Daryl Allison, Sr. Producer, Talks Okami Wii
February 14th, 2008 Chris Tou
Today we bring you the first in a series of interviews with Daryl Allison, Sr. Producer here at Capcom, who will be giving us a sneak peek into the upcoming Okami for the Nintendo Wii. Best of all, he will be fielding user questions! If you have burning Okami Wii question, ask us in the comments. If Daryl answers your question, you may win a special prize!
First of all, can you tell our readers who you are and what you do here at Capcom? What is your role on the Okami Wii team?
Hey everyone, I’m Daryl Allison, a Sr. Producer relatively new to Capcom. This is my first contribution to the community and I’m looking forward to it being a regular thing. Do what you can do to bug our Community guys, asking for more. Make them park at my desk and demand more from me, and I’ll do what I can to keep it coming. One of the roles of a Sr. Producer is overseeing the development of a few projects at a time, one of which I’m fortunate to say is Okami Wii. Basically, I’m the main guy between the developer, Ready At Dawn, and Capcom. Ultimately, my role on the project is upholding the highest of standards that Okami achieved on the PS2 while bringing it to the Wii, and seeing how much further we can push it while adding the extra touches that the Wii uniquely provides. The Celestial Brush and the Wii Remote were made for each other.
What titles have you worked on in the past? Did you work on the PS2 version of Okami?
Can I say yes and we can all pretend I did? Creating games like Okami is what we all dream of. Okami is one of the many reasons why I joined Capcom and why I’m honored to be part of this company. (I know, it sounds like my publicist wrote it for me, but seriously, we all know it - we’re talking about Capcom here!) Typically, having to work on a port is not the most pleasurable experience, but Okami has proven an exception. The game, its story, its characters, and - to me especially - its amazing art style, it’s a joy to be able to have a part in it every day.
My career started back in 1995 as a tester. I was lucky enough to do some gameplay tuning on two games, BattleSport and Captain Quazar, which led to an opportunity to join the developer, Cyclone Studios, and lead the design effort for a sleeper hit (for the fans still out there, we like to call it a cult classic) called Uprising. 3DO acquired Cyclone, triggering the whirlwind tour through Uprising’s sequel, a PC game called Gulf War, one stop in the land of those green plastic soldiers (Army Men: Air Combat for the N64), a very, we’ll say maturing, experience on a game called Dragon Rage. I helped out on a few other titles during my time at 3DO before needing a change, to get back to the passion of a talented, small developer like Cyclone Studios was in its early days. I joined Inevitable Entertainment in Austin, TX and eventually made the official transition from Design to Production, helping the studio finish Area 51 for the PS2, Xbox, and PC. That team then fought its 2+ year battle - the front lines of a transition to next-gen consoles - bringing BlackSite: Area 51 to market.
I can’t say enough for what it means to now bring all of the skills and experience to a company like Capcom where I know everything needed to make great games is in place, and to be a part of continuing the pedigree of excellence.
And there you have it. Stay tuned for more with Daryl coming up next week. Remember, if you have a burning questions about Okami you want to ask, let us know in the comments!
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Hello Daryl Allison,
you mentioned that “The Celestial Brush and the Wii Remote were made for each other”, but are you relying solely on this aspect to sell Okami Wii for new players and for those who already played the PS2 version?
Also, is the official title just “Okami”, or will it have something similar to “RE4 ‘Wii Edition’”?
Thanks for your time.
Okami is a game which is graphically inspired by Japaneses culture and in particular the sumi-e style of painting. I love interesting graphical styles which try to do something different, so this is right up my street.
My question is, if you could make a game that was influenced by an art style, movement or artist what would it be?
Does this mean the art book will finally be released in english?
In some of the promotional videos included in the PS2 version of Okami, the prototype builds of the game had much higher-quality audio samples for the ‘jabber’ speech sounds. It sounds like in the final version of the game, it had to be dropped down to something like 11 KHz, possibly due to RAM constraints? Is there any hope that the Wii version is going to have the full-quality “speech” sounds?
1. Was BlackSite: Area 51 a positive experience for you? Did you learn more “do’s” or “do not’s” working on that project?
2. Was the decision not to incorporate/utilize the paper texture in Okami Wii? Was it not working well or at all? I know the pics I have seen are from an unfinished version but I really hope putting that texture filter back in or making an entirely new one is at the top of your list. The game looks great without it. Very sharp and wind Waker esq. But it doesn’t look as dreamy without that filter and the ambient blood that permeated the PS2 version.
3. Is Capcom planning on putting stickers like “2006 Game of the Year” and “most innovative design” on the cellophane to help move titles?
4. Would you like to work with Ready at Dawn on a new Wii game? RAD is quoted a saying
“As game players we all love the Wii at Ready At Dawn Studios so it’s great to get a taste for what it’s capable of with Okami, which we’re also huge fans of to begin with. We have no plans for another Wii game at this point but never say never, who knows what the future holds.”
Do you think there could eventually be a “New” IP or an original game developed by RAD for Capcom on the Wii in the vein of either Okami, Daxter, or God of War: Chains of Olympus any time in the near future?
5. Do you think RAD could do even more on the Wii if they were using their native engine? Also how awesome of a name is Didier Malenfant?
Besides the text skip option, has RAD put in any other small “preference”-like additions? I would guess that the controls (well, buttons at least) wouldn’t be remappable.
Is the March release still expected?
Oh, and is Mr. Allison at the liberty to mention any of the other projects he’s overseeing?
Thanks for the article, I look forward to the next one!
A Lot of Okami fans and Wii owners in general are not HUGE on waggle for attack, but with A assigned to jump and B to the celestial brush… Are you considering alternative control schemes? I have two thoughts.
Assign jump from A to Z, Action from Z to C and Dig to Waggle.
Or
Assign the Brush from B to Z. Action from Z to C. Dig to Waggle. And Use B to attack. B attack and A jump worked wonderfully on Metroid Prime and other games.
I like the “idea” of the special attack method of the control scheme. If it works well that would be neat.