Kim Castro is Vice-President of Sonalysts and Producer of Jane's 688(I)

Early in 1995, I was working with a marketer, Rob Batchelder, here at Sonalysts to try and break into the commercial software development world. Most of our efforts were concentrated on the commercial training/corporate marketing CD-ROM arena. Rob made a cold call to Paul Grace and arranged to meet with Paul at upcoming E3 in LA. At the time, Paul was the VP in charge of EA’s Jane’s Combat Simulation division. Although we had no commercial gaming experience, Paul found Sonalysts interesting because of our many years of supporting the U.S. Navy as a defense contractor. Luckily for us, Paul had been thinking about updating the sub games they had done a few years earlier – 688 Attack Sub and Seawolf. I’m not sure Paul’s interest in Sonalysts would have gone anywhere, if we hadn’t arranged for Paul and some of his folks to go out on a 688 Class sub for a day. Paul was eager to go on the sub ride, so he had to come visit us. I forget what sub they went on, but I remember Paul brought a Playstation console and a bunch of games with them as a gift to the ship. That first meeting occurred in March of 1995, and we signed a contract to develop a script for a submarine simulation game in July of that year, and went into full development in about the October time frame. Initially, we told EA how we were going to improve and update 688 Attack Sub, but Paul told us to "…start new and to make the most realistic submarine game ever." He later amended his statement to add the phrase "… that’s fun to play."

At the time, I was working as a Sonalysts contractor full-time at a Navy R&D lab in New London, CT, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC). I formed the team of programmers from the group of young guys we had hired to work for Sonalysts at the lab – Tod Swain, Mel Davey, Dave Capizzano, and Rob Costello. Shortly after we started, I raided another group here at Sonalysts working at a Navy lab in Newport, RI to bring Mike Kolar onto the team. The programming team was rounded out with the addition of the final programmer, stolen from yet another group here at Sonalysts, Scott Martin. Scott left shortly after 688(I) went gold to join Ion Storm and Warren Specter to make Deus Ex. Although there were lots of overlapping areas, the primary division of responsibilities for the programmers was:

Tod – user-interface design/multiplayer

Mel – 3D

Dave – user interface

Rob – mission editor, tools & widgets

Mike – Sim/AI

Scott – world databases, audio

Our in-house media department did all the art and audio; primarily Gates Councilor, Kattie Konno-Leonffu, and Curt Ramm. Sue McConnell was added to the team to work on the databases, Jane’s browser, manuals, and localization – besides, she was my boss’s wife. Sue’s husband Bill and Terry Jones, both former submariners, were the primary subject matter experts/scenario developers.

Early control panel

We spent a lot of hours on the phone with Paul and his team in California, and us in Connecticut, trying to balance game play and how submarines really operate, with a few coast-to-coast trips thrown in, also. I will be forever grateful to Paul and the rest of his team for allowing us to enter the world of game development – Ed Gwynn, Jim Rushing, John Williams, Craig Suko, Jeff Glazier, Adela Chau, et al. They mentored us through the game development process and allowed us to make a game we’re very proud of having produced.

Early in this process, SSI’s Fast Attack was released. We thought it was a really good game, and realized we had our work cut out for us. Then about half-way through development Red Storm released Clancy’s SSN. We were really bummed – how could we compete against Tom Clancy? Luckily for us, although it was a good game, SSN wasn’t the hi-fidelity sub sim we were trying to make.

Return to the Revival!

Return to SUBSIM Review

©2000 SUBSIM Review