computer games are full of sprites.



PO: Didn't you want to be a rock star at one point? what happened?

JH: Before Chris and I set up Sensible were playing in a band together.
I still write songs, it is my passion, in fact I just finished one
off this morning and this time I'm really convinced that this is
going to be the one, how sad. What happened? I never really learnt
my lesson.



PO: So what was the most Rock 'n' Roll thing you ever did?

JH: The most rock 'n' roll thing I ever did was drop Acid at Stonehenge,
it was a nightmare by the way.



PO: And now you're working on Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll
the game, tell us a little about it.

JH: It's an 18+ adventure game about a singer who wants to become
the greatest rock star that ever lived and it is probably a bit
naughty.



PO: Do you want to be famous?

JH: I would like to be famous in a Dennis Potter sought of way



PO: Are you more sensible now you've got kids?

JH: I'm wiser now I have kids and I like being wise.



PO: Sony is trying to make the PlayStation cool, and bring the
twenty-somethings back into video games. Is the video games
industry cool yet?

JH: machines are boring, in my eyes machines cannot possibly be
cool. The video games industry is being forced up its own arse by
the hardware manufacturers. When the hardware market is more compatible
and more settled, then the focus can return to software and the
personalities behind and the quirks within the software and then
the software can become cool.



PO: Even the PlayStation?

JH: The PlayStation is just another machine that will die out within
the next four years.



PO: Ouch. Moving swiftly on, on the coolness of computers front,
do you own up to being a computer games designer at parties?

JH: I'm very happy to tell people that I am a computer game designer/manager
at parties or whatever, because it is certainly a lot cooler than
being a junior accounts clerk for a double glazing firm and anyway
it's what I am.



PO: How's the footy team doing?

JH: Norwich are doing crap. Sensible FC's last two results have
been lost 6-0, lost 6-2 (we were 2-0 up after five minutes as well)



PO: Any chance of a revamped PlayStation version of Sensible
World of Soccer or Cannon Fodder?

JH: SWOS PlayStation is looking like happening. Cannon Fodder PlayStation,
make us an offer.



PO: Just how big was that advance from Warner?

JH: Big enough to buy me a majority shareholding of Manchester United
FC. I've told Ferguson to sell Cantona, Giggs and Pallister to Norwich
for a fiver each or he's sacked



PO: How many Porsches/Ferraris etc. do you own between you?

JH: Jools was on his fourth Porsche of the year when he left us
recently to set up on his own. I've seen Porsches, Lotuses, Ferraris,
F1 Mclarens etc. in our car park till I'm bored sick of them. But
they do nothing for me, I just fly into work every morning on the
back of my Dad's chopper.



PO: Crunch Time. List the following in order of importance --
cash, cars, football, video games, sex.

JH: Sex, football, cash, video games, cars



PO: Stranded on a Desert Island time, only this one's got its
own car testing circuit. Pick the most desirable combination to
have of car, partner, video game and games machine

JH: my wife, a car with a roomy back seat, who cares about video
games.