Interview with Derek Brinkmann and Tim Cotten of Citadel Studios
As the Shards Online Kickstarter campaign enters its final week, the Ultima Codex is pleased to present this short(ish) interview with Derek Brinkmann and Tim Cotten of Citadel Studios.
Derek Brinkmann began his career in the gaming industry at EA Tiburon, working on the Madden games. After a period of moving between studios, he applied for a position with the Ultima Online team, felt instantly at home with the group (which at the time was based at Redwood Shores), and signed on with them in a heartbeat. He went on to serve as the co-lead, opposite Tim Cotten, on the Stygian Abyss expansion for the game. This expansion, well-versed readers should recall, introduced both the Underworld dungeon and the Ter Mur facet into Ultima Online, both of which contain lovingly-crafted throwbacks to earlier Ultima games (Ultima Underworld and Ultima 6, specifically).
Tim Cotten got his start in the gaming industry working on Ultima Online; he responded to a job posting on the Stratics forums and landed a position on the development team at Redwood Shores. He went on to serve as the second co-lead for Stygian Abyss, and also helped co-found the “UO Frat House” (a shared dwelling populated by a handful of UO developers).
Both men have, of course, since left the employ of EA, and are hard at work crafting Shards, which draws upon many of the design ideas they had whilst working on Ultima Online, and aims to offer a similar experience to that game in terms of sandbox play and world openness…whilst also handing near-complete control over almost all aspects of gameplay to players, allowing them to craft their own worlds and tell their own stories.
