Talking with Erik Simon
RG : Eight years have passed since Thalion disappeared. What have you done, speaking about videogames and others, during this time?
Erik : When Thalion ended, some of the team got jobs in the Gütersloh area, were Thalion was located, mostly outside the games business. The bigger part of the team, including myself, went to Blue Byte. There, we worked on Albion, a RPG that we started to develop on the Amiga, but switched later on to the PC. Chris Jungen, our 3D wizard (of No Second Prize fame), worked on 3D routines for several Blue Byte games. After a while we moved to the Mülheim in the Ruhrgebiet, where Blue Bytes headquarters were. I worked there for about 7 years as a game designer, graphic artist, project leader and during the last two years, Head of Development. Beside Albion I worked on Extreme Assault and several other Blue Byte games and helped to finish The Settlers 3 on the project management side. I left Blue Byte at the end of 2000 and I'm working now as Head of Development for JoWooD. As for my private life, I met a woman who became very special to me and married her a few years later.
RG : Being one of Thalion founders, what did you feel when the software house stopped working? Was it a difficoult time or were you prepared to such an event?
Erik : While it was a difficult time indeed, no hard feelings remain of that time. I've been well-informed about what has been going on at Thalion. That gave me the time to get in contact with other interested developers/publishers and to offer the team alternatives after Thalion went under.
RG : We confess we consider Lionheart one of the greatest platform games ever realized as well as one of the most complex (if not the most complex) videogames in the last ten years. In our opinion the technique by which animations, graphic art of sorroundigs and colours were visualized were unrivalled even in a playroom. In other words, in which way did Thalion to create such a massive electronic work of art? In the game development you were a grame designer, weren't you?
Erik : That's right. I did the game design and also designed all of the levels. It's still one of the projects that I'm most proud of and I'm still thankful that I've had the opportunity to work on Lionheart together with Erwin Kloibhofer, the main programmer, and Henk Nieborg, the best pixel artist I've ever met. Together with Michael Bittner, who provided some awful programming like the intro zoom routines and the 3D-scrolling and Matthias Steinwachs' incredible soundtrack this was one of the rare projects where everything fell in place just perfectly.
RG : The parallax levels were literally plentiful, pushing Amiga beyond the "virtual" limits imposed by the processor. Which strategies did you put in action in order to gather such a monstruous technique in an Amiga 500's memory?
Erik : Surprisingly, there wasn't much extreme demo-like coding involved. Erwin and Michael just were very experienced 68000-coders, who knew exactly what they were doing. When I'm not mistaken, a lot of Lionheart's non-timecritical code was even written in C.
RG : As to the coluour simultaneous to video, how did you succeed in visualizing such an exaggerated chromatic variety? They say more than 600 colours simultaneously. Can you confirm it?
Erik : Well, we didn't count the colors, really. Again, it was quite a simple idea: instead of just using copper list color transitions for the background, I suggested to also use this for the foreground graphics. It's just a matter of using the right color tables and switching only one color at a time, so that the eye doesn't recognize the horizontal color switches.
RG : As to the sound, which we consider as magnificient as graphic art, can you tell us who was the creator?
Erik : Matthias Steinwachs was responsible for the sound. Even to that time, he was already very experienced and has been able to produce a very orchestral sound in a very small amount of memory.
RG : In your opinion, would you have been able to convert Lionheart for other 16 bit platforms such as Megadrive or Super Nes? Which would have been the limits in case of porting for the aforementioned? And, above all, did you ever mind to develop something for consoles?
Erik : We certainly would have been able to convert Lionheart to consoles, but we were a very home computer focused company with no console experience and connections. Erwin and Henk went to develop on the Mega Drive for Psygnosis after the Thalion time.
RG : In your opinion, which were Amiga's major virtues? Do you think piracy to have "restricted" computer Commodore's life? Did piracy affect Thalion longevity?
Erik : The Amiga was the superior home computer platform of it's time, it gave us wonderful creative possibilities without having to deal with the restrictions and higher financial risc of the console market. But the downside was clearly the piracy, it has been one of the main reasons for Thalion's end. Well, if we'd have been far better business men, we might've survived anyway, but we weren't totally incompetent fincially spoken. It was just a fact that high quality games didn't sell enough units on this machine anymore.
RG : As for No Second Prize, did polygonal engine cause you any troubles? As they were full polygons, it was amazing to realize that (the whole) everything moved with extreme fluidity and speed. Considering 2D and 3D do you think you fully made use of Amiga's qualities?
Erik : NSP had a wonderful 3D engine, Chris Jungen worked on that stuff for years and years, optimizing every aspect of the engine over and over again. On one Amiga show we had to put up a sign saying "No turbo cards used!" because we grew tired of people asking. And yes, I really think we did all that could be done with standard and moderatly accelerated Amiga hardware of that time. Just think of the texturemapped 3D-dungeons of Ambermoon.
RG : Thalion owes a lot to Atari ST too, on which has developed a lot of games. Would you show us, if possible, the differences in hardware between Amiga and Atari ST? On which platform was it easier to programme?
Erik : We've been very dedicated ST-people because our roots were in the ST-demoscene. During Thalion's first years we produced even more advanced technological wizardry on the ST as we later did on the Amiga. But we also learned that people didn't seem to care that much for the programming tricks we did. Although we always tried to concentrate on the gameplay, too, sometimes the technological tricks took away too much production time. And, surprisingly, on the level of ST-programming that we were, the differences to the Amiga weren't that big anymore.
RG : With Ambermoon a practically brand-new RPG rypology was achieved. The fusion between bidimensional sorroundings and dungeon in 3D once more showed Thalion great qualities in the sphere of Amiga. What can you say, briefly, about the development of the title? They say that the tridimentional routines were developed for the first time on Atary ST, weren't they?
Erik : That's true, they did run on the ST first. Later, Micheal Bittner developed some Blitter tricks that accelerated the technique on the Amiga quite a bit.
RG : On 1994, that is the last year of life of Thalion, a beat'em up named "X - Fighter" was announced. This game never appeared on the market. Would you be so kind as to give us some information about the title? Why was its development topped?
Erik : Frankly, I haven't got a clue about this game, I've never been involved in that. The only guess I can offer is that our UK office might have wanted to distribute the title in Thalion's turbulent end stage.
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RG : Which game do you usually play? Is there a videogame you "prefer"?
Erik : I still prefer RPGs,although I hardy have time to play them anymore. Usually I just throw a quick glance on new titles coming out.
On consoles, I enjoyed Mario 64 quite a bit.
RG : In your long career as programmer/designer which game did you like best?
Erik : The favorite games that I've been working on are Dragonflight, Wings of Death, Trex Warrior, Lionheart, Ambermoon, Albion and Extreme Assault.
RG : Which software house are you working for at present?
Erik : Right now, I live in Austria, working as Head of Development for JoWooD Productions. They're a publicly traded company who own some of the most experienced studios in the German speaking territories, such as Massive Development (Aquanox). All internal studios taken together, we're about 100 developers.
RG : Now let's change the subject. We would like to know a little more about your "private life". What about your hobbies?
Erik : Nothing unusual there: I like to cook, read, travel, ride my motorcycle. I paint in oils from time to time, not nearly often enough for my own liking, though. I enjoy a good meal, a good wine, a fine cigar and some scotch, preferrably in the company of my wife and old friends.
RG : You have just come back from GDC in San Josè. What's the matter there? Would you kindly give us your impressions on such event?
Erik : A good GDC this year for me, no groundbreaking new ideas but a lot of good ideas for all the daily development problems. The industrys production methods mature slowly. In order to make ever better games, we'll have to get better at boring stuff like project management processes.
RG : Before closing just another question: if you had the possibility would you develop a Lionheart sequel for console?
Erik : Oh yes, I'd love to. But I'm afraid that only us hardcore old-timers really remember the game, so it's not a brand that is strong enough to justify a sequel that'll take a multi-million-dollar budget to develop on next-gen consoles.
RG : Okay, Erik, it's all. We greet you and thank you for your extreme kindness and availability in the hope we can meet, perhaps when Thalion Software will be refounded
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Erik : Thank you for bringing up all the fond memories with this interview!
