Doom, Pirates of the Caribbean and The 7th Guest: The Creative Process and Matt Costello

Matt, you are the man behind many award winning games, novels, television programmes and now, virtual worlds. We’d like to know more of the secrets of your trade, but first of all: how did you get here?

"I think I might be a poster boy for the idea that you don’t pick your path….it picks you. I majored in Asian Philosophy, with graduate work in directing, but I lived inside my imagination most of the time. From the moment I was a little kid in Brooklyn tuning out the noise of an intensely dysfunctional family, my fantasy life - a life of story, characters, of play, of ideas- has actually been my life.

How that has led to everything I have done, is probably a longer answer. Except that one thing, writing a novel…naturally led to another: scripting games….to another: developing television formats…to another…building virtual reality worlds. I don't like to be bored. In fact, it is simply not permitted. And I am unabashed lover of those things that carried me away when young: horror, comics, great science fiction, the lure of ‘what if’, the pull of a great story. I'm trying to create that experience".

What did you want to be when you were young?

"When I was young I always wanted to be a writer. The good nuns did their best to discourage this idea. I persisted anyway."

What games, books or movies fascinated you?
"My favorite game when the day is done, is chess. If I had to take one game to a desert island, chess would have to be the one. In movies, King Kong mesmerized when it finally began showing on our old black and white TV. Such fierce and bold creativity, the story simple and powerful, and the metaphors clear even for a runny-nosed kid. Favorite early novel: John Fowles’ The Magus. For many reasons."

You have worked in various mediums, writing novels, but also scripting games. How did you acquire the skills for different platforms?

"The best way: by doing the things. Writing an unpublished novel, then working as a journalist to find a voice. Being unabashed about trying a new medium, voraciously reading what others did, being open to feedback. The key thing is: you can't be afraid to start. After that, it's all remembering to play and learn as much as you can.

I still am learning. Every game or major interactive project is still different from the last, with different parameters, different goals, different script formats, different challenges. I learn each time. Paradigms get shelved, and I try to dig into the business of doing something new and, with luck, good."

What was the first game you scripted?
The first game was actually a role playing game for a company named Chaosium, based on Lovecraft’s mythos, Call of Cthulhu. The first computer game—one of the three or four peak creative experiences in my life – was The 7th Guest.

Tell us about your biggest success. How did you work with the team? What did you bring to the project that you are most proud off?

"I've been lucky enough to have three or four projects that were, literally, ground-breaking. And a great deal of fun. But let me start with The 7th Guest. It was for a medium that did not exist yet (CD-ROM). I was approached as a writer, but as a game designer I actually supplied the framework that led to the gameplay, working with the team at Trilobyte. The three visionaries working there made this new world we entered, with so many doubters, exhilarating. Predictions of failure were rife. But the project succeeded and changed all the developers’ lives, and certainly my future…. something that still amazes me.

As to the other projects I am proud of: project like ZoogDisney where I was involved in rebranding the entire television network as something wired and suitable for Tweens and not the Winnie the Pooh crowd involved all my skills and then some. I was involved in writing, story telling, interviewing, as well as the interactive design. Working with another visionary, Fred Graver, we created something that again was always one step from having its plug pulled. Yet it happened, and the network changed forever. We created ‘TV You Do—On-air and online’ a decade before that vision became common place."

You still write novels, and these novels are often optioned for movies. Do you write your novels with the movie or a game in mind?

"When I write a novel I don’t think about a film. Afterwards yes, but when I’m in the tunnel of a novel, I’m lost to the world of that story and the characters. Then there are games...the work on those is so collaborative, a dozen people in meetings, a hundred people on the project. The two worlds could not be more different. It’s very healthy to get the novelist pried away from his keyboard and off to a another land where suddenly it’s an idea salad. I love it."

One of your novels Beneath Still Waters was made into a movie. How is it to see a story you developed made into a movie?

"Though the movie is, ahem, no classic, the process was nothing less than wonderful. Respected genre director Brian Yuzna involved me a great deal, I was on the set in Madrid, and I felt that everyone from wardrobe to catering to the dive team was working to realize the worlds of my 20 year old novel. Many writers have sad tales about their books being turned into film. Not me -- while I didn't write the script, I was asked of feedback and ideas at every stage."

Do you think games technology can also be used to tell completely different type of stories?

"I think games are only beginning to realize how their emotional palette must and will grow. The development arc of the art of the game versus the film is going to be much longer, for many reasons. But to paraphrase Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer…”You ain't seen nothing yet!”

Matt Costello will provide insight into the creative process at PICNIC,on Friday 26 September, with the opening talk of a morning dedicated to creativity. More information about Costello can be found at his website.