Overlord's Dean Scott Interview

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Eurogamer: Moving onto the DS version, didn't you get the memo about making a shonky 2D platform game? It's the law, Dean.

Dean Scott: They wouldn't let me make Super Mario World again with minions instead of Marios. It was a sad time, I love platform games.

Eurogamer: For the benefit of those who haven't read our recent preview (also scum), Overlord: Minions switches the focus to the four minion types' unique abilities and using them to solve puzzles. Why did you decide to go down this road?

Dean Scott: We had a commitment across all the games to make the right game on each platform. That meant ditching the idea of doing Overlord as people understood it on DS. Too much would have been lost in translation. Overlord games are synonymous with quality as much as they are with commanding a big horde.

We came up with a more DS-friendly design, which took some inspiration from The Lost Vikings (which is also a platform game, although not at all shonky). The key idea being to have four different minions that combine their abilities to solve traversal puzzles. The pace would be slower than on 360, more puzzly, entirely touch-screen controlled as in Phantom Hourglass, broken up into discreet 10-minute stages.

There's no Overlord in gameplay, as the player is the Overlord - controlling the minions directly. Like the Wii version, it connects the player to experience without overkilling on 'gimmicks' like blowing into the mic. Games that do that deserve to be sealed inside a giant iron ball and fired into the sun.

Eurogamer: It sounds like a good premise, but how do you keep it going once the player's got the hang of what each minion can do?

Dean Scott: That's down to design. Shadow of the Colossus doesn't change at any point from being just a dude with a sword and a horse climbing up even bigger dudes to stab them in their weak spot. It's amazing though.

He's not so tough.

Eurogamer: Final question: Codemasters hasn't been massively active on the Wii or DS so far, and you've taken quite a bold approach. Is it fair to say the Overlord strategy is something of an experiment? And if it pays off, do you think we'll see more Codies games making the jump?

Dean Scott: It's fair to say we had a slow start on Wii, but the platform is very much in the front of our minds now.

We brought the Overlord games to Nintendo in the best way we could. Now hopefully that is an approach that will pay off and people will embrace the products. Looking around the external studio here, I see stuff like F1, Ashes Cricket and DiRT 2 being brought to the Wii and looking great with the same 'do what's right for the platform' ethos. Nothing the Overlord games do is going to change that.

I guess what might happen, is we might take a chance on more hardcore products. For me as a gamer, that exactly what I want. We were lucky with Dark Legend, because the Overlord mechanics lent themselves to a Wii game. Not every game is good a fit. So if we're learning lessons, we need to make sure they are the right ones.

And also make more Super Mario Worlds.