Fallout - Tim Cain On What Could Have Been

Kotaku reports on a Tim Cain presentation at GDC that talks about what Fallout could have been, as well as talking about the actual development. Here's the bizarre storyline we might have played:

In a Fallout post-mortem at the Game Developers Conference, Tim Cain, the producer, designer and lead programmer described an alternate version of the game’s story that could have come to be a reality.
“You started in the modern world,” Cain said. “You traveled back in time, you killed the monkey that would evolve into humans, you went through space travel, you went to the future, which was ruled by dinosaurs, you were exiled to a fantasy planet where magic took you back to the original timeline that you restored to full, and came back to the modern world to save your girlfriend.”

More information.

Sounds suspiciously like Chrono Trigger.

Great minds think alike. Chrono Trigger is exactly what I was thinking of after I read that description.

And for the record, I'm glad that was not the game that was made.

The game initially failed certification for Windows 95, but for a very strange reason. Namely, Fallout failed Windows 95 cert because the game worked on Windows NT. To get certified on Windows 95, the game was supposed to “fail gracefully” on WindowsNT. Instead it worked. Cain said he called microsoft and said “It fails so gracefully that it doesn’t fail at all.” Which didn’t fly, The solution? Go into the game and code it to detect Windows NT and just sort of… fail. Heh.

Either I've lost a month and It's April 1st already or he said some very weird things. Honestly it's things like that that make piracy seem ethical.

Psssttt…. look what we have hereee.

Either way, great great talk. Especially liked the team's philosophy for cultural reference and dialogue and wish it was kept in the subsequent sequels.

I say: bring on the kickstarter
As an adventure, this would be brilliant whacky fun.

(Edit: and thanks for the Link WorstUsernameEver, that was a fun read)

To get a Win95 cert it had to fail gracefully on the NT? Good grief, that's the stupidest thing I've heard all week.

Originally Posted by Tim Cain
“You started in the modern world,” Cain said. “You traveled back in time, you killed the monkey that would evolve into humans, you went through space travel, you went to the future, which was ruled by dinosaurs, you were exiled to a fantasy planet where magic took you back to the original timeline that you restored to full, and came back to the modern world to save your girlfriend.”

Thank heavens this version did NOT happen! What were Tim and Co. smoking when they came up with this?

Originally Posted by holeraw
Either I've lost a month and It's April 1st already or he said some very weird things.

This is so weird it could be real again. Remember, Microsoft DID weird stuff to promote Win95 … Just look into my current signature …

Actually that idea was very creative and much more original then Fallout especially for a game and other then the time travel motif it doesn't sound anything like Chrono Trigger.

Originally Posted by guenthar
Actually that idea was very creative and much more original then Fallout especially for a game and other then the time travel motif it doesn't sound anything like Chrono Trigger.

Not to mention that this was a rough concept before beeing fleshed out.

Scott Campbell also talked about it in his retrospective

http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=60787

Originally Posted by figment
Great minds think alike. Chrono Trigger is exactly what I was thinking of after I read that description.

Small minds, too, as my first thought when reading this was "Ah, it would have been Chrono Trigger" :-).

Originally Posted by Irian
Small minds, too, as my first thought when reading this was "Ah, it would have been Chrono Trigger" :-).

There aren't many jRPGs that I would defend, but Chrono Trigger was actually quite excellent for its time.

Originally Posted by JDR13
There aren't many jRPGs that I would defend, but Chrono Trigger was actually quite excellent for its time.

Chrono Trigger is an excellent game even now. I had a chance to have a look at one of its numerous remakes on my friend's NDS and even after 14 years, it was still a great game.

I can't name 5 rpgs better than Chrono Trigger. Last 10 years was such a disappointment in this genre.

Originally Posted by Ferris_bg
I can't name 5 rpgs better than Chrono Trigger. Last 10 years was such a disappointment in this genre.

I can name one: Tactics Ogre - Let Us Cling Together. It's one hell of a game, one of the best computer games I have ever played. If you haven't played it on older consoles, you can get it for PSP, and an iOS port can't be far off.