Interview - Remedy Games & Death Rally

As an addon to this months Death Rally Retrospective 1UPGamers spoke to Markus Mäki one of the founders of Remedy Entertainment and a key player in the development and production of the game.

Zee Durrani : Hi Markus, I know you’re busy with the development of Alan Wake so thanks for taking the time to speak to us.

Markus Mäki : Hi Zee, no problem at all!

Zee Durrani: Death Rally was your first game but which way round did things happen i.e. did someone come up with the idea to develop Death Rally and then you formed Remedy or was it the other way round ?

Markus Mäki : The idea about forming a game company was there before Death Rally was born, but we did have prototypes of the game a bit before the company was established. But fairly soon after we made the publishing agreement with Apogee / 3DRealms.

Zee Durrani : Death Rally was a game that many of us here at 1upgamers.com grew up on but at a time when many games were going 3D (e.g. Carmageddon to name a few) you guys stuck to a 2D top down format similar to games like GTA 1 & 2. It certainly worked well for the game, but what was the reasoning behind that decision ?

Markus Mäki : The game concept was starting to develop in summer of 1995, and while there were 3D games, it wasn’t seen to be a requirement (Carmageddon and GTA 1 were released a year later than Death Rally). We wanted a game that would be fun, wouldn’t require all the latest hardware, and one that would be possible for a start-up company to get done in a reasonable time. We liked the top-down style, and added 3D elements on top of it, something other similar games had never done.

Zee Durrani : How big was the team that developed Death Rally and how many of the original team are still with you guys ?

Markus Mäki : The core team was 6 people. We still have 3 original team members from that period at Remedy, not including myself.

Zee Durrani : You recently released a FREE version of Death Rally that would work on more modern PC’s any ideas of releasing it on places like Xbox Live Arcade or the Playstation Network. Surely bringing the game online and to a network of gamers who’re already addicted to playing older classics would be a good move ?

Markus Mäki : The reception for the re-released Death Rally has been awesome, so it does bring up ideas about taking the game further. However, this was mostly a hobby project and modernizing a game sufficiently, like the recent Secret of Monkey Island, is a big project and there has to be sufficient business potential. And there may well be, but at the moment Remedy’s 100% focused on shipping Alan Wake.

Zee Durrani : Apparently the re-released version of death rally was a collaboration between yourselves and one Jari Komppa ? How did you meet Jari and when did you guys agree to go ahead with the updated version ?

Markus Mäki : I had met Jari only a few times, but knew him well by reputation from his participation and success in the Assembly demo competitions. He e-mailed me in May 2009 with the idea of resurrecting Death Rally, and after our summer holidays the project was really kicked off in mid-July. Already after a few weeks of investigation the project started to feel doable.

Zee Durrani : The naming convention behind the racers in the game was pure genius ? I mean Clint West, Mad Mac, Jane Honda! The names to many of us fans made the game even more memorable but who came up with the names ?

Markus Mäki : These things are usually a team effort, but our Lead Writer, Sam Lake wrote the texts for Death Rally, so I think quite a few of the names came from him. He since wrote Max Payne 1, Max Payne 2 and is now writing Alan Wake and he still blushes when Death Rally is mentioned. We were so young then!

Zee Durrani : Stepping up from a sentinel to a shrieker (and having those double guns) was a pretty amazing experience ? Were there other weapons, addons and maybe even cars that didn’t make it to the final game ?

Markus Mäki : It’s been over 13 years, and my memory is not what it used to be!

Zee Durrani : Duke Nukem was the only racer who spoke in the game “Hail To The King Baby” etc did you guys ever think of giving the other racers certain catchphrases etc ?

Markus Mäki : We wanted to differentiate Duke from the crowd. There was a discussion on adding more Duke phrases to the game though but I don’t remember why that didn’t happen.

Zee Durrani : Talking of Duke Nukem, what was the relationship with 3DRealms/Apogee when developing the game. If you head over to their website for games like Max Payne, they state “Developed By Remedy Games, Overseen By 3D Realms”. What does overseeing mean exactly ?

Markus Mäki : Typically I think it would’ve been called producing, but I think our relationship with 3D Realms was closer than a typical developer-producer relationship. George and Scott at 3D Realms were good mentors, sounding boards and even co-designers in some key features.

Zee Durrani : How important was having Duke Nukem in the game and was it something you guys wanted or something that 3DRealms requested ?

Markus Mäki : If my memory serves me right I think it was something 3D Realms suggested, as an easy way to cross-promote Duke Nukem and get a recognizable character attached to Death Rally. I think it definitely added a cool factor to the game.

Zee Durrani : Thanks for your time Markus, was a pleasure speaking to you.
Markus Mäki : Thanks, Zee