Click the image for a larger shot..

Csim: Thanks for taking the time John! Can you describe for us your role in production of Spearhead?

John: No problem, I think your web site is fantastic, and I'm happy to support it!

I came on as producer about 6 months in the project. Today, the average game requires at least 3-6 months of pre-production (including design, budgets, demo tapes, research, storyboards, design documents and all the pitch meetings and more) and once you get the financial backing, a game today takes between 18-24 months to finish.

As producer, I am responsible for a great deal of paperwork (contracts mostly) budgets, hiring, and keeping everything moving, including making the occasional unpopular decision to kill or add a feature for either gameplay or time constraints.

I have over stepped the traditional bounds in that I have recorded audio in the field, taken photographs for the texture maps, created models and texture maps, written and edited most of the manuals, and built the majority of the missions as well as created most of the menu screens and the various videos in the game.

Csim: Tell us a bit more about Zombie Virtual Reality. Who are you guys?

John: Spearhead is a joint venture between Zombie and MAK Technologies. MAK is based in Boston and does simulator software for the military; we're really privileged to work with their expertise. MAK is responsible for all the programming and Zombie is responsible for all art and design issues as well as taking care of all the paperwork.

Zombie is a 3 year old company that was founded by Mark Long and Joanna Alexander, who came from the big VR project at Hasbro. Zombie currently has 40 employees and is working on 2 games (Spearhead and Spec Ops), an amusement park ride, a movie proposal (Liberty) and is serving as a contractor for several other games.

Zombie has delivered an award winning music video for the band KMFDM and 3 games to date: Locus, Ice and Fire,ZPC.

Csim: When did the Spearhead project come into being?

John: The Project has been under development for the last 18 months. The principles at MAK met the principles of Zombie when they were all working on the Hasbro VR project. MAK was slated to do the networking for this VR game system.

Csim: Do you have personal history that relates to the project? If not, what other people/resources are being accessed for this project?

John: I've lived on military bases for the first 18 years of my life as my dad was the army. I've worked for the US Army, US Air Force and NASA doing high end VR work back in the late 80's when VR was going to change the world. This included VR for training and improving the digital battlefield.

Most of my Master's thesis was paid for the by US Air Force for some research I was doing on VR. The two founders of Zombie, Mark Long and Joanna Alexander came from similar backgrounds.

MAK has a long history of doing simulation work for the US Army, including SIMNET.

Csim: How does this special interest in Virtual Reality impact Spearhead?

John: This interest has helped with the design a great deal. The big trick in designing a game is that you have a very limited amount of resources (RAM, polygons, development time) and trick is to create an "immersive" environment within this limits. If there is a insurmountable problem, then you have to design it as part of the game fiction. The team's VR experience I feel has helped out a great deal in this "willing suspension of disbelief."

MAK experience with network protocols and creating hyper realistic sims (to the point that you take gun barrel droop due to heat into account for your ballistics) for the US military is of course a huge plus!

Csim: What are the general design goals for Spearhead?

John: 5 basic goals:

1. multiplayer. The game was designed from the ground up to support multiplayer, specifically over the Internet, for free.

2. For the player to have fun. While Spearhead is designed as a sim, the player must have fun.

3. For the player to learn something. I don't really care what the player learns, whether it is tactics, or why communication is so important on the battlefield, or even just the concept of "friction", but they should come away with a better understanding of modern combat.

4. A bi-modal learning curve. Spearhead is designed so the user can get in and shoot and blow things up in under a minute, learn how to call in air support in 3 minutes, but it will take weeks to master all the nuances of battle, specifically the tactics of multiplayer.

5. Balanced Realism. Realism has to be balanced with gameplay. If the game were shipped with the exact specs of the real world vehicles, the game would be a turkey shoot, much like Desert Storm. There is also a great deal of boredom in war, which we remove, as well as the political aspects.

Csim: Will Spearhead break any new ground in the genre?

John: The ability to have 18 players over the Internet for free is the new ground breaking aspect of the game.

The complexity of the mission editor is also a big step. Past mission editors let you create a simple path, attach an entity to it and modify a few parameters. The Spearhead Mission Editor let’s you create IF-THEN and even nest and chain these rules. So that instead of a mission where I am assigned to go on patrol and destroy a convoy, we (and more importantly the user) can make the enemy respond appropriately through these IF-THENs. So that if I approach the convoy from the left and kill the lead tank, the vehicles may flee, whereas if I approach the tank from the right, the convoy may split into two and try and outflank me.

Csim: I have to say that the screenshots knocked my socks off. Tell us about your graphics engine.

John: MAK did the graphics engine all on their own and did a fantastic job. The one aspect that does not come across from the screen shots is the size of the terrain, it is 384 square kilometers (18k by 24k) and then we tile the terrain, so a battle can take place over vast distances. There are 7 different terrains, each based on satellite images of Tunisia.

The speed of the engine will give players a better appreciation for the M1. The M1 weighs in at over 70 tons, yet it can hit speeds of 60 MPH. With our engine, you can get this baby air-borne when you come over a crest of a dune. Which is something that none of the other tank sims I’ve played let you do. In the other games, I had the impression I was driving a big, huge, slow lumbering cannon.

The last thing about the engine, are that the game is played full screen, not a small 3D world, through a 2D sprite of the inside of a tank.

Csim: It appears that we will see light source shading, shadows etc. Will smoke and fog effects also be present?

John: We have light source shading (for the different times of day: dawn, dusk, noon, night and thunderstorm), as well as dynamic lighting so that when guns are fired or an entity is destroyed the area around it lights up. We have fog effects, but the clipping plain is still a considerable way in the distance. The amount of fog is also effected by the time of day that the mission takes place in. Smoke is present, both when an entity is destroyed and when an entity pops defensive smoke. When you switch to thermal view, you can see through this smoke (unless your thermal view is damaged).

Csm: Tell us about the control interface. How will we control infantry units and armor? How much flexibility will we have in control?

John: The user controls all entities just like a real tank commander does, through the IVIS (inter vehicular information system). The only conceit we made was that the user can use their mouse, in the real tank, the commander uses his joystick.

The user can send the friendly AI vehicles the same commands as the real tank commander can. These include:

• assigning a target to engage
• moving to a new location
• assign an entity to follow you
• calling for air support
• calling for artillery
• get re-supplied
• get repaired, and more.

To the best of my knowledge (and according to all the videos and documents we have), the real M1A2 works in exactly the same manner.

Csim: Tell us about the AI in Spearhead. How will enemy armor and infantry react and respond? Will there be a "panic" model, morale factors, "hide" and "avoidance" AI?

John: All of that can be assigned in the mission editor. It is possible to create missions where either force will "retreat" if their health falls below a certain number, if they run out of ammo, or if their leader is killed, or you successfully advance to a phaseline or nested version of these. So that if you cross a phaseline and their health is below a certain point, they will retreat, but if you cross a phaseline and their health is still high, they will stand their ground.

Csim: Will the player be able to choose any crew position?

John: The user can switch between all positions except the loader. This includes the driver, the gunner and several positions for the tank commander (the CITV, the IVIS and the cupola). Night and Thermal and Magnifications are all appropriate for each view.

Csim: What kinds of other weapons will be modeled? Will infantry have rocket launchers?

John: We model the following weapons:

• HEAT and SABOT
• 50 cal
• coax machine gun
• 25 mm Bushmaster cannon
• TOW missile
• Sagger missile
• 73 mm cannon
• artillery (ground and air burst)
• bombs (ground and air burst)
• Hellfire missile (and their Soviet equivalent)
• The cannon in the A-10 (and its soviet equivalent)

Csim: What other vehicles will we see?

John: There are a great many vehicles modelled, for friendly forces:

• M1A2
• M3 Bradley
• M113
• HMMWV
• M88 Repair Vehicle
• HEMMT
• MLRS
• M110 (self propelled howitzer)
• M966 (ambulance)
• Patriot Missile Launcher
• F117
• A10
• Kiowa
• Apache

And for enemy forces:

• T72
• As21 (self propelled howitzer)
• BMP
• SA-6
• SCUD
• BRDM
• T34 Repair vehicle
• 5 ton truck
• ambulance
• Frogfoot
• Hind
• Hoplite

And civilian vehicles:

• Chevy car
• Flat bed truck
• Harley
• News Van
• Pick up truck
• passenger train
• RV camper
• school bus
• Semi truck
• Sports car
• train

And for buildings:

• Abandoned House,Airplane Hanger
• Berm,Bridge
• Bunker,Chapel
• Mosque,Cinder Block Building
• Estate house,fuel bladder
• guard tower,guard house
• highway check point,Nuclear plant
• road sign,sandbag fort
• store,supply depot
• tent,warehouse
• cube house,radar dish
• radar tower
• Plus barb wire and fences and 5 types of plant life.

Csim: Wow, this level of detailing sounds great! Will there be land mines? Smoke launchers?

John: There are land mines as well as water (rivers, oceans and lakes). You can try to cross them if you get surrounded, but you run the risk of getting stuck or sinking if the water is too deep.

You (and the enemy) can fire defensive smoke.

Csim: What about shell modeling. What choices will we have?

John: You have the ammo that I know for a fact is currently in the US inventory. This includes HEAT (best used against armored personnel carriers) and SABOT (best used against tanks). You also have your 50 cal and your coax machine gun for "soft targets"

The game models gravity, so your shells will fall which is why you need to "laze" a target if they are out of "battlesight" range. "battlesight" range is when a shell will travel in a straight line, the distance beyond that the shell curves toward the ground and you have to hyper elevate the gun to take gravity into account. If you laze and your targeting computer is still working, the shell will hit perfectly. If you forget to laze or your laser or targeting computer is damaged, then you will likely miss.

Csim: Will we see field artillery also? Will we have control of artillery?

John: There are 2 types of artillery units, Howitzers and Rocket Launchers, each can fire ground or airburst. Depending upon the mission (or your rank in a multiplayer game), you may or may not have access to artillery. Naturally, you also have to watch out for the enemy artillery. Both sides' artillery can be taken out by your tanks or by air support.

Csim: I understand that iPanzer aims to model forests. Will we see this in Spearhead also? What variety of terrain will we experience?

John: No, the game fiction takes place in the desert specifically because of the huge number of polys required to made good trees. I decided to have no trees rather than poor trees. Since I know if there were trees in the game I would want to drive through them and blow them up, and if I couldn't do that, than I'd rather not have them. In iPanzer trees are required because Europe is full of them. I am curious to see how they model them without resorting to large cubes with forest textures painted on them.

Csim: Physics modeling is a real growth area in ground sims these days.... What kind of effects can terrain have on armor in Spearhead? Tell us about physics modeling in general.

John: There are 5 types of soil, plus water and 4 types of roads (and a rail road track). Each of which effects the top speed of all vehicles as well as fuel consumption. So if you are in a hurry, then you might want to take the road, but you need to keep in mind that the roads are usually the most heavily patrolled and defended, so it might be better to go the long way through the rough terrain. But if the mission requires you to hook up with a convoy in 7 minutes, then . . . .

All vehicles are slowed when go up hill and all vehicles speed up when they go down hill; the % incline effects both of these. If you are leading a convoy, you need to be careful as certain vehicles cannot go up hills as steep as your tank can.

In addition, the user can take a risk and "un-govern" their tank, which increases the speed of the tank, but at the risk of damaging the engine.

Csim: How much detail is there in the ballistics model? Will we have to account for wind also?

John: Shells will fall due to gravity (and the type of munition), and their effectiveness will be reduced over distance.

Csim: How will damage resolution be handled? Will it matter what direction you hit the enemy from and where your round impacts? Can you actually target particular locations to try to disable enemy units?

John: We model all 6 sides all entities (top, left and right sides, front, rear, and bottom). The front of a tank is the most heavily armored (and the most slanted) and as such it is the hardest to kill from that angle. The rear is the least well protected and a shot to the rear, if not destroying the vehicle, will likely destroy the engine.

A shot to the side has a good chance of damaging the treads. The type of round used as well as the distance from the target also comes into play. Basically every element of the tank has a chance of being damaged, this includes: the engine, the laser, thermal, night vision, CITV, IVIS, radio, engine, treads, main gun, 50 cal, coax, etc.

In some missions you may start off with limited ammo, say at the end of the last mission, and your first task is to get re-supplied. You can either drive to the supply vehicle (HEMMITS) or you can radio for them to come to you with your IVIS. If you have them come to you, then you run the risk that they could be destroyed by the enemy. While an M1 can be reloaded and refueled in under 15 minutes, we make a conceit to game play and it happens a little faster.

The same hold's true if you are damaged, you can limp to an M88 repair vehicle or have them come to you. The entire engine of an M1 can be replaced in under an hour. While that is fast, we of course speed this up for game play. In a multiplayer game, this strategic element of keeping your supply lines open could prove to be important if not crucial.

Csim: How much detail will we see in the armor systems ? For example, how will night vision components be modeled?

John: Your vehicle has daylight (normal), night vision and thermal, depending upon which view you are in (gunner's, cupola, etc.). Since we have different times of day, the use of thermal and/or night vision is very important.

These devices can also be damaged if you take fire, and dynamic lighting also comes into play so that when you fire your main gun in thermal view, the screen blanks out briefly. Also, in thermal view, different objects give off different heat signatures, when a tank is moving it is hotter than when it is not, when it is blown up and burning it is the hottest.

Csim: I understand that air action will also be modeled. How will it integrate to the sim and affect tactics?

Air Power.. click for larger image.

John: Depending upon the mission, you may be able to call in air support (consisting of either fixed wing or helo). You will need to coordinate your attack, and use them to help you find your enemy. Sometimes you may be better suited to use your air support as scouts other times to protect your flank. This will be especially true in multiplayer games.

Csim: Tell us about the mission and campaign structure. How many missions will the player have to choose from? How many campaigns will exist? Are they dynamically modeled?

John: The current plan is for 50 missions in the campaign, as well as 20 multiplayer missions and 20 stand alone missions and several missions a week are scheduled to be placed on the web site for free downloads. There is a single linear campaign, modeled on current US doctrine. The expansion pack contains new missions and a new campaign as well the mission editor, so the number of missions created and traded over the web will hopefully be significant.

Csim: Are the campaigns dynamically modelled?

John: The campaign is linear, but we do have missions that continue the story, not just escort, defend, search and destroy, patrol, repeat. Rather, if mission 3 is to escort a convoy to a base, then mission 4 may very likely have you start off where that convoy ended. If mission 13 is to take over a town, and mission 14 is to advance, you will start out in the town (and several buildings will be destroyed), after a particularly nasty mission 23, the first thing you may have to do in mission 24 is get re-supplied. The player will have a sense of plot development as a result of the missions and can follow their progress along on a map.

Furthermore, many of the missions have a random start varible, so that the bad guys, or even the good guys (or both) don't start each mission in exactly the same place every time.

The other thing we are doing is having Mark Long (a former Army Ranger) and one of my artists (who drove a tank for 4 years) helping out with mission design and construction. We've also interviewed a former Soviet tank crew member in our quest to make the missions a little more accurate (but still fun, of course)!

Csim: Will we see a mission editor in the release or as a later add on?

John: That depends on the US publisher. In Europe, the Mission Editor will be sold as an add-on, that includes the ability to drive an M2 Bradley as well as extra missions and new terrains. The ability to drive a Bradley gives the player the ability to fire the Bushmaster cannon and the TOW missile. More importantly, in multiplayer games, the team with a Bradley on their side will be able to identify enemies more accurately. And this info will be passed on to all team members, allowing for more concentrated fire power. Just as in the real military.

Csim: Sound modeling is a key concern for your team. What can we expect in terms of sound detailing?

John: ALL of the audio originates from real tanks. Either from tanks in the field (we went out to several live fire exercise) or from SIMNET (whose sounds originated in real tanks). We are the only sim to have permission to use SIMNET audio files, in addition to being developed by one of the SIMNET contractors.

Csim: I understand that some of the team worked on SIMNET, the Army’s tank simulation facility. What kind of multiplayer support will Spearhead incorporate?

John: Spearhead was designed from the ground up to be multi-player, either co-operative or combative and the missions will be more involved than simple frag fests or capture the flag. Real team work will be required to identify the enemy (I expect unintentional fratricide to be a part of game play) and "put steel on target" whether this is through the M1A2 Tanks, the M2 Bradley’s, the Air Support (fixed wing and Helo) or artillery.

The game will support LAN, Modem, Null Modem and Internet multiplayer gaming. Over the intent Spearhead will support 18 players in a single game. What makes this unique is that this large number of players is supported by using peer to peer DIS technology, first developed for SIMNET. This technology takes into account latencies as well as dropped packets.

Csim: What about hardware support? Will there be surround sound, support for force feedback, VR headsets?

John: We have spatialized audio, so that if an artillery shell lands behind you and to the left, that is where you will hear it. We are supporting the Microsoft Forcefeedback joystick and were very pleasantly surprised by it. The programmers said it was easy to develop for, and think that MS may be able to get enough market penetration to make it a viable product.

There really aren't any players left in the VR HMD industry. Forte still sells units, and a new company has taken over the Virtual iO HMD, but the number of units sold does not currently justify our development costs. The majority of Zombie comes from a hard-core VR background, so when HMDs become commercially viable, we will be ready.

Csim: I understand that the screenshots up now are from 3dfx hardware. What about D3d support and other chipsets?

John: We support Rendition as well as 3DFX (Matrox Mystique may be added). When the game was first designed, D3D did not look as good as it does now and the decision was made to base the game around RenderWare rather than D3D. (One of the many gambles made all the time in game design). D3D ended up better than expected, but RenderWare has still been a good choice for us. Rendition and 3DFX account for at least 80% of installed chips.

The software version of Spearhead will support 640x480 16 bit color and you can drop the game down to 512x384 (in a 640x480 frame) to improve frame rate. You can also reduce from 16 bit color to 8 bit color for a performance improvement in low end systems. You can also turn on and off various special effects (smoke, transparency, textures, tank treads, audio channels etc.) to get the frame rate you want.

Csim: What will be the recommended system configuration?

John: Windows 95, a P 133 with 16 MB of RAM, 4x CD, 3DFX or Rendition, 4 MB Video card and a programmable Joystick, Rudder Pedals and Throttle.

Csim: Thanks John, best of luck! We look forward to Spearhead!