In BioShock Infinite a rather particular character stands out: an NPC who goes around with a baguette to tell us that we are in France. This is the second part of the game’s Burial At Sea DLC which takes place in French territory. This particular character dances around a bulletin board holding his loaf of bread in his hand and has become so popular with gamers that many have carried the cosplay of him in past events.
Now, after a long time, Gwen Freythe former developer of the game, used Twitter precisely to explain what is behind the behavior of this NPC: “I put all the background characters in BioShock Infinite and the DLC. It was an important part of my job. That’s why there’s a guy with a baguette“explained in a thread.
“I thought the Paris scene was too static and needed more movement, but I couldn’t afford another AI around“said Frey.”I thought an idiot running in circles around that cylinder might work as I could just expand the collision to keep the player from going through it“.
I was populating the Paris scene with “chumps” (skeletal meshes of humans with no AI).
I’d play a looping animation on a person, script some head-tracking or whatever, & request VO lines from the writers to flesh them out.
– Gwen Frey (@direGoldfish) February 7, 2022
I thought the Paris scene was too static & needed more motion, I but couldn’t afford another AI walking around. I figured a chump running in a circle around that cylinder could work since I could just expand the collision of it to prevent the player from running through them.
– Gwen Frey (@direGoldfish) February 7, 2022
I decided to reuse that. But a couple randomly dancing seemed dumb.
I figured I’d make 2 dancing kids instead.
However, the kids had different proportions than the adults, so the kids’ feet were clipping through the ground and their hands were going through each other.
– Gwen Frey (@direGoldfish) February 7, 2022
So I deleted the boy’s dancing partner and attached a baguette to his hands. Bam! Boy dances with baguette! Ship it!
I figured if anyone asked I’d just say “bread is great right ?!” I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but this boy is the most viral thing I’ve ever made?
– Gwen Frey (@direGoldfish) February 7, 2022
Initially there were two children dancing together, but due to some problems with the ground collision, the developer opted to change her approach: “I deleted the boy’s dance partner and attached a baguette to his hands. Bam! The boy dances with the baguette! I thought if someone asked me I would just say ‘the bread is great, right ?!’ I didn’t think about it at the time, but this guy is the most viral thing he’s ever done“.
Source: GamesRadar
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