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Interview Matt Chat 396: Interview with Leonard Boyarsky, Part Two

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Tags: Fallout; Interplay; Leonard Boyarsky; Matt Barton

The second episode of Matt Barton's interview with Leonard Boyarsky is dedicated almost entirely to the development of Fallout. Much of this will be familiar to our readers - the story of how Leonard got on the Fallout team, how he came up with its 50s-flavored setting and aesthetic, the creation of the Vault Boy, and the dispute with Steve Jackson that led the replacement of GURPS with SPECIAL. More interesting is Leonard's discussion of how he became involved in writing and design despite his official role as art director. According to Leonard, it's precisely his lack of a background in writing that may have allowed him to design scenarios with convincing and naturalistic choice & consequence.


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Another interesting bit is Leonard's claim that the original Wasteland had very little influence on Fallout. Apparently he only played Wasteland for the first time quite late in the game's development, and the only Wasteland references in it are minor easter eggs like Tycho's background as a Desert Ranger. The interview ends with the story of how he, Tim Cain and Jason Anderson left Interplay to form Troika, but more about that in the next episode.
 
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Infinitron said:
Another interesting bit is Leonard's claim that the original Wasteland had very little influence on Fallout. Apparently he only played Wasteland for the first time quite late in the game's development, and the only Wasteland references in it are minor easter eggs like Tycho's background as a Desert Ranger.
Click to expand...

Hey TimCain, how true is this really? Fallout's entire main storyline seems parallel to Wasteland's, with a mutant invasion instead of a robot invasion (though I guess that could be a coincidence). And on a mechanical level you've got both games' championing of a skill-based RPG system.
 
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Another interesting bit is Leonard's claim that the original Wasteland had very little influence on Fallout. Apparently he only played Wasteland for the first time quite late in the game's development, and the only Wasteland references in it are minor easter eggs like Tycho's background as a Desert Ranger. I have to say, I'm not entirely sure that Leonard is right about that.
Click to expand...
He's not the only one. In his GDC retrospective, Tim Cain says he also didn't play Wasteland until development on Fallout began, although many others on the development team had. The idea that Fallout started out as a deliberate successor to Wasteland always struck me as Fargo exaggerating his creative involvement with Interplay/Black Isle games to make his Kickstarter campaigns more succesful, and doesn't line up with how others describe Fallout's development.

And most of those 'similarities' are just grasping at straws:

The Mines. Creepy. Exploring it throughout gets you some experience and some silver, but some gas masks. (Whoop Whoop)

Vault 15. Creepy. Exploring it gets you some experience and a piece of armor. (Whoop Whoop)
Click to expand...
:roll: Really now?
 
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Cross said:
He's not the only one. In his GDC retrospective, Tim Cain says he also didn't play Wasteland until development on Fallout began, although many others on the development team had. The idea that Fallout started out as a deliberate successor to Wasteland always struck me as Fargo exaggerating his creative involvement with Interplay/Black Isle games
Click to expand...

Even if Tim and Leonard didn't play Wasteland, it's worth asking if they weren't at some point early on asked to replicate Wasteland's basic design goals as read from a box cover or feature bullet point list.

"Post-apocalypse, check. Evil horde invading from military base, check. Techno-cult, check. Power armor, check. Skill-based roleplaying system, check."

That would make Fallout, not a spiritual successor to Wasteland, but a kind of blind reinterpretation of it. The concept of Wasteland as developed by somebody else.
 
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Infinitron said:
"Post-apocalypse, check. Evil horde invading from military base, check. Techno-cult, check. Power armor, check. Skill-based roleplaying, check."
Click to expand...


"Strange world, check. Evil horde invading from some place, check. Magic-cult, check. Magic armor, check. Skill-based roleplaying, check."

Hey its a plot for an RPG.
 
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Davaris said:
Infinitron said:
"Post-apocalypse, check. Evil horde invading from military base, check. Techno-cult, check. Power armor, check. Skill-based roleplaying, check."
Click to expand...


"Strange world, check. Evil horde invading from some place, check. Magic-cult, check. Magic armor, check. Skill-based roleplaying, check."

Hey its a plot for an RPG.
Click to expand...

As I said in my earlier post, the overall plot similarity between Fallout and Wasteland might indeed be a coincidence. But I think fantasy/D&D tropes are more universal and thus more likely to be replicated coincidentally.

In the interview, Leonard says they started out making a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic RPG without the 50s stuff - which is what Wasteland was like. But in fact we know that there were different concepts for what became Fallout even before that, really weird ones like the dinosaur time travel stuff. Does it not make sense then that Wasteland was the direct inspiration when they did switch to the post-apocalypse?
 
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Infinitron said:
Davaris said:
Infinitron said:
"Post-apocalypse, check. Evil horde invading from military base, check. Techno-cult, check. Power armor, check. Skill-based roleplaying, check."
Click to expand...


"Strange world, check. Evil horde invading from some place, check. Magic-cult, check. Magic armor, check. Skill-based roleplaying, check."

Hey its a plot for an RPG.
Click to expand...

As I said in my earlier post, the overall plot similarity between Fallout and Wasteland might indeed be a coincidence. But I think fantasy/D&D tropes are more universal and thus more likely to be replicated coincidentally.

In the interview, Leonard says they started out making a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic RPG without the 50s stuff - which is what Wasteland was like. But in fact we know that there were different concepts for what became Fallout even before that, really weird ones like the dinosaur time travel stuff. Does it not make sense then that Wasteland was the direct inspiration when they did switch to the post-apocalypse?
Click to expand...

I think both Tim and Leonard stated abundantly clear that Wasteland was not a major influence.
As mentioned, Tim said in GDC talk that he only played it later, and now Leonard said (again) that we hadnt played it and that it didnt change anything design-wise.

Maybe Anderson had played it - since he drafted the story for Wasteland 2 before the Kickstarter, that would be interesting to know...
 
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