Full Throttle | Why I Love

Made From Strings’ Christopher Mathes reflects on LucasArts’ worldbuilding talents and how this informed game design

Image credit: Full Throttle Remastered by Double Fine

Why I Love is a series of guest editorials on GamesIndustry.biz intended to showcase the ways in which game developers appreciate each other’s work. This entry was contributed by Christopher Mathes, the developer behind ‘Agatha Christie in space’ point-and-click murder mystery Murder On Space Station 52, which is now available on Steam.

Growing up in the early ’90s, we weren’t a PC kind of family. We had an old DOS machine with its tiny monitor that sat neglected most of the time. With no older sibling or relative to show me the ways of DOS, my knowledge of the system was cursory at best. The only game system we owned at the time was a Super Nintendo. So I often spent time in the PC game aisle at the local store, coveting all the large glossy boxes and the shiny CD treasures inside.

Then one day, that all changed. In place of the old DOS machine was a flashy new Windows PC, which included a CD-ROM drive. I booted up the pristine machine, which took no small amount of time, and began clicking away. I soon grew tired of Minesweeper and Solitaire and longed for something more.

A few days passed before I was able to make it to the store and that same aisle of tall glossy boxes. The only thing in my inventory was a few hard-earned dollars and a youthful enthusiasm. While some of the more mature-looking titles were enticing to my young eyes. I knew the box art and labels warning of the violence within them would scare my mother away from the purchase.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, a piece of cover art caught my attention. A goggle and leather-clad man jumping his motorcycle away from an explosion roaring behind him. The words ‘Full Throttle’ emblazoned the cover.

So I combined my hard-earned cash, youthful enthusiasm, and glossy game box and brought home my first CD-ROM game. I placed the disc carefully into the disc tray and watched it slowly slide into the guts of the PC. I should tell you I had no idea what adventure games were or really what to expect, but my young mind was ready for anything.

A brilliant burst of colors and pixels filled the monitor. Full-screen animations play out like the opening of a movie. CD-quality music blasts through the speakers. The brilliant voice work of Mark Hamill, Roy Conard, and many others brings all the characters to life. By the time I punched my way out of that first dumpster, I was hooked.

Ben Throttle stands out as a unique protagonist in gaming, even to this day. His combination of dry wit and brute force gives Ben an effortless ‘coolness’ that is hard to quantify. Using that brute strength also allows for the solving of puzzles in ways unique to Ben. The door’s locked… well just kick it in.

“We should design our problems and, more importantly, their solutions, around our characters. This can open up whole new avenues of thought”

There is a good lesson to learn here. We should design our problems and, more importantly, their solutions, around our characters. This can open up whole new avenues of thought as you begin to think like your protagonist and not as yourself. This is a lesson well learned and applied in my game, Murder On Space Station 52. Edward Locke, the main protagonist, is a mechanical engineer, giving him unique insights and informing the way he goes about solving puzzles. In Edward’s case, his attention to detail and mind for machinery win out the day.

‘Clever design’ is a good way to describe Full Throttle. It’s not a game that inundates you with a deluge of items and red herrings. Its sleeker interface and chapter-like structure feel polished and thoughtfully created. A great example of this is the junkyard door puzzle.

Before entering the junkyard, you find a chain attached to a garage-style door. When you pull on the said chain, the door opens, but you must let go of the chain to walk to the door. Once you release the chain, the door slams shut before you can reach it. Traditional wisdom would say find a way to keep the door open. The solution, on the other hand, is to use a padlock you find elsewhere in the chapter to lock the door shut and then climb the chain over the wall to enter the junkyard. This clever design satisfyingly subverts player expectations while also using Ben’s unique brute strength to scale the wall.

Murder On Space Station 52 follows a similar design logic to Full Throttle embracing a chapter-based structure. The story and puzzles are designed in layered tiers within each chapter. Ideally, the puzzles evolve over time adding complexity without an overload of items.

Image credit: Full Throttle by LucasArts

Let’s talk about Full Throttle’s motorcycle combat section… okay, so it’s not the best part of the game. That being said, it was a novel idea to use the Rebel Assault engine and a nice change of pace, if not a frustrating one (although you could argue once you realize the game essentially has a rock, paper, scissors-like system for fighting the different gangs, it does become much easier). That said, it does lead to one of my favorite puzzles in the game.

One of the gangs you fight along the way is the Cavefish. A cult-like gang of underground dwellers with impaired vision from all their time beneath the earth. Because of their impairment, they navigate using unique goggles that highlight the reflectors in the middle of the road. Ben eventually finds himself in the Cavefish tunnel on a hunt for a ramp to jump a nearby gorge. After you find the ramp, you soon realize the Cavefish will stop you from leaving. The solution to this problem is to push the ramp backward, popping off and removing the reflectors from the road. As the gang members approach a now reflector-less curve, they end up launching themselves off the road and into a rocky cave wall.

What I find interesting about this puzzle is that it only really works in the universe of Full Throttle. In any other world, removing the reflectors would make little to no difference. So they took time to set up worldbuilding/lore to deliver a unique puzzle later in the story.

“[Some] puzzles only really work in the universe of Full Throttle. [The developers] took time to set up worldbuilding/lore to deliver [something] unique”

Speaking of worldbuilding, the setting of Full Throttle is a memorable one. There is an almost Mad Max wasteland-type vibe to the game. But with so many unique characters and places to visit the game still feels very alive at the same time. Best of all, it doesn’t really concern itself with explaining it.

The mystery of the place was a big draw for me. I was always excited to discover new locations and the denizens that occupy them. I spent a significant amount of time building out the world for my own game, even designing unique logos and in-world brands for things such as coffee companies and terrible local garage bands. I believe no other medium is as adept at exploring worlds as video games.

It took many months to finish Full Throttle as I was pre-internet at that time. But It’s a ride that has always stuck with me. I believe I can say without being hyperbolic that Full Throttle changed my perception of what a game could be.

While I was already a pretty dedicated gamer at that point, I had not realized the medium’s potential for telling stories. And telling those stories in a way that neither movies, TV, nor novels could. It’s a real possibility that I would not be a game developer today had I not picked up that glossy box with the words ‘Full Throttle’ on the cover.

Developers interested in contributing their own Why I Love column are encouraged to reach out to us at [email protected].