Exclusive Gatheryn GDC '09 Interview - Creating an "Advanced Casual" MMO

[Cody Bye]

Whenever a developer for a multi-million dollar smash hit like The Force Unleashed packs up her things and moves to a different development company, people perk up and take notice. That’s exactly what happened when former-LucasArts employee Isa Stamos joined up with MindFuse as the studio director to help create the upcoming “advanced casual” MMO Gatheryn. While at GDC, the Ten Ton Hammer staff was able to chat with Isa about the finer points of Gatheryn and how this game may be a gateway for players not exactly familiar with the MMO experience. Read on!

Ten Ton Hammer: A quick question on character creation and customizability. Are casual gamers going to be really motivated to make these really stylized characters? That’s not something I’d associate with casual gamers, normally. But you think so?

Isa: Yes I do. Our character creation is very simple and very focused on the look of the avatar. We’re not asking people to make a lot of decisions about who they want their character to be right away. We want them to have a chance to play the game first.

To read the rest of our exclusive Gatheryn interview, click here!