Interview with Steven Green, author of Sleeping Gods Lie
 
                       By Dave Russell

The  author of Sleeping Gods Lie,  Steve Green,  runs a  bulletin 
board  in Oxford and it was there that I got him to answer a  few 
questions about the game and, in particular, my opinions of it.

DR:  Do  your initials have anything to do with the game's  title 
(SG ... SGL)?
@~SG:  Its  real title is "Let Sleeping Gods Lie",  with  a  silent 
@~"let",  but the "let" got dropped somewhere along the  way.  It's 
@~not really coincidental that my initials are in it  (SG).  Before 
@~we came up with that, it was called "Steven's Wonderful Game".

How long did it take to write and debug?
@~I  started  it in January 1988 and it wasn't completed  till  May 
@~'89.  Most of that time was spent working intensively on SGL.  As 
@~well as me, there were graphic designers (Kate and Luzita), and a 
@~game designer (John).  John put a lot of work into it,  including 

@~coming up with the plot and writing a GEM-based entry system  AND 
@~entering the data.  So it probably took something like  3-people-
@~years overall.

Approximately  how  many hours play will it take  to  finish  the 
game?
@~I'm not sure really.  If you know the solutions you can do it  in 
@~about half a day.  An average games player might take a fortnight 
@~playing it for 4 hours a day - say 50 hours.  However,  you could 
@~then  go  back  and play it as a shoot-'em-up instead  to  get  a 
@~higher score.

When  you  get stuck,  there aren't any clues to put you  on  the 
right  track  again  which  is  a  bit  disconcerting.  Was  this 
deliberate?
@~It was intended that you should always have clues given to you as 
@~you progress.  This is what characters like the prince, princess, 
@~hermit etc are there for.  Though if you shoot them,  they  won't 
@~help you at all.  On the last level, the hermit literally led you 

@~by the hand.  The problems themselves are not very difficult. The 
@~game was really designed to be an arcade game with the  adventure 
@~element  to  add  some depth to it.  If  you  just  wander  round 
@~shooting  things,  you  would  be bound  to  stumble  across  the 
@~solutions by accident!

The graphics/animation are very fast and detailed.  Did you spend 
a lot of time optimising them?
@~I  originally  had the idea for doing 3D graphics like  that  and 
@~that is what the project was built around. There aren't any other 
@~games that use bitmapped 3D images in a true 3D environment.  The 
@~nearest  thing  is  probably Paul Woake's  Backlash  though  that 
@~didn't dynamically size sprites like SGL does.
@~Most 3D games are pseudo-3D or made out of vector graphics (which 
@~I   personally  don't  think  look  very   attractive).   I   was 
@~disappointed  with the speed of the final game and  thought  that 
@~would be its major criticism.
@~Most of SGL was written in "C" - I have, of course, been spending 
@~time  optimising  them  since and they  are  faster  now,  partly 

@~because   I'm  doing  everything  in  68000  and   secondly   I'm 
@~simplifying the data structures because the technique was capable 
@~of  things  that were never used in SGL,  such as  cylinders  and 
@~cubes.

There seems to be a bug when you are standing next to the sea and 
try to walk along the shore....?
@~It's  not really a bug,  just a limitation of the method used  to 
@~draw the sea.  As you've probably guessed, it is done by changing 
@~the colour in a raster interrupt.  So it has to be horizontal. It 
@~tries  to calculate the mean difference from you so it will  look 
@~strange when looking along it.  I wanted to be able to limit  the 
@~player from going near enough to it for it to be noticeable.

There are a distinct lack of safe places to recover after battle. 
Are there any places where you can avoid being attacked?
@~Inside  buildings and caves are generally safe eg on  the  second 
@~level (dwarves), you would be safe in the spider's cavern but not 
@~in the general tunnels.

Does playing at double speed have any disadvantages?
@~I  only put the double speed option in under protest.  I  suppose 
@~the  only real disadvantage is that when you are in  combat  your 
@~reaction  time has to be quicker.  Also the  collision  detection 
@~routines don't work so well at double speed so your missiles  are 
@~less likely to hit!

Was more interaction with characters intended originally? I would 
have liked to be able to talk to them/get info out of them.
@~As I said before,  this game was conceived as a shoot-'em-up with 
@~added  adventure.  If I do a SGL2,  then it'll be much more of  a 
@~conventional  role  playing  game  with  character   interaction, 
@~probably  selecting  from  fixed phrases via a menu system rather 
@~than typing.

Do you think an icon command system for take/drop/use would  have 
been better than the take/use automatically?
@~Yes,  originally  it  was  designed with icons in  but  they  got 
@~thrown  out  somewhere  along the  development,  I  can't  really 
@~remember why now.  There's never any reason not to pick something 
@~up  in SGL except perhaps for food when your stamina  is  already 
@~high.  Be thankful you can change weapons because up till only  a 
@~few weeks before the end of the project, you could only carry one 
@~weapon at a time and you exchanged weapons by passing over them!

Are there any cheat modes?
@~There used to be, but I had to remove ALL unneeded code to get it 
@~to  run  on a normal half-meg machine.  This was  a  major  worry 
@~because of the dynamic changing of sprite sizes,  memory tends to 
@~get fragmented quickly and we were running out of memory a lot.

Next,  a  list  of  hints and tips Steve has given  for  all  the 
struggling SGLers.
@~Save your game quite often.
@~Shoot the baddies as soon as you have identified them as such. On
@~no  account shoot  goodies such  as the hermit, prince etc or you 
@~won't get ANY help or clues! Once they start to run away they are 
@~nearly dead so its worth going after them to finish them off.
@~Look  around carefully so that you don't miss  interesting  items 
@~that are lying around.  Pick up the ammo the creatures drop  when 
@~you shoot them.
@~Keep  a map of  how areas  are connected.  The scenery will often 
@~indicate  where you  can walk over  the edge eg  the icy mountain 
@~level has passes.
 
This  article  originally appeared in 16/32 on  Micronet  and  is 
reproduced here by kind permission of Dave Russell and the editor 
of 16/32,  Tony Goodman.  To find 16/32 on Micronet, key *800916# 
or use the keyword *SIXTEEN#.