How Lair took flight

Developer Factor 5's Julian Eggebrecht sheds light on the background and development of Lair.

Julian Eggebrecht is Factor 5's president and creative director and has just finished working on Lair for Sony Computer Entertainment and is about to embark on several other unannounced next generation titles.

Julian's work includes the classic Turrican line of games, the multi-million selling Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series, Indiana Jones, International Superstar Soccer Deluxe and Contra: The Alien Wars.

From the demo and trailers Lair appears to straddle more than one genre, could you elaborate on the different gameplay elements?

Lair is a true genre-bender, that's why we call it a Flight and Fight game. Of course there is the traditional fire-based shooting included in it, but the real heart of the game is the physicality of the dragons and that is being expressed in close-up dogfights in the so-called pursuit mode, in one-on-one fights in mid-air, and of course as soon as you land on the ground in a multitude of violent interactions between your dragon and vast armies of enemies.

All of these different gameplay mechanics are slowly being rolled out to the player throughout the first levels of the game, but later missions really mix the elements up. We hope to get a lot of replay value out of players trying to find very different ways of approaching the tasks in a level.

How has this helped in expressing the story you wanted to tell with Lair?

If you want to tell the story of a military hero in wars being fought with thousands of soldiers the question becomes why that one person can make a difference. The answer in modern warfare is of course the pilot of a plane or a tank, since they can wreak havoc on a more global scale. But even better than that is the dragon, since by all descriptions across cultures dragons are both able to fly and walk on land, they mix up all the abilities that you could wish for in a warbeast.

As the term beast already points out, they are like horses in the sense that rider and dragon do have more of a connection than man and machine. We looked at that and found it to be the perfect vehicle to tell the story of Rohn, our hero, and the clash of civilizations in a dying world. We are able to go from a very personal level to battles of tens of thousands in a way that no other game could before.

Were there any difficulties blending the different gameplay strands together?

Nobody has ever attempted to go seamlessly from a vast-scale flight-game to the ground in intimate battles. Nor has anybody ever explored the physicality of dragons. All the other prior games featuring dragons have only used fire as the main element of gameplay, and there are reasons for that Lair is hard to make, but trying something fresh and new is never easy.

The scale issues of the world are huge, straddling the power of the PS3 in a unique way is hard, and the game design issues around the flight, fight, and ground interactions are on a new level thanks to the absolutely seamless nature of all elements.

Are there particular pieces of artwork, films or novels that inspired the story and design?

The story was very much inspired by current political events. The world of Lair is facing global warming, there is a clash of two civilisations overwhelmed by religion, and there are fanatics on both sides who ignore science. These are all story elements that have come up again and again throughout human history, but I hope that we found a twist on them that will ring true to some people who play the game.

As for the visuals we tried to redefine fantastic elements; no pointy ears, but reality-based designs inspired by ancient human cultures. And as for the dragons, they are a unique kind of interpretation of the classic dragon, halfway lizard and halfway dinosaur. We spent a lot of time and several years creating this world and hope to have something unique yet strangely familiar.

How important is the SIXAXIS Wireless Controller to the Lair experience?

It's crucial to experience the game the way we wanted to. Controlling the dragon is an intense physical experience thanks to the SIXAXIS and even though we could have done a watered down version of the game without it - it certainly would not have been as visceral and at the same time accessible as Lair. Once you've ruled the skies with the motion control you don't want to go back.

Do you feel there is a conflict between designing accessible games and the potential for greater depth and interaction?

There shouldn't be. The best games are easily accessible and reveal depth to the pro-player. I hate the term hardcore player since it somehow, oftentimes seems to be an excuse for poor, unintuitive controls. We try to make Lair as fun as possible for a newcomer, but thanks to our leader boards, achievements and medal system people who want to compete and dig deeper are being rewarded for their time spent in many ways that do not take away from the accessibility.

In what ways can you imagine that the SIXAXIS Wireless Controller and other devices, such as the PlayStation Eye camera, might overcome this?

Motion control and visual analysis inherently are closer to the human body than traditional sticks and buttons. There are many genres that can benefit tremendously from motion control in terms of simplicity of complex actions and also depth. In Lair we were able to get rid of several button combinations which now get triggered by mere motions with the controller. Other games might drop classic elements like the stick and buttons altogether in favour of something fresh and new. It really depends on the individual title. Having said that, there are elements that simply play better using a stick and a button, and one should note make the mistake of forcing the motion control onto these player actions.

You've dominated the skies on leathery wings with Lair and the cold expanses of space with Rogue Squadron; what environment will Factor 5 tackle next?

Underwater would be the next floating experience and although I love diving that's a bit too slow for my taste - there is something about alien worlds though that's fascinating and we did a fair amount of exploration and destruction of those in our Turrican series of games 15 years ago. It might be the right time soon to get the character out again, guns blazing and blow up half a planet.