Philip Salas letter
Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:01 pm
I sent him an email not 5 hours ago, and he promptly responded...and oh boy, this is a big one!
He seems to remember very much about PV. We can see what he still remembers about it, if he has any new information/modes/images, and then open it up to the public for an interview.Hello Stephen,
First off, thank you for your interest, and support. It is an honor to
know that that there are
game players out there that have come to appreciate all the hard work
that went into Trespasser,
...thank you Stephen.
I'll go on to say, that we had high hopes for Trespasser... allot of
hours went into trying to
make what we considered a great cutting edge gamming experience of the
time. It goes without saying
that our teem also put allot of man hours and dedication to fulfill
what we where trying to achieve
together, I learned allot about the meaning of team work which followed
me throughout my carrier.
Everyone gave it their all, to try and achieve what seemed very
ambitious at the time, without most
of the technical resources available today. For some of us, the
experience within the process of
what we where trying to achieve, compensated for the studio politics
and technical limitations of
the time.
I was honored to have inherited the project to it's completion as Art
Director, and among the levels I
was responsible in completing artistically personally, was
coincidentally "Pine Valley, je je...
(funny you should ask , so I am very familiar with the Level you
mention in your email...
We had allot of hopes for “Pine Valleyâ€￾ as well... it was
originally a "giant" area divided into
three major sections of complex game play, surrounded by beautiful
scenery of intertwining roads through
a lush Pine Valley forest (hence the name of the level). You later
progressed on to a section deeper in
the Valley, by a Raptor's den with some very aggressive Raptor's
protecting the grounds of some abandoned
Mayan ruins. You later proceeded on to the electrical plant section,
over seeing a vast cliff
side with a beach head below. The level finally ended after you
completed the puzzles within the electrical
plant, than taking a long drive or "walk" until reaching an abandoned
post, which was protected by some Raptors
and a very hungry T-REX. ( sorry to ramble on Stephen ...this all
brings back memory's.. jeje)
needless to say, it was a fun level to work on....
Even though Pine Valley was completed artistically, one of the chief
reasons we decided to cut it from
the game, were the technical difficulty’s within some of the game
play. The limited time allotted to correct these,
forced us to eventually split up this wonderful level(cutting most of
it), in hopes of trying to rescue all
the hard work. What partially survived of "Pine Valley", is what you
see it in the released version of the game.
It would of been a great level to play through. If "Pine Valley" were
re-built today, implementing and in
consideration of the currently available cutting edge graphic hardware
and development toolsets, it is
most likely possible that tasking on such a task, would of been more
successful, and "Pine Valley" could
of been built as it was originally intentioned.
I hope this helps you out some Stephen. Once again, thanks for keeping
the spirit of Trespasser alive,
If you need any further help with anything, feel free to let me know...
I'll see if I can dig up
some old images for you... CD or DVD burners were not very popular at
the time, so I have all Trespasser
work backed up on my trustee old "JAZZ" drives jeje..
Once again, thank you for your support and loyalty, and good luck to
you and all at "TresCom"
cheers,
Philip
Philip Salas
CEO. DIRECTOR
KALAFILMS
philipsalas@kalafilms.com
http://www.kalafilms.com