UPDATE!!!
Still in 16:9 with borders but there’s actually only one more episode like that coming up after that it’s all good and square!
Silicon Knights History part 1
So, Silicon Knights was formed in St. Catherines Ontario in 1992, co-founded by Dennis Dyack, a graduate of Computer Science and Physical Education from Brock University. Knights quickly released a strategy game for the noted publisher SSI called Cyber Empires, which the Wikipedia entry describes as a kind of mix between Risk and Command and Conquer. This was quickly followed up by Fantasy Empires, a licensed D&D game also for SSI, im 1993. It was around this time they were creating and shopping around proposals for their own adventure games.
Two were suggested, both focused on story telling, a fantasy game called Pillars of Nosgoth and a Science Fiction game called Too Human. While finishing work on their third title for SSI, Dark Legions, Dyack met Crystal Dynamics producer and notable creator of cursed amphibious mascot platformer, GEX the Gecko, Lyle Hall where they hit it off based on their shared desire to create games with a grander scope than the contemporary industry standard.
At this point I’d like to remind you that GEX has a tragic backstory about his father dying and his descent into depression in front of the TV so I guess that tracks?
Silicon Knights sent their pitches to Crystal Dynamics, who were both developers and publishers at the time, and while they were interested in Too Human, fantasy was viewed as a more preferable genre to work in, and they chose to develop Pillars for the Panasonic 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, according to some sources. Others state that it took months to decide what the platform was going to be, leading Silicon Knights to commit to eight months of work on the game before they and Crystal Dynamics had settled on the newly announced Sony PlayStation as the platform of choice.
This is the version of events I tend to believe more, as it’s woefully unoptomised for the console. Plagued by frequent, long load times. It was their first game on a console, it was an unreleased console at the time, and the later PC port of the game always ran better. Whether this is due to the extra year in development or their experience with DOS is a different matter though.
The basic plot and concept were Dyack’s, several treatments and sketches were consolodated into the core of Pillars by Ken McCulloch, who would also write the dialogue, cut-scenes and flavour text. They wanted to create a game in the vein of Zelda, or an RPG, but they also wanted to avoid a dominant strategy, or letting the player get overpowered. Silicon Knights would describe it as
a game where there was no ultimate weapon and armor. A game where you had to use your head as well as your reflexes.
The initial treatments and documents for Pillars has never been released, however many of the initial sketches and concept art was. Some was collected as extras in the final game in the Legacy of Kain series in 2003, many of it leaked. They’re actually the images I’m using for the episode list.
We’ll get more into the development history next week, thanks for reading.