Torrance, CA
Quoted from Jvspin:Aurich, since we're getting a glimpse into "how the sausage is made", can you share some of the ways you've been able to proceed with the design without knowing all the assets you will get?
Hmm. I mean, I'm happy to talk about stuff, but I'm not entirely sure how to answer that question. It's kind of a fake it until you make it thing. I'm gonna just ramble for a bit, see if I'm helping answer your question. 
I think I mentioned this at my talk during the Alien presentation at Expo, but it was an enormous challenge to find a high rez image of the classic egg. These are just old films, and we're not talking about hard drives full of beautiful high rez assets. You have to get creative. Luckily that one was acquired finally, it just took a while.
You get a modern film, like say Hobbit. They obviously had their own license challenges, but in the end JP really did a great job. I will freely admit that I'm pretty jealous of the assets he had access to. Tons of high rez images. (And whoever tried to give me credit for his work, I know you meant well, but that was all him, we barely talked.)
I hear that people want a big xenomorph. I gave you that the best I could, there are three right in front of you in the prime art spot on the game. I was delighted that right between the flippers Fox let me use an original HR Giger drawing, that's awesome. Super happy about that. Because Alien, as a film franchise, has never been about showing you the beast clearly. Quick cuts, strobe lights, dark lighting, shadows, they'll do anything to not just have one lurking over you with nice lighting.
There is no Smaug poster, where you have a giant dragon for the side of the cabinet. Notice all the Alien images people like Ted have posted in this thread are fan art? Nothing official from Fox. If I had more Giger art to work with I would have used it. They didn't give me anything else that I didn't already use.
Also, the assets were mostly pretty low rez, and gritty, often JPEGs. Fine for a website slideshow maybe, but useless for print.
I didn't have a folder called Awesome High Rez Xenomorph Poses to choose from.
I took risks where I could creating my own art and drawings. Early on they made it pretty clear that there was a limit to where I could push that. I'll try it again with the LE art.
Look, if I was unhappy with the playfield you probably wouldn't be seeing it. I'm not. A lot of people really like it, some don't, and you'll never please everyone. So I don't want to sound like I'm apologizing or whining or anything. But the reality is that I had to work creatively within some confining limits, and this is the approach that I took. If you were hoping for an update to Bally Space Invaders that just wasn't in the cards.
If I had the power to hand this project off to the ghost of HR Giger to airbrush? I'd do it in a heartbeat, I'm as much of a fan as all of you.
I think this game is going to look bad ass when we're done. There's more to come. There are more people than just me who are going to do killer work on this game to make it a great experience. And it's not going to be a generic game in any sense. It's going to be about the stories from the films. I can't answer the actor question now. But if you want to watch the movie put in the Blu-ray. We're going to make a game, that's fun to play, that's going to immerse you in the Alien world.
I want Ripley and Hudson as much as anyone, and we'll do our best to make that happen. But if the worst case goes down and we don't have them? I just want to say that we're prepared to still make the game great. There's really going to be a lot more to this than hearing a handful of your favorite film lines.
Mönsheim
