Wasteland Interview
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GB: How did you get involved with Wasteland?
Ken: Brian Fargo visited me in Phoenix and described a post World War III game that Interplay wanted to do using some new coding techniques that Alan Pavlish had developed. He asked me if I could come up with such a game, maybe modeled along the lines of the movie "Red Dawn"? I told him I thought I could.
GB: What was your role during the game's development?
Ken: I developed the initial game storyline. I started with something like Red Dawn in the cornfields of Idaho, but decided after a while that was too boring, and so developed another idea that I thought would be more fun. It was Arizona Rangers versus Terminators in the deserts of New Nevada--based on having most of the adventures in the wastelands of Arizona and nearby states--I chose Arizona because I live here and know the geography very well, and the desert sometimes seems like a post-nuclear wasteland already.
GB: Why after a nuclear holocaust?
Ken: We wanted a good wild science fiction setting using current firearms technology.
GB: What inspired you during the development of Wasteland?
Ken: Mad Max. Terminator. Daffy Duck.
GB: What was your favorite contribution to Wasteland? What was your greatest challenge?
Ken: The whole thing is my story. Others added notable parts of the adventure, but the basic story is mine. Most of Las Vegas and Quartz are all my invention. I created the Scorpitron robot.
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