Interview Matt Chat 234: Brenda Romero on Jagged Alliance and Wizardry

[Infinitron]

Tags: Brenda Brathwaite; DW Bradley; Jagged Alliance; Matt Barton; Realms of Arkania; Sir-Tech; Stones of Arnhem; Wizardry; Wizardry 8

Matt Barton has posted the second part of his interview with Sir-Tech alumna Brenda Romero. In this part of the interview, Brenda focuses on her post-high school career at Sir-Tech, where she did QA and production work on games such as Wizardry, Jagged Alliance and Realms of Arkania, while apprenticing under the famous D.W. Bradley, who was her mentor. She also talks a bit about her role as lead designer on Wizardry 8.

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This interview gets sad and a little disturbing when Matt asks Brenda why David Bradley left Sir-Tech. Apparently it's a sensitive enough topic that Matt was asked to censor that part of the interview(!). Apparently, she hasn't spoken to Bradley since he left Sir-Tech over 20 years ago, and has been unable to reestablish contact. Oh, and there's also a question from J_C about Stones of Arnhem, but she doesn't really know anything about it, alas.

 

[Johannes]

Interesting how she mentions SoA development right before the CENSORED!!! part.

 

[Gregz]

That's all well and good, but what does Cleveland Mark Blakemore have to say on the matter?

 

[Severian Silk]

I wish she'd said more about JA2 than just "It's a great game."

 

[Ninjerk]

Does she have a history of getting flamed on YouTube comments?

 

[rpgcodexusername]

Did she introduce level scaling to wizardry?

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Am I the only person who finds it really creepy that a person has to actually request SPECIAL CENSORSHIP of their OWN COMMENTS after the interview has ended?

Sorry, were we talking about waterboarding torture rooms at Guantanamo Bay? I thought this interview was a lighthearted look at Brenda's experience as a "game designer" over the past 20 years.

I don't understand the relationship between roleplaying games and a gigantic INFORMATION REDACTED in the middle of a Matt Chat interview. It made my skin crawl. It was like a mockup creepy pasta documentary of SPC footage.

Have any of you begun to grasp the depth of mind-numbing Lovecraftian horror at Sir-Tech software before they went bankrupt and folded?

Why do simple interviews about roleplaying games turn into nightmarish terror blackouts with non-euclidean geometry where Sir-Tech and/or its employees are involved?

I thought I saw a brief flicker of a subliminal penisaurus when the word CENSORED appeared.

It has been twenty years, are Sir-Tech death squads still roaming in the field? What is Brenda afraid of?

Sir-tech brothers are two sorry sons of bitches. You be the judge.

 

[Morality Games]

Am I the only person who finds it really creepy that a person has to actually request SPECIAL CENSORSHIP of their OWN COMMENTS after the interview has ended?

Sorry, were we talking about waterboarding torture rooms at Guantanamo Bay? I thought this interview was a lighthearted look at Brenda's experience as a "game designer" over the past 20 years.

I don't understand the relationship between roleplaying games and a gigantic INFORMATION REDACTED in the middle of a Matt Chat interview. It made my skin crawl. It was like a mockup creepy pasta documentary of SPC footage.

Have any of you begun to grasp the depth of mind-numbing Lovecraftian horror at Sir-Tech software before they went bankrupt and folded?

Why do simple interviews about roleplaying games turn into nightmarish terror blackouts with non-euclidean geometry where Sir-Tech and/or its employees are involved?

I thought I saw a brief flicker of a subliminal penisaurus when the word CENSORED appeared.

It has been twenty years, are Sir-Tech death squads still roaming in the field? What is Brenda afraid of?

Sir-tech brothers are two sorry sons of bitches. You be the judge.

When you gaze into the Sir-Tech, the Sir-Tech also gazes into you.

 

[Morality Games]

Does this mean we will never learn the truth about what happened until the people involved are dead?

From the way Cleve describes it, I think the Saw series was loosely based on the management at Sir-Tech.

 

[LeStryfe79]

What a bizarre interview...

 

[circ]

Damn. That's some master level question dodging. Should maybe work on her lie face a lot.

 

[getter77]

How very strange. I wonder if there is an equivalent That Which Must Not Be Discussed in the annals of history over in the Japanese side of the RPG industry? Wouldn't it have just been easier to excise that part entirely rather than disclaim it dramatically, or was there some miscommunication of pre-conditions to the interview period or what? The way this thing has carried on through the years leaves room for little else than some sort of criminality or deep inter-personal aspect that went very awry else why all the tension to it?

 

[dnf]

Does this mean we will never learn the truth about what happened until the people involved are dead?

Just take Cleve's word for granted. Remember that the naysayers used to doubt the existance of Stones of Arhen or that Cleve worked at Sir-Tech.

How very strange. I wonder if there is an equivalent That Which Must Not Be Discussed in the annals of history over in the Japanese side of the RPG industry?

Japs are quite at ease with their perverted desires

 

[dnf]

Does this mean we will never learn the truth about what happened until the people involved are dead?

Just take Cleve's word for granted. Remember that the naysayers used to doubt the existance of Stones of Arhen or that Cleve worked at Sir-Tech.

How very strange. I wonder if there is an equivalent That Which Must Not Be Discussed in the annals of history over in the Japanese side of the RPG industry?

Japs are quite at ease with their perverted desires

 

[Cenobyte]

Weird interview indeed.
It seems that the wounds about the last years of Sir-Tech are still very much open, maybe even due to different reasons for the involved persons....
I wonder what Linda and Ian Currie have to say about the whole matter, since the famous reference to Cleve appears in one of their games (Jagged Alliance 2 was developed by Sir-Tech Canada, not the US Sir-Tech of which Cleve was part if I got this right) and they also played a crucial role for the design and development of Wizardry 8 and the accompanying changes to the old Wizardry design formula. Maybe Matt should try to get them for an interview next (or has he interviewed them already? I've lost track about who he has interviewed so far).

 

[Infinitron]

Weird interview indeed.
It seems that the wounds about the last years of Sir-Tech are still very much open, maybe even due to different reasons for the involved persons....
I wonder what Linda and Ian Currie have to say about the whole matter, since the famous reference to Cleve appears in one of their games (Jagged Alliance 2 was developed by Sir-Tech Canada, not the US Sir-Tech of which Cleve was part if I got this right) and they also played a crucial role for the design and development of Wizardry 8 and the accompanying changes to the old Wizardry design formula. Maybe Matt should try to get them for an interview next (or has he interviewed them already? I've lost track about who he has interviewed so far).

He's not interviewed the Curries, no. Or anybody else from Sir-Tech other than Brenda.

 

[Crooked Bee]

In other Sirotek conspiracy-related news, we were actually supposed to have interviews with DW Bradley as well as Ian and Linda Currie at one point, but then all of them mysteriously disappeared and stopped replying to my emails.

:tinfoilhat:

It's like that thing Cleve was talking about.

 

[Monty]

Isn't it time Matt interviewed Cleve? Guaranteed ratings gold.

 

[Infinitron]

It's like that thing Cleve was talking about.

Heh, that might be a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you catch my meaning.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Not very hard to decode, it's information that would make the Siroteks look bad and could result in legal consequences. Remember how the Sirtech documents vanished from Ebay, probably due to legal pressure from them. Probably why these interviews stopped as well.

 

[Morality Games]

It has been twenty years, are Sir-Tech death squads still roaming in the field? What is Brenda afraid of?

To continue the horror movie analogy, the villain never really dies. Otherwise you lose the sense of hopelessness that characterizes horror. As you go over Grimoire's post-release numbers, the Sir-Tech brothers will come up from behind and put their hands on your shoulders and say, "Good work, Mr. Blakemore. We have a list of changes for Grimoire 2..." Your eyes will go wide with terror as screen immediately fades to black.

Yeah, that's how 17 years of work ends.

 

[Ninjerk]

Isn't it time Matt interviewed Cleve? Guaranteed ratings gold.

J_C

 

[Western]

I think Cleve is waiting for Grimoire to come out before he goes on Matt's show.

 

[Severian Silk]

In other Sirotek conspiracy-related news, we were actually supposed to have interviews with DW Bradley as well as Ian and Linda Currie at one point, but then all of them mysteriously disappeared and stopped replying to my emails.

:tinfoilhat:

It's like that thing Cleve was talking about.

Too bad. That would have been nice.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

Matt interviewing Cleveland is too awesome