Peter Molyneux to reveal Lionhead 'experiments' at GDC '09

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Dec 17th 2008 at 10:50AM }

At least, that's what we imagine the Fable II designer will be doing in a talk entitled, "Lionhead Experiments Revealed." As part of the game design track at 2009's Game Developers Conference, which will run from March 23rd to March 27th in San Francisco, Peter Molyneux's lecture promises to be a candid look behind the scenes, complete with "visual and playable examples" of several concepts currently being toyed with at Lionhead Studios.

Though none of them are guaranteed to show up in forthcoming projects, it should provide a tantalizing glimpse up Molyneux's sleeve. Which is not only the greatest sleeve ever, but can fit any person at any time and will force you to reconsider the role sleeves play in our modern society. Probably.

Also slated to dispense wisdom on GDC's game design track are Dan Teasdale of Harmonix, who will recount design lessons learned from making Rock Band, and Jonathon Morin from Ubisoft, who will explain the level design structure in Far Cry 2. As always, Joystiq will be at the event, nodding politely and nodding off during all the boring parts.

Tags: Dan-Teasdale, GDC-2009, Harmonix, Jonathon-Morin, Lionhead, Lionhead-Studios, Peter-Molyneux, Ubisoft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

SuperAfroBoy @ Dec 17th 2008 10:55AM

Definitely looking forward to Molyneax's presentation.

Marty @ Dec 17th 2008 11:23AM

I am too. Fable 2 could have been a huge failure, but as far as I am concerned, it delivered the goods nicely. People here like to go all sour on Peter Molyneux, but I think he seems like an interesting guy who takes pride in what he does, and I hope Lionhead's "experiments" turn out to be something fun.

Killjebus @ Dec 17th 2008 11:35AM

I like how Peter reaches farther than his grasp, just like Sony does...eventually they will grab hold and not let go.

Please Peter, bring back BC. That demo I saw back in 2003 STILL was the best looking Xbox game I ever saw.

knighty (GT: ZeraKnight) @ Dec 17th 2008 2:08PM

The problem is that he announces his ideas too early because he's enthusiastic about what he does. People neglect to realise that ALL games have lofty goals, some of which won't be achieved, and therefore bash him when not all of the stuff he mentioned is delivered.

skyfire @ Dec 17th 2008 11:04AM

maybe he'll make a game thats last longer then 6-8 hrs, was really dissapointed with how short and over hyped fable2 was

Marty @ Dec 17th 2008 11:21AM

Short? Yes. Overhyped? Not at all. If anything, I found Fable 2 to be a much richer experience than anything I read about it. Most of the reviews make a point of describing how short and shallow the game could be for players who don't step off the main quest path - when I played, I felt like I hardly had time or the main quest with so much other stuff to do.

It's really a great (and long) game if you put the time into it, and don't just blow through the main quest.

Snowblind @ Dec 17th 2008 11:34AM

Both my Fable 2 play throughs lasted more than 30 hours. If you completed it in 8, you missed the entire point of the game.

halfrobo @ Dec 17th 2008 11:11AM

Oh boy. I hope this is as amusing as his last GDC demonstration of experiments from inside Lionhead, which he talked up like it was going to be totally mindblowing, then showed a thoroughly pedestrian tech demo of "portals" that can serve as gateways from one 3D environment to another, and you can throw stuff through them. No really, that's what it was. That and "digital clay" that you could shape into a "T" shape, causing it to turn into a telephone. Admittedly this was years before Portal or Spore were actually released, so it anticipated some stuff going on in the industry, but there was no gameplay to make it compelling, so everyone was left confused.

That and it was in the middle of a design competition vs. Clint Hocking and Will Wright about Emily Dickinson, and he got totally creamed by those two.

Erluti @ Dec 17th 2008 11:53AM

Really?! He brought tech demos to the Game Developer Conference!? Ridiculous! How dare he share development ideas and innovations!

Drew @ Dec 17th 2008 11:34AM

I can't wait to hear what the Far Cry 2 dev has to say. What a poorly designed game. I'd just like to hear the defense for basically every design decision in the game.

Instantly respawning enemies? No fast travel? Malaria? Really? Never mind that the game couldn't have really been tested with all the bugs.