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Uncharted lead Lemarchand exits Naughty Dog to become more like Indiana Jones

Ben Gilbert — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:15:00 EST

Uncharted series lead Richard Lemarchand has apparently had enough with crafting an Indiana Jones-esque protagonist, and is now taking steps toward becoming that hero himself. Speaking with Gamasutra, Lemarchand said he's leaving his current job (of eight years) at Naughty Dog - creators of Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted, and The Last of Us - in order to take on new challenges at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.

"In other words, I'll be surrounded by awesome people, talking craft and philosophy, and building strange new things," Lemarchand said of his new role as professor at the Interactive Media Division at UC. "It seems like a natural transition point," he added. "I was involved with the development of the Uncharted series not quite from the beginning, but almost ... and even though the Uncharted series isn't intended to be viewed as a trilogy, maybe there's something about the number three that felt ... there is a certain amount of completeness for me."

But when will the next transition happen, from daring professor to daring professor slash extreme archaeologist? Sooner than we imagined, it seems. Lemarchand's first order of business is a three-month backpacking excursion that'll take him around the globe. After that, he'll begin work on a "series of experiment games," aimed at exploring "procedural narrative," among other things. After that, we're hoping he takes on the Nazis in their own zeppelin.

Uncharted lead Lemarchand exits Naughty Dog to become more like Indiana Jones originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Uncharted 3 preview: A Drake and Sully story

Mike Schramm — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 06:00:00 EST

As expected, Naughty Dog officially premiered the Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception trailer at the VGAs recently, and a day later at a Hollywood club, the company invited us to come see the very first gameplay demo. We got to see a short, early segment ofthe game featuring Nathan Drake and partner Sully trying to escape from a burning chateau, and Art Director Robh Ruppel and Lead Game Designer Richard Lemarchand spoke with us about how the second sequel in the acclaimed series is new and different from the rest.

The simplest answer is that it takes place in the desert. Creative Director Amy Hennig says that Naughty Dog has challenged themselves to portray "sand in all of its forms," and Uncharted 3 will try to do exactly that, eventually taking its now familiar characters (as well as some new faces) into the Arabian Peninsula. The central chase of the game revolves around explorer T.E. Laurence and his search for an ancient city of Arabian treasure, alternately known as Ubar, Iram of the Pillars, or as it will be called in the game, the Atlantis of the Sands.

But outside of the new setting, Uncharted 3 is set to improve upon Naughty Dog's successful formula in a few other ways as well. Nathan Drake has never been more adept at fighting groups of enemies, more animated and active, or more grounded in his own environments than he is here.

Gallery: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (12/27/10)

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Uncharted 3 preview: A Drake and Sully story originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seen@PAX: The Uncharted 2 chapter title that should have been

Griffin McElroy — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:45:00 EST

Naughty Dog's panel at PAX East 2010 offered attendees a fairly in-depth look at how the studio created each level in Uncharted and Uncharted 2. One important aspect of the series' level design is, of course, coming up with a clever name for each chapter -- a task assigned to lead designer Richard Lemarchand.

Unfortunately, "the Man" occasionally prevents Lemarchand from putting certain chapter titles in the game, keeping Uncharted 2's original train segment title card (pictured above) out of the final version. Curse you, unseen managerial powers-that-be!

Seen@PAX: The Uncharted 2 chapter title that should have been originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC 2010 Microtalks: Big ideas, tiny speeches

Richard Mitchell — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 EST

The GDC 2010 Microtalks session was a frazzling experience in many ways. The format of the event essentially assures it. Ten lecturers -- all from different sectors of the game industry -- each spoke for five minutes and each were allowed to use 20 different slides. Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand set the stage for the speakers, announcing the theme of the talks as "come play with us." The goal of the microtalks, said Lemarchand, was to help game creators capture the "radicalizing exuberance" of games and give them the energy to "transform the world" through the power of play.

The resulting cavalcade of images and ideas -- ranging from methods of play to behavioral economics -- is a bit difficult to distill. Thankfully, we were taking notes. There was too much at the event to condense here, but it was definitely a thought-provoking event. We've highlighted a few of the more interesting speeches after the break.

Gallery: GDC 2010 Microtalks

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GDC 2010 Microtalks: Big ideas, tiny speeches originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC: 'Among Friends: An Uncharted 2 Post-mortem'

Ludwig Kietzmann — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:30:00 EST

There is one drawback to seeing Uncharted 2's co-lead designer, Richard Lemarchand, unfurl the development process behind the most successful and most ambitious game in the studio's history. A post-mortem panel, held on Thursday afternoon at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, delved into developer Naughty Dog's pre-production process, its production pipeline and the climactic rush to a spectacular end. It also highlighted some of the studio's misjudgments, which resulted in a difficult crunch time toward the end of development.

And now, every time I play that incredible train level -- "an evil monster of a level," Lemarchand said -- for my personal enjoyment, I'll pull back the curtain and see programmers hunching over keyboards and nodding off into icy cups of coffee. Thankfully, Lemarchand painted a warmer picture, firm in his belief that the development team's intrinsic motivation to produce a character-driven blockbuster helped it overcome the final hurdles.

An important pre-production phase dominated the first six months of Uncharted 2's 22-month creation. "Messing it up often means messing up the whole project," Lemarchand noted. There were no deadlines or deliverables during this period, and the team was free to seek inspiration and consider the individual moments they wanted to explore in Drake's second outing. A single image would portend much of the game's direction: A photograph of the Tiger's Nest Monastery in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

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GDC: 'Among Friends: An Uncharted 2 Post-mortem' originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IndieCade 2009: The finalists

Mike Schramm — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:26:00 EST

IndieCade 2009 was held in Culver City, CA this past weekend, and the local art galleries and restaurants were filled with independent games and their developers from all over the world. The festival billed itself as the "video game Sundance" and lived up to this self-made reputation, putting 29 different indie games on display, both throughout the weekend and during a Thursday night opening ceremony MC'd by Uncharted 2's Richard Lemarchand (shown above with festival founder Stephanie Barish).

We've rounded up the festival's finalists in the gallery below. You may be familiar with a few of them, including Twisted Pixel's The Maw and a selection of well-known iPhone titles, but all of these titles deserve your attention -- and a playthrough!

Gallery: IndieCade 2009 Finalists

IndieCade 2009: The finalists originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Naughty Dog designer: we are using only 30-40% of PS3's power

Alan Tsang — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: News

Richard Lemarchandm, Co-Lead Game Designer at Naughty Dog, sat down with Three Speech in a lengthy interview to talk about their latest developments. He goes on extensively about how Uncharted: Drake's Fortune's trophies were implemented, Cell architecture, and one tidbit of detail concerning rooms in Home, but it's nothing new if you've been keeping up. If you want to read the man's own words, Three Speech has your interview right here.

Unfortunately, Lemarchand is rather reticent about Naughty Dog's next project, offering no information other than they are "quite a way into our next production cycle now. " He does, however, give his two cents about the future of multiplatform games: with a set of tools "developed on the Naughty Dog premises, actually, by a group of very, very senior games programmer, some from Naughty Dog and some from elsewhere" called Edge, he believes third-party developers "are going to be able to use them in their own ways, to get more and more and more out of the PS3 over the years." In fact, Lemarchand believes that even Naughty Dog is currently only using 30 to 40 percent of the PS3's power.

The video game designer concludes the interview with by speaking well of the relationship they have with other PS3 developers: "We have this culture of open communication ... we're always trading war-stories with Insomniac and Evolution and Sucker Punch. We're just one block away from Sony Santa Monica -- the guys who made God Of War -- and we get our designers together ... and I think it makes everybody stronger and smarter." Sounds about right to us.

Naughty Dog designer: we are using only 30-40% of PS3's power originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation Fancast 014: Naughty Dog Edition

Jem Alexander — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Podcasts

You thought it would never happen (and, at times, neither did we), but here's another episode of the PlayStation Fancast. Join the writers of PS3 & PSP Fanboy as we get the opportunity to chat with Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand. Two Englishmen in one episode? Surely not!

Episode 14 features Jem Alexander, Andrew Yoon, Nick Doerr and our special guest, Richard Lemarchand. This shortened episode mainly features our discussion with Richard about Uncharted and, among other things, its critical reception and the now iconic half-tuck. We'll have more episodes for you soon, promise!

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As always, feel free to leave your comments with us, either here in the post or via email to Jem[at]Joystiq.com. Also, if you're a fan of the show, please join our PS Fanboy Facebook group.

PlayStation Fancast 014: Naughty Dog Edition originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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