EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH GARY BRUBAKER

IN CODE WE TRUST
By Santiago Mendez

Gary Keith Brubaker is a programmer which started working at LucasArts on such games as Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, The Curse of Monkey Island, Dark Forces, Rebel Assault. After leaving the company he worked on Terminator 3:Redemption, Mission Impossible: Operation Surma, D&D Heroes, Lord of the Rings: Two Towers and LEGO MyStyle among others.
His first game was The Dig, which as he tell us was the beggining of his distraction.

Tell us about yourself. How did you started in the games industry?

After graduating from U.C. Berkeley in Physics, I wanted to take some time to figure out what I really wanted to do. Therefore I decided to find the most enjoyable and least distracting job possible. I happened to see a job posting in want ads for LucasFilm Games (now LucasArts Entertainment) while eating breakfast. I was looking for the comics, not employment. Making video games (particularly adventure games) seemed like the obvious choice for a fun short term job. I applied and got hired as a programmer on The Dig. Over a decade later I am still making games so I guess I was distracted by games after all.

What is it that you like about games?

The range of expression. Like all media and art forms it allows the designers to create the full spectrum of human emotions. But unlike print or movies it can engage the player in ways never before imagined.

Do you have a favorite programmer, someone you admire?

Ummm, don’t want to play favorites. I have worked with a number of amazing programmers over the years. The games from the time I was at LEC and Stormfront are a testament to the quality of programmers I have worked with.

How did you got a job at LucasArts?

I got lucky. In my cover letter I did a mini game deconstruction of my then favorite game series (Zork). Little did I know that job opening was for the The Dig with Brian Moriarty who had worked on the Zork series at Infocom. It so happened that he agreed with my positive review of his work. <grin>

Well, that's very interesting. Your career as a programmer started with The Dig (Brian Moriarty's version). Do you remember how was your very first day at LucasArts? What can you tell us about it?

Remember it well. There were layoffs. About ¼ of the LEC if memory serves. My manager called me in early and said there were going to layoffs later that day. She then assured me my job was safe, the company was sound and there was no reason to be worried. What was odd, was that some of the people who interviewed me and recommend hiring me were let go.

Since Brian’s Dig was not yet ready to start production, I had a few months to work on another project. While waiting for management to decide my short term assignment, I was a blind tester for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. The game was almost done and I was able to provide unbiased feedback on overall quality.

In the end I worked with the sound department developing iMUSE.

What where your first impressions about The Dig and getting to know that Steven Spielberg was involved in it?

I was very excited about it. It was exactly the type of game I want to develop. Serious, Science Fiction, Graphic Adventure. Up to that point LEC graphic adventures had been comedies or bases on movie license (Indiana Jones). Could we create original characters that players felt emotionally attached to?

Getting to make games for George Lucas was already fantastic. Working on a Steven Spielberg game was just icing on the cake. What was particularly compelling was Steven’s vision of combining Forbidden Planet with The Treasure of Sierra Madre, two of my favorite movies.

What was your job on Moriarty's The Dig?

I was the lead programmer. My primary responsibility was creating the next generation graphic adventure engine, StoryDroid. The goal was to create a game engine without a number of the limitations in SCUMM. (For example no vertically scrolling rooms) In the end the best parts of StoryDroid were integrated in the SCUMM engine.

How was like working with Brian Moriarty?

He was (and is) one the most entertaining people I have ever met. I recall introducing him to The Beach Boys. Within days he had purchased all of their CDs and was researching what Brian Wilson’s unfinished album Smile. What would it be like if it was ever produced. He even pieced together available recordings to simulate what it would sound like. Of course now we know….

Any memories from Moriarty's The Dig project?

Attending the dailies for the ILM cut-scenes. We were treated just like important Hollywood directors. Seeing the work the ILM team did for a game was amazing. This of course was before FMVs had appeared in any game. Then working with the programmers to display these on our base machine (at 33 MHz 386). When we got them to run uncompressed on a PC it was a stunning moment. Unfortunately we ended up needing to compress them to fit on disk. It was a shame that a number of videos produced by ILM were never used due to story changes.

The Dig is possibly the only LucasArts game with two pizza orgies (One for Brian and other for Sean). Have you been in Moriarty's? What do you remember about it?

Yes, Brian’s pizza orgy was a memorable day. The day of the pizza orgy was the first day we had the entire game playable. It was also day Brian resigned LEC to work at Rocket Science Games. So I was left with the other leads to run the pizza orgy by ourselves. It was wonderful to see how well the game was received despite the drama of the day.

Do you remember what things ILM did? and which of this things weren't included on the released game?

They did three FMVs. Two were used. The third was a sequence of the moon turning into a space ship and was dropped when the story changed.

Why wasn't Brian Moriarty's The Dig released?

Brian left LEC to work at Rocket Science games. When Sean took over he reworked the story significantly.

Sean Clark came in. How was working with him?

He was a get things done kind of guy. We had a great working relationship. He let do what was needed on the tech side (which since he was a programmer by trade was probably a little hard). He also did a great job of building a core team to design the game.

How was a regular day for you working on The Dig?

Chat briefly with Sean on the plan and issues for the day. Fix some bugs. Look at some cool art. Build a new puzzle. Rinse lather and repeat.

On Sean Clark's version you where also a lead programmer. Does that also means that you had to coordinate the programmers work?

Yes. I was responsible for assigning tasks to all the programmers. I also mentored the entry level programmers. I coordinated with Sean and the other leads, primarily Bill Tiller the lead artist. For most the project Bill and I shared a common space so we could provide an integrated response to any problems.

Let's talk about meetings. I'm sure that as any good company LucasArts had meeting (or conference)rooms. There where weekly/daily meetings on The Dig?

We had one weekly meeting. I try not to remember them. The sub-teams (art, software, sound) had their own meetings. For the software team, we were small and worked well together so we did not need many meetings. :)

As a lead programmer did you had to talk and communicate with the art department, the sound department and the music department?

Yup. Much of my job was to convince them that the software team was on schedule. For previous SCUMM games the schedule for software was often underestimated. I had to convince them not to multiply my schedule by 1.5. I was getting married when the game shipped and I was not going to let it slip. :)

What was the most difficult or problematic thing to do on The Dig?

Brink. The original design (for Sean’s version) had Brink with you virtually the whole time. There were a number of great moments when he would comment on events or generally just be Brink. Unfortunately we found a bug late in development that required a huge redesign (both code and puzzle structure). So we just stuck him in a room with a crystal machine. It was very disappointing.

What does it takes to be a game programmer?

You have to top notch skills in (programming, math, physics and game design) and good skills in art and storytelling.

Do you have any hobbies or any special thing you like to do on your free time?

Beside play games? Home theater, I guess.

Ok, let's go back to The Dig. What do you remember about the last month on The Dig?

The last month was primarily spent testing and fixing bugs. We did not get the final music or interactive sound track until the very end. The Dig has one of the most complex audio sections of any game in history. It was a labor of love.

Well, as a lead programmer I'm sure you have to know this. What can you tell us about the easter eggs?

They have all been found to my knowledge. The best and the worst were taken out at the last minute.

Any anecdote or funny thing you remember about The Dig?

An entry level programmer thought it would be fun to include easter eggs around farting. They probably would still be in game except he tried to sneak them in late one night. But we had locked the code for testing (he was not aware since he had been out sick) and we found them. Since we did not want to rebuild the game just for an easter egg, we removed them.

The other best egg that was removed was singing. The voice actors on a break sang number of very funny popular songs. We recorded all of it. But the legal department asked that we remove the singing and dancing for fear of copyright infringement.

What can you tell us about Sean Clark's The Dig pizza orgy?

There was pizza, candy and beer. Oh and all the machines we rented were horrible. They could barely play the game.

Are you happy with the final results of The Dig? Is there anything you would like it to be another way?

The one thing I would like to change was to release the hi-resolution version (640x480). Well, hi-res for the day. We had higher quality art for much of the game and an amazing scaling technology (by Aaron Giles currently head of MAME) for the rest. It was beautiful. But management decided it was not worth doing QA testing on two version of the same game. Sigh….

May, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Santiago Méndez.

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