The Making of Mirror's Edge

1Up is running a feature about the development of Mirror's Edge, which comes out in November. Two of the developers talk about how they sold the concept for the game to studio execs, and how that concept has changed over the past few years. They also provide an early proof-of-concept video demonstrating some of the gameplay. "When you're doing something that's quite different like this, it's very easy for people to say, 'Oh, but couldn't you do it in third-person as well?' or 'Couldn't you put guns in as well?' or 'Couldn't we have vehicles as well?' And I think the reason we got to where we are is because we stuck to our guns, or lack of guns. [Laughs] We have kept the purity of the core mechanic. And I think that is why it is as good as it is now, because we just focused on that in a very blinkered way and didn't let ourselves get distracted."

Comments

Re:This game is similar to a concept I devised...

[Dutch Gun]

You should have seen the original incarnation of portal created by a bunch of european college students. they had no idea of the power of their concept. Their execution was decent for college students, but their game was just not the same experience as portal. Valve came along and recognized the power of that concept and put great designers on that project.

Just so you know... the precursor to Portal - Narbacular Drop - was developed by Digipen students (some of my co-workers were classmates of theirs actually). Valve then *hired those students*, who went on to create Portal.