Releasing a port of a BBS Door Game in 2011 may look insane. It will look a lot more insane if you consider that the game was a multiplayer RPG, with a very detailed world, 5 endings + a true ending and a huge amount of content inside it. Who will play it? How it will be received?
The release of Blood of the Chamaleon caught a lot of attention in the Hardcore Gaming 101 forums and quickly managed to create a small group of fans, since behind that text-based interface there’s a very good RPG.
I managed to interview Thomas Lipschultz for Ars Ludica. Since the interview was published in Italian, here it is the original english version, for everyone else out there.
Enjoy it after the jump!
First and foremost, we’d like to know who you are and what you do for a living. I know you are somewhat connected to several XSEED Japanese RPGs, right?
Yes, I’m currently employed at XSEED Games as a localization specialist — a job I’m very proud to have, as I’ve always been a huge fan of Falcom (whose games have comprised the lion’s share of my time at the company so far) AND of XSEED’s past library of titles (Brave Story: New Traveler in particular, as I really do consider it to be one of the best RPGs on the PSP, and a fantastic complement to Miyuki Miyabe’s wonderful fantasy novel). I’d like to extend a special thank-you to my coworkers, in fact, for having absolutely no problem whatsoever with me releasing this game into the world. A lot of game companies would’ve tried to hold it back for legal reasons or what-not, so I double-checked while I was reworking it… and everybody at XSEED was like, yeah, sure, go ahead! We’d love to try it out ourselves!
I’ve actually been in the video game industry for a while, though I’m pretty new to the west coast of the U.S. — until about this time last year, I’d been living on the east coast and working in MMORPGs at EA’s Mythic Entertainment studio. In general, I’m basically a quintessential nerd — I play lots of games (both import and domestic), watch lots of anime, don’t drink, don’t smoke, hate sports, love karaoke and am gloriously unpopular with the ladies. I fit the stereotype to a T!
The one true constant, though, throughout my entire life, has always been a love of video games. I’d wanted to design them ever since I was a little kid, and even mailed crudely-drawn level maps to Nintendo at one point, hoping to make it big.
It didn’t work… but that didn’t stop me from learning BASIC, Pascal, C++ and Assembly, and having lots of fun programming some games of my own!
Blood of the Chameleon is kind of unique, as I finished it (more or less) long before I ever got employed within the game industry, and even before I ever really got into Japanese culture or knew all that much of the language (I was just starting to study Japanese when I finished it). It’s a glimpse into who I was, before I ever got caught up in all this craziness… and it’s kind of fascinating to look back on it now, and see what I was like back then, and what I would do differently now.
How do you see yourself as a gamer? What are your preferred genres? Is gaming your main hobby?
It’s funny, working in the industry actually gives me less time to play games than I’ve ever had before… but yes, gaming is definitely my main hobby, I’d say. The only other real contender would be… watching things, I guess. Movies, TV series, anime, etc. I guess you could say “visual media” is my main hobby.
As a gamer, I’m very much an RPGer. RPGs — more recently action RPGs, but really any kind of RPGs outside of tactical-style — are definitely my genre of choice. I also love music games (viva la Hatsune Miku: Project Diva!) and Metroidvanias (as well as level-based platformers, but Metroidvanias are the ones that I really get excited about!).
And… I guess I’m answering these in reverse order… as a gamer, I see myself as something of a deconstructionist. Even if I’m not trying, I’ll analyze every game I play, deconstructing it to figure out what makes it tick, what it did well, what could make it better, etc. I’m a huuuuuge proponent of game design theory, and I strongly believe that game design is an art that takes a lot of skill, practice and creative thinking to hone… and I’m utterly fascinated by it all!
I can only hope that I, too, will one day join the ranks of the industry pioneers, and become a highly-celebrated game designer. But for now… you’ll have to settle for Blood of the Chameleon. Sorry! 
What’s the motivation behind the resurrection of such an old BBS game?
To be perfectly frank… an equal mixture of vain pride, the discovery that it COULD be resurrected, and the challenge of doing just that.
Vain pride, in that this is a game I poured my heart into back in high school and early college… and for the reasons mentioned on the website and in the in-game history, very few people actually had a chance to play it back when it was “new” in 1999. And after putting so much time and energy into it… I really wanted people to be able to experience it, as I’m quite proud of what I accomplished with such limited tools and capabilities.
The discovery that it COULD be resurrected, in that I had no idea the QB64 project even existed until I randomly stumbled upon it — at work, actually, while attempting to find a more elegant means of accomplishing some simple spreadsheet management. Learning that there existed a version of Qbasic designed specifically for modern Windows systems and almost fully compatible with QB45 was like, a sudden awakening for me. I knew I had to play around with it… and the more I played around with it, the more it all came back to me. It’s like riding a bike, I guess! And it wasn’t long before I remembered BotC, and thought to myself… heeeey…
And the challenge of resurrecting the game, in that the original was designed as a multiplayer BBS door game that liberally made use of ANSI escape codes — which means I couldn’t just compile the thing under QB64 and call it a day. Rather, I had to actually “port” it to Windows! But nothing thrills me more than a good programming challenge, and the idea of duplicating the full functionality of ANSI.SYS was a challenge I just couldn’t pass up!
In the era of Door Games, what were your favourite titles?
Among door games, you mean? Unsurprisingly, I was a big fan of LORD — Legend of the Red Dragon, the definitive BBS door game by Seth Able Robinson. That game inspired virtually every other in the genre, and could basically be thought of as the Super Mario Bros. of BBS doors — the game-changer, and the one that you could pretty much ASSUME every single BBS everywhere would have up and running.
LORD wasn’t my FAVORITE favorite, though. I was a fan of the ones that expanded upon what LORD had to offer. The Pit did a nice job of this, adding a bit more depth and dimension to combat. LORE was pretty amazing, too,and was a huge inspiration for me — not many people know about LORE, but it was essentially Ultima, BBS door style. It had line of sight, seasons and weather, day-to-night cycles (with changing dialogue and closing shops and such), full-on tactical battles, dialogue trees, a complex narrative full of political intrigue… the works. All done in glorious ASCII text with ANSI coloring! It was probably a bit TOO deep and complex for most people looking to get their BBS door game fix, which might be why it’s not more well-known. But I totally loved it — I even broke out the graph paper for it to map out some of its dungeons!
LORD 2 was created late in the life cycle of BBSes, and was an amazing followup to LORD, featuring the same basic sense of humor, but with a massive overworld full of secrets, Zelda-style. It almost had a bit of a King’s Quest vibe to it, actually. And again, as with LORE, LORD 2 was a huge inspiration for Blood of the Chameleon.
There was also another door game I really loved back then, but for the life of me, I can’t remember its name. It was basically a Dragon Quest-style RPG, and utilized what were essentially sprites and tiles, composed of… 5×3, was it?… ASCII/ANSI text art grids. Graphically, it was far and away the nicest-looking BBS door game ever made, I’d say, and it was also a lot of fun. Weird that I can’t remember its name, though…
Did you switch to MUDs like everyone else when the World Wide Web took off? You still play modern MMOGs?
Surprisingly, the answers to both questions are “no.” Believe it or not, I’ve somehow never played a MUD, despite knowing tons of other people who both played them, and even RAN them. And when it comes to MMOs… well, to be perfectly frank, I kinda hate them!
And yeah, this is coming from someone who worked in MMOs for over five years. I loved working on them, and I put my heart and soul into the job, but playing them? No thanks!
I think it’s just that I can’t stand stories that don’t end. Sure, MMOs have “endgame” content, but their stories are never actually RESOLVED. It’s always an ongoing struggle… and whenever I try playing an MMO, I always think to myself, “what’s the point?” Every monster I kill is going to respawn, every accomplishment is going to be undone… it’s just not fulfilling.
Doesn’t help, too, that all the “main characters” in an MMO are other players. See, I enjoy the literary side of video games — I like knowing that the story I’m participating in was penned by someone else, starring a cast of characters who were painstakingly crafted with backstories and dilemmas and numerous other prosaic links to the events that are occurring. With other human beings in all the starring roles, you *sometimes* get a good role-player who’s able to approximate that, but it’s not quite the same as a well-written narrative featuring characters who are relevant to the overall script.
…Now this does, of course, beg the question, WHY THE HELL DID I MAKE A BBS DOOR GAME? And the answer is, quite simply, because I could! I had the know-how, and I stumbled across the DoorFrame library for QB45 (designed specifically for making BBS doors), so I figured… what the heck, why not?
And while it’s no masterpiece of storytelling by any stretch of the imagination, I like to think I did a pretty good job with its overall narrative structure. For one thing, it actually DOES have an ending — though you need to beat the game 5 times in order to see it (this was the age of BBS doors that continued on forever, remember, so winning 5 times didn’t seem an unreasonable goal by comparison!). And even after you win, you CAN continue playing — but it’s explained, at least, that if you choose to do so, you’re basically just repeating your accomplishment over and over again for the fun of it, through the power and mercy of an omnipotent deity.
So basically… if you beat the game 5 times and see the true ending, you ARE done. But if you just can’t get enough, go ahead and beat it again — I ain’t gonna stop you!
The world of BotC is pretty vast, original and detailed. What were your main sources of inspiration?
Aside from the aforementioned door games… off the top of my head, parts of BotC were inspired by Dragon Quest 1, Zelda 2, Final Fantasy 1, Loom, Ultima: Exodus, and the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. 1999 was a long time ago, though, so beyond that, I don’t really remember. I was always a bit of a weird kid, so I’m guessing a lot of it was the result of pure madness.
And yeah, those are all older titles — even though I didn’t finish MAKING the game until 1999, I actually had the whole thing planned out on paper long, LONG before that. I don’t even think it was originally meant as BBS door game, actually — I probably originally meant for it to be a Zelda 1-style adventure game on the NES.
Here’s one interesting tidbit, though: The basic layout and general descriptions for the caves of Eagle (sans Eagle Village) were actually lifted almost verbatim from a choose-your-own-adventure game I wrote on a word-processor back in the late 80s. The crack in the wall, the eagle flight, the golden surprise at the end… that was all the product of a hyperactive 10-year-old mind. Scary, no?
Why all the humor?
Why not?
In all seriousness, though, I blame Seth Able Robinson for that! He’s the guy who created LORD, and LORD was a pretty silly game. The descriptions were all very sarcastic, the monsters were a little off-the-wall (and always attacked with very weird things, which is why BotC’s enemies often have some creative weapons of their own), and most of the IGMs (in-game modules) people designed for it were fun, goofy romps. LORD 2 was even more ridiculously over-the-top, too! And while a lot of the other BBS doors I played at the time were much more serious (Usurper, The Pit, LORE, etc.), Robinson’s games were pretty much the benchmarks for the genre, so it’s no real surprise that I tried my best to emulate his sense of humor when working on a door game of my own.
What was the most challenging part of its development and design?
Originally, I’d have to say getting the thing debugged was the toughest part, since there are a lot of “moving parts” in its game engine (so to speak). This is definitely the most ambitious thing I’ve ever programmed!
For the Windows release, the most challenging part was getting the ANSI files to display properly. Windows 98 was the last version of Windows to natively support ANSI.SYS (to my knowledge), so I basically had to read up on ANSI escape codes and build a function from scratch to interpret them into colors, cursor movements, etc. Some of the ANSI files are animation scenes, too, which draw to the screen instantaneously when not being viewed over a 28.8k modem connection, so I had to figure out the proper delay to use, then script in a toggle that only utilizes that delay when drawing an animated ANSI scene — not a regular ANSI image.
None of it was all THAT difficult, though. And the challenge of getting all that to work was part of what made this such a fun project!
What struck on me was the extreme balance of the game that is a novelty since older Door Games were quite difficult. Was it a deliberate design choice?
Nope! That was pure luck, mixed with a lack of experience at difficulty balancing.
To be honest, I actually wish I’d put a little MORE effort into the difficulty, as a lot of the “super-powerful” spells I created (like the hard-to-find “Cataclysm” spell) simply aren’t all that useful due to their huge MP cost versus their relatively tame damage output. And some spells that I basically intended to be throwaway novelties (like “Berserk”) are almost game-breakingly overpowered. The use of elemental strengths and weaknesses, too, isn’t quite as deep as I’d originally intended it to be, since you can pretty much win the game just by relying on non-elemental equipment.
If you thought the game felt balanced, though, then maybe I’m just being overly critical. I am thankful, at least, that it didn’t turn out to be ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN. Rookie mistakes when designing video games tend to fall either into the “too easy” or “too hard” camp. I think BotC is too easy, but that’s definitely the lesser of two evils, as far as I’m concerned.
The user interface is pretty easy to master for a BBS Game. Did you refine it before release?
No, that’s been the interface since the very beginning, actually. The only thing I added for the Windows release is the ability to use regular arrow keys instead of being restricted to 8/4/6/2 for cardinal movement. Otherwise, I just released the game exactly the way I made it in 1999!
Why the labyrinth of caves? I hate labyrinths! 
The Labyrinth was *purely* inspired by LORE, actually. I remember spending three days going through a set of mountain caves in LORE, mapping my progress the whole way, and I absolutely *loved* it. I knew BotC needed a similar dungeon of its own, and I also knew it had to have some cool gimmicks — like those invisible doors that only show up after you light the room at the end of the corridor, and all the false walls.
Plus, I couldn’t very well have a Minotaur as a boss without giving him a labyrinth in which to dwell, could I?
How well the game was received? Any plan for a “Hi-Fi” remake?
Well, I think the fact that you’re interviewing me about my recent BBS door game release in 2011 is proof positive that it’s been received pretty well! I was actually kind of shocked to find that my trailer for it got over 1000 views within only a few days of its release, and I’ve received numerous emails and private messages from people asking questions about it, or even just telling me how much they’ve enjoyed it. Which is immensely gratifying!
I don’t specifically have plans to remake the game right now, but I’ve toyed with the idea a few times in the past, and even worked together with a college friend of mine to expand the game’s plot into a full-on RPG epic about ten years ago:
http://forgottenkings.tripod.com/
Forgotten Kings, as we were calling it, never got finished (and a lot of what’s written on that website is outdated) — but it did get the creative juices flowing a bit, and believe it or not, THREE SEQUELS to it have also been planned out in my head, to be titled “Remembrants,” “Body of Time,” and “For Jana,” respectively. The series, were it ever to come to fruition, would be called “Forever Endeavor.”
It’s a pure pipe dream, and probably won’t happen anytime in the foreseeable future… but if I ever become independently wealthy one day, or just find myself with a WHOLE LOT OF FREE TIME on my hands, I *will* make these games… and I’ll have Blood of the Chameleon to thank for them!
You think that in the indie gaming scene there’s still a place for text-based games?
I have no idea, to be honest. Probably not a BIG place… but I’m sure there’s a small corner for them somewhere. Heck, *I’d* play them, at least!
You’re on a tower and you need to toss two games you played in the last year. Make your choice!
Assuming the idea is to DESTROY those two games… let’s see…
One would be “Kitchen Panic” for the PlayStation, which really disappointed me by being utterly average AT BEST, despite your protagonist being a SENTIENT POTATO. I mean, seriously, how much of a waste of potential is that?! You’d expect a game where you play as a potato to be something totally magical and amazing, but nope… it’s just a frustrating mess!
The other… and I’m really stretching here, as I honestly haven’t played many bad games in recent memory… would have to be “Pop ‘n Music Portable” for the PSP. I love the Pop ‘n Music franchise, and used to play the game at arcades all the time when I lived in Japan… and other arcade music titles, like Taiko no Tatsujin (Taiko Drum Master), have made the transition to PSP *shockingly* well, so I had high hopes for Pop ‘n Music to do the same. Sadly, however, the game just feels REALLY AWKWARD on the PSP. The load times are crappy, the controls are awkward and unintuitive, and just in general, it feels like a really half-assed port of an excellent game. With so many better music games on the PSP — the Hatsune Miku: Project Diva titles, the Taiko no Tatsujin Portable titles, Gitaroo Man, PaRappa the Rapper, DJ Max, etc. — Pop ‘n Music just feels really out of place to me.
…I still wouldn’t toss these off a tower, though, unless I had to. There are things to learn from games like this, and neither of them is anywhere CLOSE to the worst game I’ve ever played (which, if you’re interested, is an obscure Japanese PS2 gem called “Rivel Fantasia” — and even THAT one is worth playing, if only just to give yourself a good example of what NOT to do in terms of game design!).
Thanks for your time!
My pleasure! Thanks for interviewing me, and I hope my long-winded answers don’t make me come across as an egomaniac or anything. I just like to ramble on about nerdy topics, that’s all!
