Kristi Louise Herd Interview - Blue Lightning (Honest Opinion) & Imagitec

[Adriano Arcade]

Kristi Louise Herd Interview - Blue Lightning (Honest Opinion) & Imagitec

 

Our latest Atari Jaguar based interview is with the amazing Kristi Louise Herd. She spills the beans on everything that went down on the much maligned Jag CD game Blue Lightning.

 

She also worked on Mass Destruction, Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top ‘O Fun and The Humans.

 

https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/louise-herd-interview/

 

[+madman]

It's always fun to hear the behind the scenes, especially about some of the more infamous titles. As a kid I always wondered if the developers knew they were putting out garbage games.

[+save2600]

It's always fun to hear the behind the scenes, especially about some of the more infamous titles. As a kid I always wondered if the developers knew they were putting out garbage games.

 

I wonder that as an adult - to this day.

[+madman]

I wonder that as an adult - to this day.

It seems like people knew what they were making, but a job is a job. They have to make what they're told to make within the time and budget constraints. I've made a few friends along the years that are/were involved in the industry and have pretty much said the same thing. Even highly praised games had compromises vs what the artists and programmers really wanted to produce.

[Lost Dragon]

Chalk up yet another fantastic interview.

 

 

ATD were always very honest i found, when asked what exactly went wrong with Jaguar Blue Lightning.

 

Fred Gill seems very open, making clear they underestimated how much work Blue Lightning was going to be, that they did not fully understood the gameplay when we started making the game on the Jaguar.

 

He also described squeezing the graphics in as painful, the CD drive itself arrived later than planned, the entire project seemed beset with problems.

 

I'm not sure why Kristi thinks The Humans was unfairly compared to Lemmings...it's creator, Rodney Humble (who i believe was ex-Imagitec Design at the time), is supposed to of come up with the concepts after playing Lemmings and he just wanted to expand on the ideas found within Lemmings, by offering more player interaction and he drew up storyboards and game ideas and passed these onto Imagitec. .

 

The Humans Producer, Simon Golding was also happy to make clear Lemmings had been the inspiration for The Humans.

 

 

The Lynx could really of done with Daemonsgate as it sorely lacked any Ultima style RPG games and might well of fared better on handheld than PC , due to far less competition (PC Daemonsgate scores vary) and the Lynx version apparently was using old C64 Nightbreed code to a certain degree:

 

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/nightbreed-rpg/comment-page-1/#comments

 

 

The PC version itself was lucky to come out as in true Imagitec Design style, game suffered from funding issues and staff moved onto other projects, they just always seemed to be juggling too many projects at once over at Imagitec. .

 

 

Loved C64 Fiendish Freddy's Big Top 'o Fun, but sadly had the tape version rather than the Cartridge version (part of the 4-in-1 game cartridge bundled with the C64GS).

Edited May 25, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[+Stephen]

I wonder that as an adult - to this day.

There's a certain wave (1) of shit that would make you ponder this.