Heavy Rain blowout

The PlayStation community puts its questions to Heavy Rain's writer and director David Cage, and executive producer Guillaume de Fondaumière.
Mature thriller Heavy Rain is the game which has everyone talking - and what better way to find out more about this heart pounding PlayStation3 title than by asking its writer and director, David Cage and executive producer Guillaume de Fondaumière? That's exactly what the PlayStation community did, so we gathered some answers for you. Thanks to everyone at the official PlayStation Forums who submitted their questions.
While working on Heavy Rain was it difficult to create so many possibilities and scenarios for the characters based on the player's choices? (Alex_Gard9, Italy)
Guillaume de Fondaumière: It was extremely difficult, and the difficulty starts at the writing stage of the game, because when David creates this story it necessitates the need to write a core story and then all the branches - but you don't want to end up with this enormous thing that doesn't make sense, we always want to keep control over the story because you want it to be good.
David wrote 2,300 pages of script, so he needed to be focused because you want to give as many possibilities to the player so he feels totally in control. And at the same time you need to keep everything within boundaries, and make sure it makes sense. It's a very long and difficult process.
And then adapting that in terms of gameplay is another challenge because it's really important to us to tell a story that you can play. We had a team of four people who worked for three years on the interface, making sure everything makes sense from a gameplay perspective and at the same time is enjoyable and understandable - and also helps drive the story.
What was the hardest part of the game to develop? (pAvax, Netherlands)
David Cage: Pretty much everything was challenging, just because we pretty much did everything for the first time. So writing the script was a nightmare. Alfred Hitchcock said: "writing a movie is mainly three things - a good script, a good script and a good script." And I would say that something like Heavy Rain is pretty much the same thing. Finding the actors was another challenge - shooting the motion capture was a huge challenge of a different type.
But if I had to narrow it down to one answer, I'd say that triggering emotions in the game's scenes was something we were really anxious about, because if you just played the game and didn't feel anything then we've missed everything we wanted to create in the game. And emotion isn't one thing that you can just measure out, it's really a combination of many things, and it comes from the acting, the script, the lighting, the music... you need everything to be perfectly in sync to trigger the emotions you want. So it was incredibly challenging.
The main characters of Heavy Rain look very realistic and natural. The actors' performance must have been a real focus for you, so how long did the motion capture shooting last in total? (bajwanasser, France)
DC: A year from start to finish. There were also retakes, unfortunately, but we have an internal motion capture studio. We try not to overuse it. We were really organised and had to schedule everything, as there was no other way of producing such a big volume of data.
What movie directors or script writers have influenced you personally or the rest of the team during the creation of Heavy Rain? (toolfan2007, United Kingdom)
DC: I really enjoy movies from David Fincher, Ridley Scott, Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Demme, Alfred Hitchcock and many others. None of them really influenced the work to the point of copying anything, but they're part of my culture and in writing, directing and filming things they've had a strong influence on me.
Did you read Choose Your Own Adventure books as a child? (Theshortbaker, Australia)
DC: Yes, definitely. In fact, I started playing text based adventures, and I believe if there's a comparison with Heavy Rain it's with them. Because we tried to do graphically what they were doing with text, discovering what came from the choices you make. Heavy Rain is from a similar idea, but just with a very small granularity - every single action has consequences.

Plot
Director David Cage has stated that Heavy Rain would be "a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes", without any supernatural elements,^[15] and that "the real message [of the game] is about how far you're willing to go to save someone you love."^[16]
In an interview with Belgian magazine Chief in 2008, David Cage gave a brief overview of Heavy Rain's narrative and ambitions. A translation was then made on Kotaku, which read as follows:

"Heavy Rain is about normal people who have landed in extraordinary situations. I wanted a much more personal story. The first thing that came to my mind, as a father of two little boys, was that the main theme should simply be a father's love for his son. This is not a game about saving the princess or the world. Its [sic] purely about a father's love. The main story will revolve around four different characters, and we're putting the spotlight on their perceptions. The question 'what is good and what is evil' is the key here, that will be just a matter of viewpoint...I believe heavily in moral choices, I'm going to use them A LOT. They're not about being good or bad, but about finding the right balance."^[17]

In the same interview, Cage commented on the setting by saying, "I don't want to do a big free-roaming city like GTA, because the flow of the story will then be hard to control. Nevertheless, I do want to incorporate big sets, with a crowd, heavy populated areas like a mall and a subway are going to be in there. Of course, the gameplay has got to make use of that aspect too." All playable characters are looking for a serial killer known as "The Origami Killer".^[16]
[edit] Characters


There are four playable characters.

• Ethan Mars: Played by French actor Pascal Langdale. Mars is a young architect living on the east coast of America. In 2009, he lost his eldest son in a car accident that left him in a coma. Once a successful and happy family man, Ethan is now grief-stricken and depressed two years later, separated from his wife and distant from his other son, Shaun. Still suffering from the after-effects of the accident, Ethan is thrown into a nightmare when he discovers that Shaun may become the next victim of the Origami Killer. He will be forced to confront just how far he is prepared to go to rescue his son, and, in doing so, he may be able to finally find redemption from the guilt and grief he feels.
  

• Madison Paige: Played by model Jacqui Ainsley. A twenty-seven-year-old photographer living alone in the city. Suffering from crippling insomnia and nightmares, she often finds herself checking into local motels for the night. Seemingly, the only place she can rest and relax. Though she has no apparent connection with the Origami Killer case, she will soon find herself unexpectedly drawn into the investigation. When she does, she will show courage and commitments, placing herself in great danger to find out the truth.
  

• Norman Jayden: Portrayed by British actor Leon Ockenden. Jayden is a dedicated and thorough FBI profiler sent into this unfamiliar city to support the police force with their investigation into the Origami Killer. Jayden specializes in utilizing an experimental device called ARI, short for “Added Reality Interface,” which allows him to investigate crime scenes and analyze evidence in a unique way. With the local cops resentful of both of his methods and his very presence, he struggles urgently to piece together the evidence before it is too late and another victim is discovered.
  

• Scott Shelby: Played by actor Sam Douglas. A forty-five-year-old cop-turned-private investigator after twenty years with the local police department. Two decades on the streets have left him tough and cynical, but, despite his sometimes hard demeanor, he has a sense of honor and compassion that shines when under pressure. Shelby has been hired by the families of previous victims of the Origami Killer and is now conducting a parallel investigation into the case, searching for clues and leads that the authorities may have missed.
  

[edit] Gameplay


According to a demonstration given to Edge magazine, the game will use a unique control scheme.^[18] A trigger button on the PlayStation 3 controller will move the character forward. It will take advantage of the button's analogue function, allowing the user to control the speed of the character's movement by pressing harder or softer on the button. The left analogue stick will control the movement of the character's head and the direction the character moves in relation to where the character is looking. David Cage explains that this frees the movement of the character from the perspective of the camera. The rest of the game is played using a series of context sensitive actions such as picking up a bottle in a grocery store and hitting a robber on the head with it or pressing the "X" button to call the player character's son, Jason, and quick time events, normally for chase and combat sequences. Players are able to bring up a selection of their character's current thoughts by holding the L2 button and pressing corresponding buttons to say or do what they're thinking. These thoughts will sometimes blur, and selecting them at the wrong time will affect the character's reaction, causing them to say or do something in the wrong way.
Action sequences, such as when the player is being attacked, will be played out as quick time events. Players will be presented with various symbols, requiring them to either press buttons, move the right analogue stick in a certain way, or shake or tilt the controller. Failure to execute these commands take the story along a different path, and certain mistakes will lead to a character's death. For example, in one scene, Norman Jayden is interrogating a suspect named Mad Jack when he starts to suffer from withdrawal symptoms and button prompts will show up. If he fails to take his drugs, he will be taken to a scenario in which he will have to escape from a car before it is thrown into a crusher, killing him. In scenes like these, a 'timer' scene (a portion of the screen that is devoted to show the player how long he or she has until their time runs out, or another event is scripted to occur, which is shown through several different camera angles) is shown at the bottom of the screen, indicating how long the player has to escape from his predicament. If a character dies, the game does not end, and play control switches to another character, with the events of the previous character's death affecting the story.^[16] In the event that all four characters die, there is a proper conclusion to the story and the game ends.^[19]
[edit] Development


Quantic Dream started working on Heavy Rain in February 2006.^{[citation needed]} It was announced at E3 2006, where a tech demo entitled The Casting was presented to the media and general public. The graphical user interface (GUI) of Heavy Rain has been created with the middleware Menus Master by Omegame. ^[20] This interface, which appears when the player uses specific equipment, is an in-game three-dimensional HUD. Fully integrated in real time within the game world, this GUI behaves like a portable holographic projector within the character's field of view.
Some game physics will be made available by the use of PhysX by nVidia. It is used for console physics in general within the game.^[21] Originally for the PC, there were going to be two separate versions of the game to handle either the presence or lack of an appropriate physics processing unit on the computer.^[21] However, the game has since been announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive.^[3] In the demo, the physics of the hair made use of the AGEIA technology.^[21][22]
In an interview given to GameDaily.com, Quantic Dream co-CEO and executive producer Guillaume de Fondaumière insisted that characters would be true virtual actors capable of showing highly realistic emotions.^{[citation needed]} In September 2009, Quantic Dream released a gameplay clip revealing a scene in which one of the game's playable characters, Madison, performs a topless striptease for another character.^[23]
[edit] The Origami Killer poster


Possible poster of Heavy Rain



Some time in early 2007, a poster of Heavy Rain appeared on Quantic Dream's under-construction website.^[24] It featured an origami model of the Spanish Pajarita with blood dripping from one of its corners and a new subtitle to Heavy Rain, reading The Origami Killer. Also notable was a list of (presumably virtual) actors (Ethan Mars, Scott Shelby, Madison Paige, Norman Jayden), and a tagline: "How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?". It has been revealed that all four of the "actors" (Mars, Jayden, Paige, Shelby) are confirmed playable characters.^[10] E3 revealed that "The Origami Killer" will be a part of the game. The game centers on this "Killer" who leaves origami in his/her victim's hands - however, no reason was stated as to why they scrapped it from the title.
[edit] The Casting technology demo


The Casting, shown at E3 2006, is a non-playable, real-time 3D prototype technology demo. It was running on a non-final PlayStation 3 console development kit in 720p display resolution.^{[citation needed]} The demo showcased a complex virtual actor (hence the other name, "Virtual Actor Demo"), highlighting numerous expressions and motion-captured animations. It also showed various technical features of the game engine, all embedded in a brief, emotional story. However, the plot of the tech demo has nothing to do with the story of Heavy Rain itself. The story was written and directed by David Cage.^{[citation needed]} The virtual actor in the demo is based on French American actress Aurélie Bancilhon. The prototype used not only her likeness, but also her motion captured performance.^[25] Quantic Dream highlighted that the technology demo is just a sample of things achievable in a limited amount of time, and that during the making of the prototype, they still were in the middle of research and development efforts for the game itself. A brand new demo featuring the character Madison Paige was showcased at the SCEE Press Conference at the games convention in Leipzig.^[26] The demo was titled "The Taxidermist", which showcased the in-game engine and QTE gameplay elements, as found in Quantic Dream's previous title Fahrenheit. The demo also confirmed a 2009 release date. The whole video presentation is now available online.^[27]
From a technological standpoint, notable features of The Casting include full body and facial motion capture, real-time tears and wrinkles on the face, advanced skin shaders, and some advanced rendering features, such as depth of field, spherical harmonics, auto exposure and high dynamic range rendering. The technology enables animations of pupil dilation, tongue, eyes, fingers, and dynamic hair with physics.^[28][29] The game engine also supports real-time post-processing,^[30][31] with which E3 attendees could interact at the event.^[32][33] Hair physics is achieved by the use of PhysX by nVidia.^[21][22] Facial motion capture was recorded using Vicon MX40 cameras and system, and was enhanced with a muscle system.
[edit] Gamescom 2009


Mary Smith



At the 2009 Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, Quantic Dream released a new trailer^[34] and introduced two new characters, Scott Shelby,^[35] a private detective, and Ethan Mars, an architect.^[36] They had also some small playable demos for the audience, which showed Ethan and Scott. For the German television show MTV Game One Co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière gave a twenty-five minute interview, introducing and promoting the game, but also talking about the games industry in a whole.^[37]
[edit] Public demo


On 11 February 2010, a demo with a tutorial, two in-game levels^[38], and a trailer was released internationally. Prior to the release, it was privately available via redemption code to anyone who solved "Week 2" of "The Four Day Challenge." The demo follows both Private Detective Scott Shelby and FBI Special Agent Norman Jayden as they individually try to track down the Origami Killer through conventional interrogation of witnesses and crime scene investigation. While no plot points are revealed, the demo sees Shelby visit a sleazy hotel to meet and question a call-girl named Lauren Winter, whose son Johnny was a victim of the Origami Killer. Jayden appears at a crime scene in search of clues in his investigation of the killer in a segment of the demo as well. The player is introduced to Lt. Carter Blake. A trailer accompanies the demo, containing some unseen footage from the game, as well as a recap of the four main characters, along with their possible motivations.
[edit] Downloadable content


The Heavy Rain Chronicles is a series of episodic DLC that "will serve as prequels to (characters in) the main game". ^[39] The first episode will explore the origins of the Origami Killer while an already confirmed episode, The Taxidermist, explains such things as why Madison Paige is an insomniac. Additional episodes will focus on the other characters in the game, with another revealing how Norman Jayden became addicted to drugs.^[40]
The first episode of content was planned to be released in North America at the same time as the game, in the form of a pre-order bonus. Instead, the content's release has been delayed until March 4, citing a delay due to the publisher. ^[41] The European version of the content is set to release on time.^[42]
[edit] Special edition


The special edition of Heavy Rain will be released in European countries as well as Australia and New Zealand.^[43] The pack will contain the official soundtrack, a dynamic XMB theme and a PlayStation Network voucher for the first episode of downloadable content, Chronicle 1 – The Taxidermist. The edition will be made available in GameStop Ireland and in the UK from retailer HMV. It will be released for the U.S. edition which includes bonus footage and outtakes 6 June 2010. ^[44]