Like everyone else, I greeted the news of an "Anime Style Fighting" game with a bit of a ho-hum reaction, most haven't done very well for one reason or another. When I first saw Oni, I really liked the screenshots, and early reports on the game, so when the demo was available, certainly I grabbed it. . . . . that's where this all begins. After playing the demo, I was convinced. . . I had to have this game. Although there are various weapons available to you during game play, I spent more time using hand to hand combat to kick some ass. This game has what many are missing. . . the fun factor. I mean you WANT to play this game, to learn the moves. It all pays off when you pull an awesome "disarming move" on your enemy and then kick his ass with his own weapon.... hell yeah. 

After hearing that there wouldn't be anymore Oni interviews ( probably for fear of "overexposure" ) I was slightly dismayed. . . I need a damn Oni interview!!! So through secret spy satellites, stealth and sheer bribery, I ended up cornering Michael Evans  for a few questions. . . Hypothermia style.

1.)Who the hell are you. :^)

Hi, I am Michael Evans the project lead for Oni. 

2.) Anyone who has played the Oni demo knows, this game is gonna kick some serious ass. Is there any concern that this game will be pigeon-holed is "Another Anime Style Game"?? or labeled as a "Fighting Game"??

I think there was concern initially that Oni was going to be pigeonholed as a fighting game. However I think that by and large the people have recognized that it is something new.

3.)People in the industry expressed concern with the whole Microsoft buyout of Bungie, truthfully. . . . does it even effect the end product?? What has been the biggest change?

So far the Microsoft experience has been really positive. It is great that Bungie West (the Oni team) and Bungie East (the Halo team and another project team) are now in the same space. It is great to be able to hang out and talk over ideas with those guys.

Other then that things are pretty familiar. Alexander Seropian was the CEO and is now Bungie Studios at Microsoft. Pretty much all of the development people came to Microsoft. There are some different faces that are interested in what we do but everyone has been really positive. 

4.) What's the most annoying thing to deal with as a Game Making Guru. Besides my interview requests?

Crunch time on Oni was fun but it was also exhausting. Most of us were working 14 hours a day 7 days a week. After a while life becomes a blur.

4a.) Best things to deal with as a Game Making Guru??

It is really satisfying to watch people play your game and love it. The feeling that you have brought joy into the world is a great one.

5.) You wear many hats. . . . depending on who is telling it, your "Animations Programmer" and others have you as "Project Lead" and some just saying "Lead Programmer". . . what is your real title??

I am the Project Lead for Oni. When I started on the project I was just an engineer but I was promoted to Project Lead in December 1999.

5a) . . . . meaning, you do WHAT for Bungie?

I still do programming but less of that then I did before. I manage people on the project and I am ultimately responsible for the project. Fortunately I work with a great group of people including Steve Abyeta (art lead), Hardy LeBel (design lead), Hammilton Chu (producer), Chris Butcher (engineer) and many others.

6.) CliffyB has a "Guide to Breaking into the Biz" ...Tips you can give Game Making-Jedi in training??

Many people who make it into the business have started out with side projects. If you wanted to make levels and you made a collection of great shareware that is always impressive.

One of our engineers figured out the format for the terrain in Myth and then wrote some code, which did dynamic LOD on the terrain and let you fly around in a free camera. We thought that was pretty cool.

7.) Think back. . . when you first started making games, what as the general response from friends and relatives when you told them what you did for a living??

That part was great for me. Everyone was really positive. In fact many of my friends knew about Bungie before I joined Bungie and were excited. 

8.) Drink of Choice

A good mocha like the ones from Spikes in San Francisco.

9.) Tunes of Choice

I haven't been listening quite as much in the last couple of months but recently I have enjoyed: Basement Jaxx, Propeller Heads, Daft Punk, Think Tree, Fatboy Slim and Madonna.

10.) Babe of Choice 

Well the women I have been the most intrigued by are the ones I have involved with but I am not sure how amused they would be to be listed here. As far as women in the public eye go I always thought Madonna was pretty cool. I like her sense of personal freedom and her ability to remake herself. Asia Carrera impressed me for similar reasons. How can you beat a woman who defies societies standards, has an amusing sense of humor, a musical background and plays video games.

11.) Fighting games have always been either made for Consoles, or lackluster PC Ports of the original Console games, what possessed you to chose this style of game to develop for the PC Market??

I think it was the next natural step. You can see all kinds of games that are starting to have this kind of game play. Most action scenes in movies, books or comics are a combination of fighting and shooting. It seemed natural to bring that combination to a game. We just brought together a bunch of great tastes that taste great together

12.) With everyone hitting the "Massively Multiplayer" market. . . and almost all games shipping with Multiplayer support what about Oni?? ( I notice Konoko's uniform has the letter CTF on it...subliminal Capture The Flag message??? ) What style, if any Multiplayer will there be? Any Co-Op mode or head to head deathmatching??

Oni is primarily a single player game. However the multiplayer experience could have been pretty cool as well. If we made Oni again on the console we would definitely want to support split screen. I love multiplayer but you have to be careful since not every feature is right for every game. 

13.) Every successful game d00D drives a super car. . . what does Michael Evans drive?? 

I drive a 93 MR2 Turbo. It is a very fun car to drive. I bought it after I graduated from college used and I have kept it since then.

(**interviewers note**. . . introduce Michael to John Carmack )

14.) The state of games today. . . . . companies being bought, companies going under. . .where do you see the industry heading?

I don't think I have any totally new insights here. I think these days it is challenging to be a small publisher but I think there is still a place for smaller developers. I see the world of gaming becoming a little more dominated by consoles but with a core of gamers on the PC and Macintosh platforms. As time goes on the level of detail in games and the budgets of games seems to be going up.

15.) It seems everyone has a 3rd person or female lead character game or both. . . F.A.K.K. 2, Alice, N.O.L.F, coincidentally all the aforementioned games are AWESOME games. . . coincidence?? Or the right formula??

I think it has been a pretty successful formula. However I think you can make great games that lack either or both of those components.

16.) When the game is done and on the shelves. . . . what are the plans?? Vacation?? Seclusion?? Hookers?? Parties?? ( heh. . . or a combo, Secluded vacation parties with Hookers )... 

I was toying with taking a vacation to Europe but I didn't end up doing that. Instead I am up here in Redmond working on our next game. There are parties coming up that I am looking forward to and stuff I plan on going to but no real "I am done with Oni and it is time to party" thing.

and the bonus question

Since we have been friends for years, please tell our readers something about yourself that not many people know. ( make it good dammit. . . . I'm trying to impress people with this one )

Aaron Loeb from Imagine media is a childhood friend of mine and we used to run a big tournament together with a bunch of our friends at GenCon.

A big thanks goes out to Michael Evans, we appreciate the time and effort put into getting this thing out to us as fast as he did. 

As with most of my recent interviews, I am giving away a handful of copies of Oni as soon as I get my paws on them, we'll hold the contest RIGHT NOW, and I will announce the winners and ship them soon after we get em'?? Cool. . . 

ENTER HERE TO WIN A COPY OF ONI

And for those of you who haven't already tried out Oni, I don't know what your waiting for. . . . get the demo now and try it out. . . it's seriously a BLAST to play. 

GET THE DEMO HERE