Back to the Roots
by Némoté, November 11th 2006

The Outcast universe was one of the most atmospheric universes released in a game in 1999. But what inspired and influenced the writers and artists, while they were creating this highly acclaimed PC game? Where did some of their ideas come from?
In this special we will take a detailed look at the roots of the Outcast universe.

Superstrings

Let’s do the thinking first. :) It was in the 1980s that scientists created the hypothesis of superstrings. As it is known atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are constructed of quarks. The superstring theory assumes that matter does not consist of particles as smallest parts, but of vibrating strings. Through the years, five different theories were developed.
Then in 1995, Edward Witten unified them to the so-called “M-theory”, which includes the idea of superstrings being multi-dimensional and makes the co-existence of many unconceivable dimensions and parallel universes imaginable.*

Modern Science Fiction

But not only science inspired the creators of Outcast. Another strong influence were modern science-fiction movies. Especially the motion picture “Stargate”, which hit cinemas in 1994, was inspiration for the team of Appeal. From the obviously copied daokas, via the two main characters – a military action hero and a cultural scientist –, to a foreign culture, that is oppressed by a violent, mysterious and absolute ruler.

The Talan lifestyle, architecture, language and traditions were inspired by oriental and asian cultures. Countries of the middle-east, northern Africa and south-east asia pop up in mind, while travelling through Okriana, Motazaar, Shamazaar and Okasankaar. In reality existing regions like “ Kandahar ” and “Nangarhar” link unmistakably to Adelpha. In the same way the roots of the Talan language, created by Appeal, are easily found in Latin, French, oriental/asian and african languages.

Technical Roots

Naturally the technical parts of the game have roots as well. The first game to use voxels was “Comanche” (1992). Its sequel, released in 1995, offered detailed landscapes based on a complete voxel engine. In consequence Appeal decided to use voxels to create an organic landscape.

Only a year later “Tomb Raider” redefined the action-adventure genre and introduced the gameplay standards on which Outcast was built. But Appeal also extended these mechanisms by adding quests, which were relevant to the story or told their own little stories. These little missions were inspired by role-playing-games, as well as the idea of a reputation system.

In addition to this unique mix of known elements, Appeal created a completely new, innovative and sophisticated artificial intelligence technology, called “GAIA”. “Game Artificial Intelligence with Agents” is a set of C++ libraries that provide sophisticated control of game characters based on research in Distributed Artificial Intelligence. Intelligence is represented as a distributed activity over a set of autonomous routines called agents.* An agent uses skills, such as hearing, sight, etc. to complete assigned tasks. These agents can interact to realize a complex task and compete with each other to ‘make’ decisions. This makes characters/NPCs possible, which/who follow their own daily routine (meet other Talans, sleep, buy food, etc.). Unfortunately the full potential of this technology was not used (flee or fight, hide, etc.). But modern RPGs, like the Gothic and the Elder Scrolls series, took up the idea and perfected it.

So finally, Outcast became an influence and a root for other games itself. Its ideas and inspiration will live on and from time to time they will cross our ways during our journeys through the vast universes of modern games.

* source: Wikipedia