Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Release Date: November 16, 2004
Developer: Troika Studios
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG
Engine: Source
Role: Writing/Design
What can I say about Bloodlines that I haven’t already said in dozens of interviews? Seriously, I have been asked almost every possible question about this game, the production, its legacy, who the characters are dating, what kind of underwear they wear, and if Troika is suddenly going to jump out of the shadows completely reformed with fifteen years of covertly developed games in our arms. Like Bruce Campbell and Evil Dead, I know I’m never not going to be asked about this game, but that’s okay - I got to help design and write a cult classic and as new people discover Bloodlines, they can’t help but want to talk about it.
Bloodlines was the first game I worked on that didn’t get canceled. It was a relatively small team for the size of the game we were making, and because of that, there was a lot of opportunity to work on all aspects of the game. Because time was perpetually running out, there was a need to develop dialogues and levels quickly with minimal iteration. Generally, tasks were brainstormed, evolved in one meeting with all decision-making parties present, developed to first draft, then given a once over after testing and before recording. The breakneck speed was thrilling in retrospect, even if it led to a lot of crunch and occasionally flawed execution.
On the narrative side, I would say we did a good job maintaining plot cohesion, character motivation and design, and player choice despite the time constraints. The story and characters were always considered a big part of the experience and even the E3 demos were centered around the interactions. Some of this magic came from the dialogue disposition system, an automated way of flagging the mood of a character and using a range of smoothly-blended animation behaviors running off peaks and valleys in the WAV data to play the appropriate neutral or emphatic facial and body animations. Another big part was writing the dialogue for actors, with an emphasis on performance and conversational dialogue versus writing to be read, which was the standard at the time. Also aiding this was the fact that the writers were part of the casting and VO process, down to us being present and giving context to the actors and director in the studio.
There was also a big push in the writing and design side to make sure that, true to all Troika games, there were multiple ways to solve a quest based on player choice, skills, and clan. The story was a simple MacGuffin plot that strung you along into somewhat self-contained hubs with their own stories and characters that presented an obstacle that had to be overcome to move on; that self-contained nature allowed us to write mini-story arcs with loose ties to the greater plot and characters that still helped reinforce structures like the Camarilla, Anarchs, Clans, and other aspects of vampire society. In the cracks of the game, all kinds of weirdness and minor revelations could be found in optional character paths, on computer terminals, in the environmental storytelling, and the radio in the player’s apartment, all which have contributed to the replay value significantly.
At the heart of Bloodlines, there was a talented and ambitious team, a management structure that understood and was dedicated to making RPGs, an IP that allowed for radically different world-building than most anything out at the time, and a lot of youthful enthusiasm/naivete that propelled us to finish the game at any cost to our personal lives or mental health. It was not ideal and it was quite crushing when the studio eventually closed due to poor sales, but warts and all, it has continued to speak to players over fifteen years after its release. It was garage punk development - scratchy, occasionally out of tune, but uniquely catchy and perpetually relevant to a certain audience.
And if you’re a fan, here are links to some of the interviews where I answer the most common questions about characters and development:
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/06/interview-without-a-vampire-bloodlines-b-mitsoda/
Interview by Tom Jubert - http://tom-jubert.blogspot.com/2010/08/brian-mitsoda-talks-vampire-bloodlines.html
Planet Vampire Interview - https://web.archive.org/web/20060614070826/http://www.forumplanet.com/planetvampire/topic.asp?fid=9642&tid=1773542&p=4