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Linus Tech tips coverage of pxs 2013 is brought to you by Western Digital Intel

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and steel Series so we're here with Nick Herman

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co-director of a Wolf Among Us also The Walking Dead and apparently a million

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other things is that correct uh yeah I guess we make a lot of games if someone

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said it it must be true and it's on the internet right sweet yeah oh yeah totally a million games so give me the I

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guess give me the 30 to 60c pitch for how why you want a gamer to invest in

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the experience you guys are delivering here yeah um I mean uh with The Wolf

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Among Us uh we sort of you know we're following up The Walking Dead and um I

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think a lot of people are sort of putting the pressure on us to make this

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good and I and I think we uh instead of you know taking this really dark and

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really serious I mean the game actually is really dark and serious so what am I saying we wanted to push it in a

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different direction it's not it's not about you know it's they're two

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different characters right two different stories Lee's you know a story of uh

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sort of redemption and sort of um being someone's Savior and and this game I

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think is is a little bit about redemption in the fact that Big B wolf who's the sheriff of fabletown you know

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he he used to be the big battle wolf and now he's sort of in charge of protecting

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everyone and it's and it's sort of up to the player to figure out how they want

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to do that like the the the problem with him is he's got all this power right and

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you have to choose whether or not using that power is worth it and and if when

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you do what how that affects you know the people around you and what people think of you and um I think it's really

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interesting and I mean with this game too you can look at of the art and it

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looks so different the game feels different it's a different story so I

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think people should just be excited for something new and yeah now I played a

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10-minute demo of it here in the booth and the thing that I noticed more than

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anything else is looking from my screen to the guy next to me is we were playing

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the same 10-minute demo and he had completely different stuff on his screen

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whether it's down to um an option in the combat or whether it's down to um

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driving away in the car versus falling out of a window on top of the car it

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felt like the choices I was making were having we're having a huge impact on how

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the story was progressing I mean you guys obviously have a branching

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structure to it but are there you know 101 endings or is it pretty linear yeah

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I mean I would say it's it's closer to The Walking Dead I mean we don't have I mean with episode one we don't have you

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know 40 endings but um I think a lot of the things we're playing around with are

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just giving the player more Choice more often um letting them sort of uh choose

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how they want to play on on a more of a micro level a lot of the times and um

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something we're playing with too is is sort of the sense of time so uh even in

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the demo when you're talking to Mr toe downstairs you can leave the

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conversation early in favor of sort of getting to figure out what's going on or

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you can sort of drill them a little bit more and get more information and and

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that comes into play in a much bigger way later in the episode too fascinating

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I mean speaking of sense of time um the combat was felt very frantic felt very

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urgent but didn't feel very punishing because whenever I made a mistake I was

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able to go back to about you know 3 to 5 seconds ago and and get a do over so

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what does that say about the experience you guys are trying to deliver here yeah

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I mean with with a combat specifically it's really about I mean we're not we

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don't want to punish people for not being able to play an action sequence I think most people play our games for

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sort of the narrative and the characters in the story and and getting to make

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these decisions and um yeah I think I

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think it's really about in the fight sequence just sort of creating Your Own

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Story I mean we now we have this a branching fight sequences really just to

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let the player Express themselves more like I was saying more on a micro level

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and um even if you get the kicked out of you it's still fun to watch right

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it's still it's still something it's an exciting experience and there's only you

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know a few death States in that in that fight but um it's really about creating

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narrative I mean one of the things I noticed is during the fight okay so when

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you're talking to people you really have the option to be a total or to

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just be very passive or to be very helpful you you can go one of even in

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the fight you have an option to throw them and you can decide what to throw

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them against um how does that affect who how you're building yourself out as a

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character yeah I mean it's it's funny that that there's a you know there's a

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couch you can throw them into and a lot of people are like well I threw him into

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the couch because you know like I wanted to be kind of soft on them but you know

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just you like they just sort of you know read into it more than than we even

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expect sometimes and that's that's sort of the fun part of it um and I think in

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in that fight specifically there's uh it we're sort of just teaching you the

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mechanics but but later on there's going to be ramifications for how you treat

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people in those types of situations that's absolutely very very

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cool I really enjoy the demo and I'm really excited to see this when it's

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available for me to buy Yeah well yeah it'll be available uh early or late SE

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September early October yeah sounds great thank you so much thank you we're

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here with Pierre shet lead writer of a Wolf Among Us well at least episode one

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anyway hopefully episode two assuming things go really really well with this

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one tell me about how how challenging is

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it to write for a character like Big B wolf when the charact or the the player

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gets to make a lot of the decisions and you just kind of have to make sure that

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everything makes sense regardless of what they do luckily for us um Big B

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comes from fables the uh Bill Willingham

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comic book um he's a dynamic enough character that the range that you have

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with him the way you'd want to swing this character um emotionally whether

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you want to play the role of the enforcer the the

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law-abiding Sheriff of fabl town or you want to be the guy who kicks a door in

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and gets answers all that still fits in with who

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Big B is and allowing people to sort of choose who their Big B is is still

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possible even with a character that U many people know and love okay so I mean

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if that if that's not the big challenge of writing for a for a game like this

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then what what were the things that you were sitting around the table or

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discussing or sitting at your desk tearing your hair out well

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figuratively that's that must be where it all went so um tell me what was so

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difficult it was definitely giving the

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game and giving The Wolf Among Us an identity that is different

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and sort of sticks out from what The

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Walking Dead has done not trying to relive the same beats not trying to have

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similar characters is it's its own thing it's it's based on fables it's a

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Fantastical world and just being true to that and giving it its own feel and

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atmosphere and tone and dialogue uh was probably the biggest challenge from a

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writing standpoint thank you so much I really appreciate you taking the time

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Pierre and uh hey good luck thanks

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thanks nice talking to you so guys don't miss any of our packs Prime 2013

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coverage remember our trip to the show here is powered by Western Digital Intel

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and steel series