IGUANA (UK)

Edge Magazine, Issue ?, July 1997

Iguana's UK arm may not be able to boast the same exotic location as its California-based parent company, but it's got plenty of other things going for it, as Edge discovers.

Stockton-on-Tees isn't exactly a glamorous location for a videogames developer, but it's a uniquely British one. So many UK developers are hidden away in incongruous northern backwaters like this which are associated more with the industrial revolution than the digital one. And, like many other British developers, Iguana UK grew out of the obsessions of a couple of bedroom programmers, in this case brothers Darren and Jason Falcus, now managing director and director of product development respectively at the Acclaim-owned codeshop.

The brothers started programming in their early teens and had their first Dragon 32 game published in 1983 by Stockton-based Paramount software. By 1988, they were confident enough to set up their own company, Optima Software, which produced budget and full-price title for, among others, Gremlin and CodeMasters. 'Pegasus for Gremlin was about the best one,' admits Darren. 'We kind of plugged along, but nothing big was happening until 1993.' Then they met Jeff Spangenberg, head of Iguana, who bought a large chunk of the brothers' firm and Iguana UK was born, which went on to produce the excellent 16bit console conversions of the NBA Jam coin-op.

When Acclaim bought Iguana in 1995, it was the start of major changes at the UK end of the operation. It moved away from conversions, started on original titles and set about strengthening its management and creative team. 'We've got a really strong team here,' asserts Jason. 'Everybody knows what they're talking about. Project Managers have been programmers or artists or designers. Everybody lives for games.' Two of the key personnel recruited were creative director Guy Miller and project manager Simon Phipps, who both came from Core. The two are responsible for what has become the company's first major original game - Shadowman, based on a best-selling Acclaim Comics title, as was Acclaim's N64 release Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

'Acclaim came to us with these comics and said, "Pick your favourite one and do a game with it,"' explains Phipps, the veteran programmer/designer whose credits include Core's Rick Dangerous games. 'We've had no hassle from Acclaim,' adds Miller. 'They dais, "Look, we trust you. Go away and come up with the greatest game you can possibly do." Which is a Godsend.' After working with the comic book creators on the story, Miller and Phipps' team discovered that the title dovetailed neatly with their own ideas.

'We actually started working on the concept of a thirdperson-perspective game about a year ago and then the comics came in and they were better than our original concept,' says Miller. 'It sparked off more ideas. It was easier for us to a certain degree because we didn't have to come up with absolutely bloody everything.'

'Shadowman' the comic is a dark, mature readers' title, which follows the story of Mike LeRoi, English Literature graduate and part-time assassin. LeRoi has been turned into Shadowman by a voodoo priestess and moves between reality and the eerie Deadside, a kind of purgatory where, as Miller puts it, 'He sorts shit out for the priestess.'

Miller and Phipps have expanded on the comic's already rich story and look. 'It's like being a writer on The X-Files,' explains Gary. 'You have a main plot that you know as a contextual thing, but within those parameters we can go wherever we want. And we have done. There's a lot of crazy stuff in here. At Core, Simes and I spoke about taking games into this adult territory. It's not so much gore as psychological horror.'

The sources they've drawn upon reflect this interest in psycho-horror, with movies like 'Angel Heart' and 'Jacob's Ladder' and painters like Breughel and Heironymous Bosch cited as influences. One of the levels in the Darkside, shown to Edge in its early stages, even apes Breughel's painting of the Tower Of Babel, with the player able to enter the huge, phantasmagoric structure.

Shadowman is the first game to use the company's proprietary 3D engine, which, as Iguana UK's technical director, Richard Frankish, explains, has been created to empower the designers. 'The ideal is for it to be general-purpose 3D engine which we can optimise for specific games and which enables the games designer to do pretty much what he wants without having to put a load of specific code in for every feature. Our goal is essentially not to limit the game design. If they want to do it, we'll try and do it.'

A game design without limits is one of Miller's avowed goals too. 'Mario 64 defined that for us. It showed that you could create an environment with multiple routes, with a multiplicity of experiences within it, and you're not being driven down one route.' As a result, Shadowman has incidental detail, with the player driving the narrative forward, resulting in what Iguana hopes will be a far less linear feel than most games. 'You don't want to feel the game designer looking over your shoulder when you're playing it,' says Miller. 'That's what all successful games should be.'

A year and a half into its projected three-year schedule, Shadowman is a more than promising testament to Acclaim's faith in the Teesside firm, as well as further proof of Acclaim's turnaround. 'Now they realise you need less product, more quality,' claims Darren Falcus. 'We've got much better time limits than we've ever had before.'

As the team sits in the company's boardroom, overlooking the Tees, someone mentions the New Labour/New Acclaim jibe that's been doing the rounds. 'Oh, Rod [Cousins, VP of Acclaim] will kill me if that goes in,' moans Acclaim's PR. 'Tough on games, tough on the causes of games,' quips Richard Frankish. Everybody laughs. It's far from grim up north.

SHADOW'S PAST
Like Turok, Shadowman owes much of its plot and detail to the dark, brooding comics of the same name, once again released by Acclaim's own comics publishing division, Valiant Heroes.

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Brothers Darren and Jason Falcus programmed their first game in 1983 (on the Dragon 32) and eventually formed Optima Software in '88, which became part of Iguana in '93.

They even look alike. The brothers Falcus are justifiably proud of their latest PC/N64 creation, Shadowman. Like Turok, it has its origins in a popular comic.

Shadowman looks even better than Turok, its atmospheric visuals putting it in the same class as current PC darlings Unreal and Daikatana. The comic on which it is based follows the life and loves of an undead voodoo assassin.

Shadowman's creative director, Guy Miller, claims that working on it is 'like writing for "The X-Files"... we can go wherever we want. There's a lot of crazy stuff in here.'

The 3D engine allows for some amazing scenes, reminiscent of Turok, but with a 'psycho horror' edge.

Shadowman will not be a game for the feint hearted. If it were a movie, it would owe much to Angel Heart.