Interview: Drew Karpyshyn

 How did you become a writer?

It's just something I've always done. But my first big break came when I sent in a submission to Wizards of the Coast for an open writer audition. That turned into Temple Hill, my first novel and everything just sort of took off after that.

You write mainly Science Fiction, is this because you have a interest in that topic your self?

I read mostly sci-fi, fantasy and horror. I'm a big fan of speculative fiction, because I see novels as a way to explore the "what if" world we don't actually live in.

When writing the storyline for a video game, how much of a guideline are you given?

At BioWare the writing team is involved with the project from the first day to the very end. We have a tremendous amount of say in what is created, but we obviously have to work with the rest of the team to merge art, cinematics and game play with story and narrative.

   What was your vision when creating the story for KOTOR?

  The creative team at BioWare wanted to capture the sprit of the

  original trilogy by focusing on big, sweeping themes like good versus

  evil and destiny versus choice. Of course, we also wanted to provide a

  fresh look at the universe, but we were careful to do so in a way that

  respected and evoked the original source material.

  Did the Star Wars films influence the game?

  The films were very near and dear to our hearts, so we constantly

  used them as a creative guide. If we weren't sure if something "felt"

  right, we'd try to imagine it fitting into the original films. If it was an

  awkward fit, that was a warning sign that maybe we weren't heading

  in the right direction.

as it hard to create a completely new universe for Mass Effect to be set in?

It took the core design team about a year of meetings, planning and iteration before we had the basics down, so I guess you could say it wasn't easy.

What did you do to make the Mass Effect universe unique?

We had a great mix of talented people with complimentary skills and very different values working together. Some of us were more visual, others were more action oriented and still others were very "hard core" sci-fi. By respecting the things everyone valued we were able to create something with a very broad appeal that still felt fresh.

You have also written some tie-in books for the games you have worked on, how does this compare to writing games?

Books are a very solitary effort: you sink and swim on your own. Games, on the other hand, are very collaborative. Most games now have teams of over 100 people working on them, so you get a lot of extra input and ideas but at the same time you need to work hard to keep everyone on track and focused on the same overall vision. Because of the technology involved, I think games are much harder to make. That's why it takes about 6 months to write a novel, but 3-4 years to make a game.