Editing Stonekeep (section)

==Development==
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===Budget and technology===
The earliest development of ''Stonekeep'' dated back in October 1988, discussed between Brian Fargo and Todd Camasta with the simple title "Dungeon Game".<ref name="SKDev">{{Cite news|url=http://www.interplay.com:80/games/stonekh2.html|title=The History of Stonekeep|access-date=2017-04-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19961220013233/http://www.interplay.com/games/stonekh2.html|archive-date=December 20, 1996|url-status=dead}}</ref> Producer [[Peter Oliphant]] and lead programmer Michael Quarles joined the company in 1990 and 1991, respectively. The game development was planned for a minimum period of nine months and a minimum budget of $50,000. However, because the initial stages of the game looked good, it exceeded nine months, lasting a total of five years.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}} ''Stonekeep''{{'}}s final cost was $5 million; its production crew had grown to 200 members by the time of the game's release.<ref name=retrogamer>{{cite journal | title=Cheap as Chips; ''Stonekeep'' | author=Jones, Darran | journal=[[Retro Gamer]] | issue=111 | date=2013 | page=28 }}</ref> The intro sequence was the most expensive part of the production, costing nearly half a million dollars to produce, which was ten times more than the initial budget for the entire project.

The initial story line was written by Oliphant, who also designed and programmed the graphics and [[artificial intelligence]] engine for the game. The project started out being called ''Brian's Dungeon'' (named after [[Brian Fargo]], the president of Interplay Entertainment at the time). Fargo came up with the final name, ''Stonekeep''.

The production took much longer than expected because of the rapid advancement of [[personal computer hardware]] at the time; specifically, PC [[Central processing unit|CPU]]s advancing from [[Intel 80386|80386]], to [[Intel 80486|80486]], to [[Pentium]]s in the years the game was being developed. Oliphant, who originally designed the game and was lead programmer, left the game as the project passed its fourth year in development. He felt his continued presence was resulting in the constant addition of [[feature creep]] and changes (he was a contractor, and had initially only signed up for a nine-month project). After he left, the design became finalized and the product was shipped one year later. Quarles, who was an Interplay employee, stayed as the game's producer and saw it through to the end.

The initial specification for the game included that it could ''not'' require a [[Hard disk drive|hard drive]] or a mouse, run on an 80286 CPU, use 640K, and run off [[floppy disk]]s. At the project's end, the game had been upgraded to ''requiring'' a mouse, a hard drive, a 386 CPU, and ran off [[CD-ROM]]. As a result, the engine had to be extensively modified throughout the production.

About three years into the project, Oliphant suggested to Fargo that the product be delivered on CD-ROM. Fargo rejected this idea at the time, citing the failure of previous Interplay CD-ROM projects that had gone this route. Oliphant suggested this after Fargo requested him to drop his percentage of [[royalties]] by half due to the high cost of production and goods to create the product, as it was at that time to be shipped on eight floppy disks. The cost of one CD was about the cost of one floppy disk, and the possibilities for eight floppy disks having problems is much greater than a single CD, so the solution seemed obvious to Oliphant. And, in fact, six months later Fargo changed his mind and made the same decision.

===Graphics and audio===
The 3D rendering was accomplished by using the [[StrataVision 3D|Strata Vision]] application to create the room layouts, monsters, and objects.<ref name="SKDev"/> The initial motions of the monsters in the game were captured by using a blue screen outside with the sunlight. This resulted in uneven lighting from take to take, so eventually all that work was scrapped. Later, a professional studio with controlled lighting was used.

The earliest film footage was taken with a standard film camera and Macintosh computer for editing. This technology proved to be inadequate. After two years of failed filming, the team turned their attention to Hollywood. Aided by the production company Dia Quest and new digitizing technology, successful filming was finally implemented into the project. The entire five months of successful filming was soon met with several setbacks including toning, lighting, and digitization problems. When the team finally obtained the [[Betacam]] technology, the development was back on track.<ref name="SKDev"/>

According to Oliphant,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXvNYXeNM6U  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/XXvNYXeNM6U| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=Matt Chat 136: Peter Oliphant on Stonekeep |publisher=Youtube.com |date=2012-02-11 |access-date=2013-08-24}}{{cbignore}}</ref> when the project was taken over by Quarles, two questionable decisions were made. The game was always designed to be grid-based, where the player moved from grid to grid (in contrast to today's full freedom of motion [[Three-dimensional space|3D]] environments). Oliphant wanted the movement from center of grid to center of grid, but Quarles changed this to edge of grid to edge of grid. This resulted in the problem that turning within a grid moved the player to the other side of the grid. Much of the long production was a result of correcting this lack of symmetry. The other questionable decision was to not include Oliphant in the production of the motion graphics (Oliphant had an extensive Hollywood background before becoming a game developer). One consequence was that the original combat graphics had been captured from the waist up only, as Quarles had reasoned one must be close to a monster to fight it. Peter Oliphant, upon being delivered these graphics and seeing them for the first time, pointed out that the player could back away during a fight, which would result in seeing their legs. The legs therefore had to be drawn in by hand frame-by-frame to fix this, until these graphics were scrapped for a professional [[Chroma key|green-screen]] treatment used later on. The original skeleton in the game was an actual skeleton being worn by one of the artists, and was filmed against a green screen. Because of this, there were no images or animations of the skeleton walking away from the player during game play. A few months before the game's release the skeleton was replaced with the 3D model which was used on the packaging.

Due to the complexity of the graphics, during play the computer would have to constantly load graphics from the CD. This prohibited the use of the CD for music, so the developers used [[chip music]] for the soundtrack.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Making Tracks: The Noble Art of Game Music |journal=[[Next Generation (magazine)|Next Generation]]|issue=3|publisher=[[Imagine Media]]|date=March 1995|page=51}}</ref> The game features the voice of [[Arthur Burghardt]]—well known as the character [[Destro]] in the 1985 ''[[G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1985 TV series)|G.I. Joe]]'' cartoon series—in the role of Khull-Khuum.

''Stonekeep'' was originally released for the PC [[DOS]] and [[Windows 95]] in 1995, packaged in an elaborate gravestone-style illustrated box, and came with a white hardback novella ''Thera Awakening'', coauthored by [[Steve Jackson (US game designer)|Steve Jackson]] and [[David L. Pulver]] (all rights of the novel went to Interplay). The CD-ROM also included a file called "muffins.txt" which contained a recipe for "[[Tim Cain]]'s Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins". Years later, ''Stonekeep'' was later made available for purchase through [[GOG.com]]'s [[digital distribution]] system for [[Windows XP]] and [[Windows Vista]].<ref name="gog">{{cite web|title=''Stonekeep'' purchase page|url=http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/stonekeep|access-date=2009-09-12|publisher=[[GOG.com]]}}</ref>