DESIGN DIARY - 10.25.00 Where the reader learns about the origins of the game Originally, the game was supposed to be a "classic trilogy" version of Young Jedi. Back in late '99, Designer Chuck Kallenbach was compiling a conversion spreadsheet. "I would indicate that Ric Olié = Han Solo, and stuff like that," recalls Chuck. But the Development Team members didn't want to stick to a straight conversion. They soon started adding to the Young Jedi engine. "We wanted to make the game somewhat deeper," explains Designer Tom Lischke, "so that it would appeal more to core gamers." The goal was to approach Star Wars CCG depth while keeping the game quick and clear, even for newcomers. "So we kept 'growing our classic Young Jedi until we realized it could be its own great game," Tom says. [flashforward from winter to the end of summer 2000 - sped up footage of grass growing with artificial tremors, flowers blooming, images of clouds zooming by in the evening sky, suns rising and setting] In early August, the big switch happened: Jedi Knights stopped being tethered to the Young Jedi engine and really took off as an entity of its own. "We wanted to try something very different with Jedi Knights," says Chuck. "Core gamers weren't always happy with the degree of randomness present in Young Jedi, so we toned it down considerably. We also gave players the ability to choose exactly who was attacking whom on the battlefield." Tom conjures up design memories of his own: "It's in August that we settled for an 'open round system' as opposed to a turn system. This means that I don't play my whole turn and then you play yours; rather, we go through the first phase together, alternating actions, then we go through the second phase, and so on until we reach the end of the round. And then we start over." On the art front, the adventure started a little bit later; the Art Department was asked to begin work on Jedi Knights in March 2000. "The intent has always been to use computer-generated imagery," says Artist Joe Boulden, who coordinates all of the Jedi Knights efforts in the Art Department. "In fact, we've been doing CGI for years, creating ships, weapons, space stations and other elements for Star Wars CCG and Star Trek CCG." But that was photo-realistic computer work, because it had to fit the look of the rest of the game universes. In the case of Jedi Knights, the Art Department was looking to develop a unique, original look. "Our original task," recalls Joe, "was to create enough models for the first card set." At that time, Jedi Knights was still "Classic Young Jedi" and the first card set was supposed to contain elements only from the first movie, A New Hope. But as the gameplay evolved, it became clear that images from the whole classic trilogy would be required to launch the game. "In short, we had eight months to model the entire classic Star Wars universe in 3D!" says Joe with the relieved smile of the man who knows, now, that he got the job done. The first thing Joe did was to shop around on the Internet. He was looking for 3D modelers who had done fan art within the Star Wars environment. And he found them. All over the world - in eleven different countries, to be more precise. Decipher bought their pieces and enhanced them to meet the company's standards. "That got us a third of the way through," says Joe. "So we commissioned additional pieces from some of those modelers, and also from established, professional 3D artists." The Art Department was shaping its own Star Wars universe, homegrown from roots scattered around the globe. Francis K. Lalumiere The Juggler