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Old 04-07-13, 16:24   #1
Patrick Shannon
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Default Interview with Phil Campbell, re: Gold Levels

I was surfing the web, and dropped in for a visit at the Scribblerz Tomb Raider website, hosted by famed custom level builder George Maciver.

http://skribblerz.com/index.html

There, on his Tomb Raider 1 page, I happened upon a fascinating little interview he conducted with Phil Campbell, who designed the "gold" levels for TR1, TR2, and TR3.

There's no indication of when this conversation occurred, but it was new to me, and perhaps will be so for many of the forum members here:


A few words by Phil Campbell (level designer - the Gold levels)

George Mac: Hi Phil I was wondering if you could shed some light on the winking Sphinx in Return to the City of Khamoon. It's intrigued a few of us for a while. Perhaps now could be a good time to share the story?

Phil Campbell: Ah man, I can't remember that far back! I'm sure we had just learned to do animated/ swapping textures, and that whole level was a riff on the original anyway. Any opportunity I could find to do something to the original model, I did it!

My goal was to have Lara return to the original (with subtle and not-so-subtle changes), recognize it of course, and then open a journey to an entirely new part...

A lot of the stuff we did in all three of the 'Golds' played on little references and things we thought that freaks like us would spot - Lost Artifact was full of stuff like that (the Battle of Britain flyover, the buried Stephensons rocket, the U-Boat, the Citreon 2CV, Nessie, the Planet of the Apes stuff, the whole Lara = Joan of Arc in the French Zoo)...

The 2nd level of Golden Mask (the really Russian part) was based on my back garden. I was stuck for inspiration to start building that level, so I just looked out of my studio window and started massing it up like the shape of my house and garden - that's the reason for the shape of the very first bit of that level. Lara comes up out of a well that actually exists here. Then, once I'd laid out that shape, ideas started coming for a kind of 'infiltration' mission and I just built on from there.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but Shadow of the Cat was vaguely based on Alice in Wonderland - I used the structure of the Alice story to kind of set up the shape of that adventure, without it being obvious at all, it just gave me some 'story waypoints' to get inspiration from - so like the meeting with the Cheshire Cat, and especially the Tea party (which is kinda recognizable as one of the rooms where you go and do the challenges based on the different gods). Sometimes, visualizing a story shape for yourself internally helps to structure something entirely new. just one of the tricks I use.





I just love these glimpses into the thoughts and motivations of the original designers--- it's like looking behind the curtain of creation...

Last edited by Patrick Shannon; 04-07-13 at 16:42.
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Old 04-07-13, 18:56   #2
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Great find, P.S.

I have lost count how many video game artists and designers have based certain grandiose graphics and set-pieces on mundane reality!

I also love the discovery and exploration of the classic TR development. it is fascinating. So many current games, due to their formulaic production (in my opinion) have very little in the way of inspiration. Some of the interviews I have found on this forum are really interesting and I share OPs enthusiasm for them.
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Old 04-07-13, 21:01   #3
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Great find, I really enjoyed his gold levels
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Old 23-07-13, 10:21   #4
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Nice find there! I enjoyed all 3 gold games as well. It's nice to finally see some references from the gold games. I had no idea that egypt was from Alice in Wonderland.
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Old 24-07-13, 00:16   #5
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Thanks for posting the interview Patrick Shannon.

The bit from the level editor manual was a good read as well.
http://www.philcampbelldesign.com/in.../blog/view/55/
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Old 16-08-13, 03:07   #6
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This is great. Although most of the levels didn't make any sense, the atmosphere and the level of challenge were greatly accomplished. Gold versions were to me, the hard versions of TR1, 2 and 3.
Everytime I played Underworld I always wondered what those guys from the gold versions were doing and why they're not hired again to do some awesome levels again :/
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Old 16-08-13, 10:06   #7
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Here is another interesting interview with Phil which was almost lost, it was originally on the tombraiders.com site, seems to be now only available as a cached page with the wayback machine.

And here is an old 1998 interview with Phil

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexStark7 View Post
This is great. Although most of the levels didn't make any sense, the atmosphere and the level of challenge were greatly accomplished. Gold versions were to me, the hard versions of TR1, 2 and 3.
Everytime I played Underworld I always wondered what those guys from the gold versions were doing and why they're not hired again to do some awesome levels again :/
Well between Core Design and Eidos we finally got the level editor, so the fans can do their own Gold Levels now, there would not be much interest in expansions officially released for such old games, and none of the people who did the gold levels work for Square Enix. And its takes more than just a few dedicated fans to make extra levels for the current games.

Rebecca Shearin went to EA after the Eidos studio was closed, and is still there, Phil Campbell went on to other things (but did spend some time at EA) and now not only does freelance design work but also has Inlifesize. Gary LaRochelle is also freelancing these days. Kris Renkewitz who helped out with TR2 Gold seems to have started up his own studio.

And since this is in the TR1 section, I will even throw in a look at the Unfinished Business page on the official site.


Last edited by aussie500; 16-08-13 at 10:46.
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Old 17-08-13, 03:26   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aussie500 View Post
About what they're doing now and
[/URL]
Wow, I think I'm the only one who doesn't know how to use google xD I never thought they would all stay working on different things. SE should hire them

The game description does help to understand it a little bit, since the Gold games were so GAINAX that whenever I first played them all I was like: "These guys were all high while doing this. But I love it!" while I died over and over again (The Hive is extremely non-sensical and full of one hit KO traps and rooms).

This if off topic, but I feel new TR games, well, games in general are way easier now than back then, but I always realize eventually that I'm already all grown up and my hand-eye coordinator is better than never. If I can drive now, I bet I can make some jumps and dodges
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Old 17-08-13, 13:13   #9
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I did not mind spending a bit of time tracking a few of the old team down, most links I already had.
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Old 17-08-13, 18:58   #10
Patrick Shannon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aussie500 View Post
Here is another interesting interview with Phil which was almost lost, it was originally on the tombraiders.com site, seems to be now only available as a cached page with the wayback machine.
That was a very interesting interview, aussie500! Thank you--- I hadn't seen that one before.

I especially liked Phil Campbell's good-natured response when he was asked about a six-story corner bug move near the end of "Unfinished Business".

He replied, "Is this a game or an experiment?!!!!!"

(Phil, as far as I'm concerned, it's a wonderful game first, and then it's a wonderful, never-ending experiment!)

Last edited by Patrick Shannon; 17-08-13 at 19:52.
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