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Meeting Report Blitz
the League: Postmortem FEBRUARY 2006 Guests: Mike Bilder – Executive
Producer Adam Boyes – Producer Kraig Kujawa –
Lead Designer Dave Lang – Lead Programmer Matt Gilmore – Lead Artist Blitz History:
The Blitz franchise debut in
1997 and has spanned multiple platforms including both console and arcade. It
began as an officially licensed NFL product but each
iteration of the game saw more and more restrictions from the NFL and
NFLPA. Eventually the franchised was pushed in the direction of the less than
stellar simulation / arcade hybrid: NFL Blitz Pro. It was time for a change. Frustrated with the outcome of
NFL Blitz Pro the design team set to “take Blitz back to its
roots”. Shock value, over the top gameplay,
and fast paced action defined the Blitz games. The design team wanted to make
the Blitz game they’d always wanted to play. The Pitch: The game was pitched in two
ways. One was a “Playmakers” style game. It would incorporate
simulation style gameplay with all the drama and
controversy that successful programs like ESPN’s Playmakers and Any
Given Sunday contained. The other pitch took a
“Blitz meets Mortal Kombat” approach. A
fantasy football game where extreme violence and injury rule. Players would
be killed on the field, have their limbs torn of during play, etc. In the end a hybrid of both was
settled upon. A football game with Mature content that takes place in the
realm of reality / possibility, and as that classic Blitz gameplay.
The team decided on the tagline: “The Game
the NFL Doesn’t Want You to Play” What Went Wrong? - Aggressive Timeline: A significant amount of time was
spent justifying the game and once approval was granted the deadline was less
than a year away. -Story Mode Virgins: It was the first time a Blitz
title attempted a story mode, and it was underestimated how hard it would be
to implement. A complex and difficult work flow and dependency tree ensued.
Also the writer was introduced late into the project. -Tools: Create As You Go: The team was attempting to
create a Cinematics tool and finalize their art
pipeline while already in full production. -Crunch Happened: Despite their best efforts,
copious amounts of planning, and a schedule that looked good on paper, the
team ended up crunching. -Frontloaded Gameplay: The team focused on making sure
the gameplay was just right before moving on to the
Campaign mode. This meant the development of the Campaign mode was pushed to
the back end of the schedule. What Went Right? -EA / NFL Exclusive Deal: Although the team had decided to
make this game many months prior to the EA / NFL announcement, it added a lot
of internal confidence and support for Blitz the League. It also eliminated
the competition. -LT, Playmakers & NFL sold the game for us: From Playmaker’s
cancellation & Blitz’s acquisition of their writer, Ron Mexico and
sex boats, hot FHM models, to LT’s dubious
past. PR efforts were a breeze. -A Mature Effort: The team was able to go deeper
into what happens behind the scenes of the NFL, while balancing on the edge
of the “M” rating. There were many discussions about what’s
too far and what’s not far enough. -Shared Resource Model: Having a large studio and many
shared resource groups (UI, Animation, FMV, Tools, etc.) allowed the Blitz
team to pull on those resources in times of need. -Frontloaded Gameplay: The team focused on gameplay prior to E3. They were able to create a visually
stunning and compelling demo to show off to the press at E3. The team
constantly added fresh eyes and made the game easy to pick up and play, as
well as getting the feel of the classic Blitz. IMAGES
ABOUT THE
SPEAKERS Mike Bilder is an Executive Producer with Midway Games. He’s been with Midway for over 6
years and has shipped 5 titles with them, the most recent being the
successful game: Blitz:The
League. When Mike isn’t busy
corrupting the youth of Adam Boyes has worked in the software development industry for
9 years, and started his journey working at EA in Art Director
Matthew Gilmore has been a videogame artist in various roles for over 10
years, developing titles for Playstation, coin-op, Playstation 2 and XBox, and
next-generation platforms. During his
career Matt has served as an Environment lead, Art Lead, Art Director, and is
currently a studio FX director. Kraig Kujawa got his break in the industry
in 1995 as an intern on Madden NFL 96 on the Genesis. He has since served as
Senior Editor of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the Editor in Chief of the
Official Dave Lang is a
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