Irrational was once a tiny team that made games on miniscule budgets. Today we’re much, much bigger and the budget’s grown along with the ambition of the group’s games. This month’s episode of Irrational Behavior explores what these changes have meant for the studio’s culture and the individuals who’ve been on board as the industry itself has had to adopt the professional practices of big business. Episode highlights include an insider take on the making of Thief, designers Dorian Hart and Alexx Kay waxing nostalgic on the days when they were allowed to do voice over work for Freedom Force, as well as the story of a mysterious onanist who secretly used artist Shawn Robertson’s office for forbidden self-pleasures.

Stay tuned to IrrationalGames.com for more content related to this months podcast.

Discuss this episode of Irrational Behavior over in the forum.

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Podcast music provided by:

• Josh Rathbun
• Matt Grimm
• Geoff Graves
• Rich Vreeland/DisasterPeace
• Signal Hill

All games have secrets that stay locked away for years on end.  Creative Director Ken Levine sits down and reveals some of these secrets from 1999’s classic shooter System Shock 2.

Apocalypse Shock?

“The original story had the player going to a spaceship to assassinate a character similar to Colonel Walter Kurtz from Apocalypse Now,” says Creative Director Ken Levine. “We pitched the game to Paul Neurath at Looking Glass Studios based on a story outline I wrote and they gave us access to the Dark Engine which was used to make Thief.”

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In any game development studio, you’ll find a bunch of inspired and imaginative people who have a lot to get off their chests. To save on counseling fees, we decided to sublimate these repressed feelings about their gaming lives by sticking a microphone in their faces and creating a series of podcasts that offer an insight into what makes us – and our games – tick.

Each podcast will explore a particular theme in what we hope is an entertaining and insightful way, and this theme will also evolve throughout the month on the Irrational Games website itself. Visit regularly and you’ll find content on the site that helps illustrate what we’re trying to describe in the podcast, or expands and explores the theme further.

Please contribute to the discussions about the podcasts in the forums and if you have a great idea for a future theme then let us know! We might even send you something to say thanks. But don’t hold us to it.

So to kick off, we chose a brutal theme – “ideas that died”. We explore what happens when creativity runs into technical restrictions, a lack of clear consensus, and – at times – its own convolution. You’ll glimpse abandoned BioShock tidbits, as well as an as yet unrevealed game from four years ago when Irrational Games backed away from a zombie invasion. And much, much more.

Oh, and you’ll understand why ‘dog in a wheelchair’ is the answer to just about any question…

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At PAX 2008 in Seattle, Ken Levine gave the keynote address which has become a hallmark moment for gaming nerds, geeks, and dweebs around the globe. Penny Arcade was nice enough to give us video of the entire keynote for all the fans out there who might have missed it!  Thanks to the guys and girls at Penny Arcade for providing us with the video!