Septerra Core Legacy of the Game Part 04: Life Support
Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator marked its 20th anniversary since publication late in 2019. What follows is a deep dive retrospective on the making of this cult classic RPG!
So you’re working on your dream project, an epic role playing game set in a unique fantasy world, and a talented group of artist and programmers have enthusiastically flocked to the project. It’s all going swell, though for some reason the company won’t commit to a full greenlight, even though they fund pre-production for nearly a year. What could go wrong?
The company closes its doors and everyone loses their jobs, that’s what.
Like a Virgin
In the early 90’s Viacom was a multimedia empire looking to get into what was then termed “new media”—video games, CD-ROMs, and the Web. They formed Viacom Interactive Media and bought a small Chicago game developer named ICOM Simulations, rebranding it into Viacom New Media (VNM). VNM put out games based on Viacom brands, such as Beavis and Butt-head, Rocko’s Modern Life, and Star Trek.
But sometime in 1996, the Viacom parent company also found itself the new owner of Virgin Interactive Entertainment (VIE). Here’s the problem: Virgin already had a track record as a hit maker, with games such as Command & Conquer, Earthworm Jim, Disney’s Aladdin (SNES), and The 7th Guest, and their internal developer was the venerated Westwood Studios. So Viacom now had two internal game studios, VNM and VIE / Westwood. But here’s the thing, why would they keep us around when they now had the more vaunted Virgin to make games based on their properties?
You guessed it: the axe was looming for us fine folks in Chicago. The head of our office even gathered us in the Septerra Suite one day to tell us it was all over: Viacom was doubling down on Virgin, so the plan was to close VNM.
And then he just went to lunch or something while we all sat there shell shocked.
But, other leadership came in and fought for us. Instead of disbanding VNM, its name was re branded to “Rabid Entertainment,” and we found ourselves put under the control of Virgin Interactive. We could still keep our projects alive, but we would need to scramble to justify our games to brand new bosses.
The logo from the short-lived Rabid Entertainment.
In December of 1996, the Chicago Tribune ran a lengthy profile on the newly-christened Rabid Entertainment.Part of that piece included this shot of some of our team hard at work on Septerra Core.
Gameplay Feature?
I found myself on a conference call with one of Virgin’s star developers, a well-respected designer at Westwood Studios. He too was working on an RPG, and was tasked with evaluating my project. He had one question for me: from a game design perspective, what was the one thing about Septerra Core that really set it apart?
Now, from a game mechanics point of view I felt like we were building on the strong foundations of an established genre (JRPGs). But to me, our innovations were more about tweaking the systems inherent in those games by adding to them and making them better—not revolutionizing any one system.
So I struggled to answer.
In response, he said that the defining, innovative game design feature of his current project was definitely the graphics—amazing graphical fidelity that was next level.
I was not amused. Graphics? WTF, that’s not game design, dude, that’s just pretty eye candy. So I guess I could have talked about our strikingly original and deep world, our layered story with hundreds of characters to interact with, our organic isometric environments, our unique and edgy visuals combining fantasy and science fiction—but I didn’t consider those things “game design,” they were graphics and story, not game play .
Of course, fearing for the future of my project with the new bosses, I didn’t have the cajones to say any of this out loud.
With the call over, I was angry; everything we had worked for was about to die, killed by some faceless dudes at VIE and Westwood. I was told by our management in Chicago that instead of getting angry, I needed to prove that Septerra Core was worth keeping alive. These people didn’t know me or my track record, and they probably didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of our people or projects. So I needed to wow them and, more importantly, prove that not only could I get it done, it would be worth their investment.
California Here I Come
We had a few weeks to put together a presentation, and we had to do it while most people at the office were still panicking about the future of the company. Blood was in the air, even if management was telling us that everything would be fine.
I found myself part of a group flying out to VIE in California with presentations for our games in hand. I remember sitting there in the conference room, sweating this monumental meeting. This was make it or break it time, and my pessimistic little brain was already focused on doom and gloom and letting down the entire team back home. One of the high-level Rabid managers had given me what sounded like sound advice: have confidence in my team’s work and explain to the the Virgin suits that Septerra Core was the game I always wanted to make, my dream project.
I could do that!
And I swear to god, as the meeting started the head Virgin honcho was finishing up a conversation with one of his underlings, saying: (and I paraphrase) “God damn, if one more person tells me that I need to greenlight their project because it’s the game they’ve always wanted to make, I’m going to kill them. That’s not a valid reason to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at something.”
There went my advice and with it my confidence.
The head Westwood people joined us by video conference (remember, this is the stone age of 1996, when that required dedicated hardware with a TV to be wheeled in) and we started going through projects. When Septerra Core came on the block, the Virgin suits asked me to define its genre. Now, I had been told to downplay the RPG aspects, and play up the adventure game aspects. Why? Well, Westwood already had RPGs in the works, so Virgin wasn’t looking for another one. Meanwhile, I had an established track record with adventure games (Beavis and Butt-head in Virtual Stupidity was a great success, both critically and financially), but no experience in the market with RPGs. I had basically been told to skirt around the subject.
So, there I am, fighting to keep my RPG alive, being told to disguise it as an adventure game. The suits raised concerns: an adventure game with turn-based combat? Was I sure this wasn’t an RPG?
That’s when the rep from Westwood chimed in from his Max Headroom-ish teleconference screen: He had heard there was footage. Let’s just take a look!
So we rolled the tape (yeah, tape. It was the 90’s).
This is the video we took to the presentation, recreated from aging VHS gameplay footage and original cinematic renders from 1996. Note that the characters use their original, brighter colors, and Runner is actually walking around on all fours, rather than bi-pedal!
Images of the world sprang up, 3D modeled versions of the characters, flying battleships, rampaging robots, and a mock combat in a lush city scape, all underscored by a hammering soundtrack and sound effects.
But I wasn’t watching the clip. I was watching Max Headroom’s face on the teleconference. It lit up. This was (I believe) the same dude that had championed amazing graphics just a few weeks earlier. Now he was obviously surprised and delighted with our approach, the uniqueness of the visual designs, and the JRPG direction that made it very different from his own RPG project.
He was suddenly on board, and since he and Westwood seemed to be Virgin’s golden boys, that interest was enough to keep Septerra Core alive.
Cutting the Game Scope
We had avoided the axe and happily dived back into development.
But we still had to distance the game from the RPG genre that Westwood already had covered, aiming for more of an adventure game, what we called a “fast paced, real-time adventure.” Plus, several changes were made to address the game’s epic scope.
This cover letter from ’96 summarized the changes for the brass in the New York office. At this point, we had jumped through all the hoops that both New York and Virgin had requested.
Color palettes of several characters were changed. VIE thought they looked too “console” and not “PC gaming” enough. Select an image to enlarge and learn more.
Corgan was also one of the early designs. His home of world shell 3 is the closest that Septerra got to traditional fantasy, with cathedrals and swordsmen. However, I still wanted his clothing to feel more modern. I was never happy with Corgan’s original face, and it wasn’t long before I went back and redrew it (insert). Note also that Corgan’s colors would change from these early designs when we were asked to make the palette less “console” and more “PC game.”
Corgan was also one of the early designs. His home of world shell 3 is the closest that Septerra got to traditional fantasy, with cathedrals and swordsmen. However, I still wanted his clothing to feel more modern. I was never happy with Corgan’s original face, and it wasn’t long before I went back and redrew it (insert). Note also that Corgan’s colors would change from these early designs when we were asked to make the palette less “console” and more “PC game.”
An example of the color changes. The original choices were deemed too “console” for serious PC gamers. Among the other changes: Runner was swapped from green to rusty brown, and Lobo’s blue tint was toned down.
An example of the color changes. The original choices were deemed too “console” for serious PC gamers. Among the other changes: Runner was swapped from green to rusty brown, and Lobo’s blue tint was toned down.
The day and night cycle was removed. We originally planned to swap the palettes of the environments to change the time of day from day to night, although this would not have happened in real time.
The game originally had “Fleet Battles.” Maya would gather a fleet of three battleships (Lobo’s ship plus two others) and use them to fight battles. Ships could be equipped with weapon and armor upgrades just like player characters and the battles would have used the same combat system—but these fleet actions would take place between ship sprites on the world maps.
A quick sketch of the fleet management screen. The player could select each ship and equip them with weapons, armor, and a Core engine, (the living battleship’s bio mechanical “heart”). This is as far as this feature was ever visualized.
To avoid RPG stats, player levels and Experience (XP) were removed. Instead, characters would get more powerful by finding better equipment. As Core power (magic) was only affected by player level in the original design, a new type of equipment was devised—Talismans—that would have directly affected the character’s spell power, much the same way a sword added to melee power.
All subscreens and player stats were removed from the interface. Even Hit Points (HP) would turn into a simple percentage. VIE was afraid that scary RPG stats would overwhelm adventure game players.
The story was slightly reduced in scope. This included cutting several characters and bosses, including several of Doskias’ generals—including his lover, Kasandra. Select any image to enlarge and learn more about some of the content that hit the cutting room floor.
Kassandra was a character that would eventually be cut. In the game Doskias had once taken Selina as a lover, but cast this low-born woman aside as his ambitions to become the true descendant of Marduk grew. However, in the original script he actually left Selina for Lady Kassandra, a woman of noble-blood who’s political ties could help him in the court of the Emperor. Kassandra would have died during the confrontation on the lens platform. In the game, Selina believes Doskias can still be saved, and tries to stop him from using the lenses to bring light to the Core early. In the original script, it would have been Kassandra who shields Doskias from Selina’s attack, dying in the effort—this tragic act enrages Doskias and cements a hatred for his former lover, Selina.
Sketch of Kassandra’s armor under the cloak.
Each Chosen lord / lady was originally going to have unique looks to their soldiers before we cut the scope. These were Kassandra’s soldiers.
Selina’s forces would have also been unique, which would have been cool when the player eventually had to use her to fight against them…
Each Chosen lord or lady was also going to have their own variation on a battleship. Lesser sub generals like Selina would have ships that were less powerful than the mighty and iconic Chosen flagships.
Doskias was originally going to have quite a few generals (or lackeys, if you want the technical term), each with their own sub-generals / lackeys. We planned for about 5 or 6 bosses, and each was going to be a colorful character with their own signature style of fighting, personality, and backstory. This was eventually pared down greatly.
This was an early design for General Balcaam. When we needed to cut for scope, we wound up cutting the Chosen character concepts that required unique armor and costume to be modeled, and this design for Balcaam became our standard concept for just about every version of the Chosen male armor.
Kaleb’s original armor design, when each of the Chosen lords or generals was going to have unique costumes.
Another concept for one of the many sub generals originally under Doskias.
Each general having a unique look would have also played into the idea that each had their own specialty (fleet battles, ground forces, interrogation, etc) and this would have lent each their own personality.
One of Doskias’ sub-generals that was developed quite far was Brom, a character who was more machine than man (having replaced most of his body with bioengineering). Brom’s specialty was the retrieval of ancient artifacts from places like Marduk’s ruined temple. Brom was obsessed with finding this ancient technology and then incorporating those artifacts into his body. He was ultimately cut / combined with other characters, but his design would eventually be re-purposed for the fate card trickster god, Dogo.
The Imperial hierarchy was originally much more religious, with the Emperor being not just their temporal but also spiritual leader. This design was for the Emperor’s inner court, the cardinals and bishops that commanded in his name and brought inquisition upon non-believers.
The Chosen were originally going to have a more complete royal family before being pared down to the Emperor and his daughter. This design by Kathy was an early concept for the queen, sans the ubiquitous armor that would eventually come to define the Chosen.
Kathy also did these sketches for early concepts of Princess Alisa and advisors to Lady Kassandra. We kept the idea of the Princess, though we went with Kye’s design, but the advisors were cut along with Kassandra.
The Chosen royal family prince. The royal family prince and queen never made it into script form, and the concepts for them were cut very early.
A Fate Card mini-game was removed. In the original design the Fate Cards would have been used for more than just casting spells: the player would also be able to use them to play a Magic: the Gathering style mini-card game. Opponents would have been found in towns and inns, and the player might win new equipment, money, or even better cards. Yes, we tried to make The Witcher 3’s Gwent 25 years earlier…
World maps were simplified to work more like an adventure game—the player would merely click the location they wanted to visit, rather than walk their party across the map.
Some of these changes (Palettes, the day night cycle, fleet battles, the Fate Card mini game) would remain permanent. However, the RPG elements would eventually be put back in once the team left Viacom / Rabid and struck out on our own. But, we had kept the game alive, and we had a plan! We were finally ready for development to get the green light and start in earnest!
But, the celebrations were short lived. Because after all that, something soured between VIE and Rabid, and our Chicago office was set to be closed.
So yeah, we were losing our jobs anyway.
Rabid Entertainment and the Death of VNM
To Viacom’s credit they first tried to spin off Rabid Entertainment, looking to sell the Chicago development house. I was even sent on a mission to Game Developer’s Conference, tagging along with the General Manager and one of the Executive Producers, to tease out buyers (I guess I was there to represent the “talent”).
There were no takers, and Viacom revealed a plan to phase us out—rather than just fire us all in one fell swoop they began laying us off in waves, so that people at least had a head start finding new homes.
A handful of the Septerra Core team gathered to discuss our options: myself, Alisa Kober (who had stepped in to help Kathy with the scheduling of art, becoming a sort of co-Lead Artist on the project), Cathi Court, (the Producer), and Roger, (our tools programmer). We all still believed in the project. Was it really going to be shuttered away in some giant warehouse where game ideas go to die, like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark?
Had we worked so hard on this game to just give it up?
We started talking to Viacom corporate about acquiring the rights to the project and assets. Would they even sit down with us? Why waste time on soon-to-be ex-employees who certainly didn’t have the money to pay for the rights?
Still, we had to try.
With waves of employees being let go every few weeks, the offices began to become desolate. At one point, we became privy to the next “cut list.” Some people were finding work, others were looking, but one in particular was in a bit of a bind.
Kye, that young artist who had worked so hard on our concept drawings and early models, was in the next wave of layoffs. The problem? Kye was from South Korea, and he was working in the United States on a work visa. If he lost his job and didn’t have something lined up fast, he and his family might be deported. On the other hand, some of us knew that we could lose work and be fine financially, at least for a little while. I was one of those people, so we convinced management to let me take Kye’s place on the next wave of cuts. That would give him the time he needed to secure his next gig, and therefore his visa.
I was going to be out of a job, and soon.
But, there was promising talk with corporate about securing the rights to Septerra Core. It was still a long shot, but many on the team were rooting for us, promising to come to work on the game if we could secure funding.
Still, we had no idea if any of that was actually going to work out.
Can You Say Lowball?
In the meantime, I needed to look for work.
Chicago didn’t have a ton of game development back then. Notably there was FASA Interactive, Konami, and Sunsoft.
I interviewed at one of the larger places, and it actually went well. They liked me, their project was interesting, and their producer was a nice guy who I had met before. If Septerra Core didn’t take off, maybe I would end up taking this job.
And then, as this “nice guy” walked me out of the building, he made me an offer.
WTF. Less than half my current salary.
His response was classic: “I could be a dick and tell you that in a few weeks you won’t have that salary anymore, but I won’t.”
This person continued to pursue me for weeks. I did not take his calls, but oh, the lovely messages he left. He knew I had some grand dream of starting a company and finishing Septerra Core. But, he would explain, that just doesn’t happen in the real world. And all those people you work with now, the ones who say they’ll come work for you if you do get funding? Yeah, those people are lying, he said, urging me to give up and come work for him.
Needless to say, I did not.
VNM Shuttered…
He was right about one thing—a few weeks later I was definitely out of a job, along with quite a few others. I remember coming to work one day to find two signs just inside the entrance to the studio. Some jokester from the art dept had set it up, with a giant, happy message followed by the real news in tiny lettering:
BARBEQUE OUT BACK!
(Also, you’re all fired…)
What was left of VNM Chicago gathered in the parking lot, ate together for probably the last time, and talked about where everyone was going to wind up next. We tried to make the best of it, but the future was awfully unclear for many of us, especially those still invested in making Septerra Core a reality.
Bonus Content: More galleries from the cutting room floor. Be sure to scroll down for two more galleries.
Cutting Room Floor: Evil Enemies
Select each to enlarge and learn more.
What game wouldn’t be better with a werewolf! This was one of the easier things to cut from the game. While we had zombies and the undead, werewolves and vampires felt a little too “traditional fantasy” to include in Septerra’s world — especially since Septerra had no moon!
Another enemy cut. Like the werewolf, this one felt too supernatural, and because we already had zombies, undead vampyres felt a little redundant.
This is one I wish we had kept, as I like the design. However, we only had room in the scope for so many enemies and we needed our undead zombies to be able to appear on any world shell—but this one was clearly designed to be from Wind City…
Attack dogs that would have appeared as enemies on Shell 5, lead by soldiers in the battles between Ankara and Jinam.
More ships that would have appeared on the world maps, cinematics, or as enemies in fleet battles.
This was a mecha boss that I believe would have been seen in Junk City or at the pumping station. Several bosses like this were cut so that we could concentrate on the ones that were really needed for the story.
Helgak designs that were cut. The top one might have been a regular enemy, or possibly a large, whale-size helgak that would have fought the player in fleet battles. The bottom was probably a boss as the note indicated it could swallow a player character.
More Helgak designs that were cut.
This golem enemy would have been a bio-engineered weapon, possibly of Jinam origin.
I think the concept for this doppleganger was to actually have the creature mimic one of the player characters, effectively forcing the player to fight themselves. While it was a cool concept, how many times could we really use it?
An enemy concept for the lower levels, where there’s little light. This type of NPC or creature would have added more variety to the lower levels, possibly living and working with Badu’s people.
Cutting Room Floor: Notable NPCs and Baddies
Select each to enlarge and learn more.
We originally wanted to have more enemy types, but that also included the NPCs as well, both those that fight and those that manned shops and towns. We had a ton of great concepts for outlaws and ne’er-do-wells, but this wrench-wielding outlaw didn’t cut it (he might have even been intended as a foil for Grubb).
We originally planned to have major NPCs in the game be unique character designs. There was the hermit, lockmaster, and originally Lobo’s creator, (or at least a scientist that helped make the Jinam war machine). Unfortunately, any NPC that didn’t play a major reoccurring role in the story had to use a standard townsperson model instead.
More unique NPCs that never saw the light of day.
Another NPC. I believe this concept was for Junk City, a sort of older sister figure to Maya. But characters like this were quickly cut before the script began to take shape – after all, Maya already was the “big sister” to the Junker children.
More diverse outlaws that could double as townspeople. I liked the idea that some of the outlaws hailed from Badu’s world on Shell 7—with some of them having fled the invasions of Anakara and Jinam to find adventure on the upper Shells. Unfortunately, we had to pare down our NPC cast.
This was a cool design, but since we needed most of our outlaws to also double as generic NPCs, this guy just felt too unique.
More outlaws that were cut.
More sketches of unused outlaws, reaching into the post apocalyptic look.
Another pirate outlaw that didn’t make the cut.
Lady versions of Lobo designed for the war. These were supposed to be used on Lobo’s ship, or seen in the crashed battleship.
Cutting Room Floor: Various Vistas, Sleek Ships, & More Enemies
Select each to enlarge and learn more.
I wanted to have more unique locations in the game, places like this stone circle (which had symbols on it that would light up with Core power when it was activated). While something like it appeared in game, we weren’t able to give it a truly unique, side-view vista like the Wind City cathedral.
This was the original plan for South Farm outside Wind City in Shell 3. The original idea was that the entire town was built into a massive hole bored into the crust, with the actual helgak farm at the bottom, on the UNDERSIDE of the continent (seen in the next image).
South Farm, where it would have punched out into the underside of Shell 3. The helgak creatures would be raised in the skies and attached to the central spindle for harnessing and feeding. Cutting stuff like this hurt, because showing these kind of unique vistas would have really helped to ground the player in how the world of Septerra worked.
Another of the unique vistas that we wanted to get into the game. This was a port in the edge of Shell 03, complete with heglak dirigibles. While we didn’t get to build full environments of places like this, we did get to incorporate these kinds of things into the world maps.
This was the original concept for the pirate base on Shell 6, where the repobates would have been living and working out of a pirate ship that had long ago lost its ability to take flight. The location in the game ended up being more of an island of spikey rocks.
One of the locations in the game was the spine matrix, where the planet’s north to south pole connected with each of the world shells. We wanted to have an elaborate aerial introduction to this concept, with the player’s ship flying in to set the scene and show scale. Alas, we had to cut such cinematics for scope.
Kye did a lot of visualization of the Chosen capital city and the imperial palace. The plan was to show quite a bit of this in cinematic scenes, as well as the world map and local map screens (similar to the local map used in Junk City to select areas to move between). Unfortunately, when it came time to cut things, both the detail and the briefness of the player’s visit here meant that it had to be toned down in scope for the final game.
Another of detail of the Chosen city. Some of the circular holes were ship ports for battleships leaving and entering the city. This one was affectionately known around the office by some colorful monikers like the “erect tower” or the “tower of Lord Phallus.”
The original idea for the Chosen emperor’s palace. This is a Chosen battleship turned up on its backside, and then planted into the ground, the city and palace then built around and onto it. I think the idea was that the ship would eventually rise from the palace, ripping free, so that it could fight one final, desperate battle against Doksias’ forces in the skies over the capital. Note that the Chosen battleships were originally designed to fly both as they are seen in the game (with “wings” horizontal) or rotate 90 degrees back along their spine so that their wings are vertical (making them look more like an angel in the heavens). When we cut the palace concept, it also meant that that aspect of their design would not be used…
Ah, Doskias’ bath chamber. There was a scene in the early script where Maya stumbles across Doskias while infiltrating his palace (or maybe it was his command ship). Doskias would be caught off guard, literally clad only in a loincloth, surrounded by his servant girls. The confrontation between protagonist and antagonist here was intense, as Maya is armed to the teeth (with her party), gun leveled at her defenseless mortal enemy. But Doskias knows she won’t shoot an unarmed man. Calm and confident, he proselytizes about how weak that makes her, before telling her she has only minutes before he’ll call for his guards. Maya can’t shoot him in cold blood, even though that would probably end the entire war over the future of Septerra right then and there. Doskais leaves, and Maya and her companions flee back into the corridors of the palace, now flooded with alerted soldiers…
This flying helgak enemy was probably going to be a bioengineered weapon – something that someone grew from a helgak and added biomechanical weapons to. Another enemy that was cut for scope.
We had to cut several designs for various Helkgak creatures to get the scope down. I believe this one would have been an enemy that could be battled, possibly in the fleet battles.
One of the enemies that was cut. When paring down the scope, we had to reduce the number of enemies. To get the largest bang for the buck we had to make sure that every enemy would be fairly unique, removing any that felt too similar – this one was not that much different than the thunder lion so it was cut.
I believe this was Grubb’s original laboratory / workshop, precariously built over the edge of Shell 02.
More of the details for the Chosen city. Although much of this was ultimately not used as vistas, all of Kye’s concept work was used to inform the look of the Chosen environments that made it into the game as playable levels.
Interior of a Chosen Battleship. We did manage to get some of the Chosen ship interiors built for the game, but there were more concepts than what we had budget for.
The bridge of General Campbell’s flagship. I don’t think we cut the interiors of the Shell 5 battlships entirely, but they were majorly pared down.
There were quite a few ship designs that were sketched when there was still going to be ship to ship combat in the game.
These enemy ships would have been patrolling the world maps, looking for a fight with the player’s three ship fleet.
Shell 3 originally had a “water beetle” town. This town would have been built on the back of a giant water beetle, which would spend its days moving between two different ports on a large lake – providing trade and ferrying goods and passengers.
In the story, the player would be stuck on one side of the continent, and would have to take the beetle town transport across the lake to reach the other side of Shell 3. During this trip, the player would have been attacked on the beetle town by Doskias’ forces.
A sketch of the battle between Ankara and Jinam on Shell 5. We originally wanted to show cinematics of some of the combat, including some vistas like this and scenes of Jinam, landing troops and mecha tanks from their flying ships—but it had to be cut.
Marduk’s city / temple. This was the original concept for the temple outskirts (the temple is in the far distance) with ruined battleships of an ancient age scattered averywhere. Because the ships were so large, putting them into a playable level at scale wasn’t terribly feasible, so the plan was to use side scrolling views to show them. In the end, we used the ancient jungle guardian towers instead.
The interior of Marduk’s temple, where the twin swords would be found. The original concept included more of a side view background, where the player would retrieve the weapons in a more cinematic way.
