As a part of the launch of Transformers Earth Wars, we recently had a chance to talk to Simon Furman who is providing the scenario writing, character bios, and more for the new game. We also briefly talked comics with Simon, if that is more your interest!
Check out the interview after the break, and our thanks to Simon for taking the time out of his day to talk with us.
TFW2005: Good evening Simon, and thank you for talking with us.
Simon Furman (SF): No problem, pleasure to be here.
TFW: So could you please tell us a bit about your role in the game?
SF: It’s a new experience for me – I’m writing the character bios and the scenarios, as well as the dialogue that goes with the scenarios and the quips some of the characters come out with.
TFW: And there are loads of characters in the game for you to do bios for.
SF: Yes, I’ve got a list of bios like this *raises arm above his head*. I’d say I’ve done about 80 bios, some for characters who aren’t in the game, some who aren’t fully rendered yet.
TFW: There’s a nice selection of characters in there too, I’m particularly happy to see the Victorion bots.
SF: There’s a lot of main and not-so-main characters in there. The team have done a great job of capturing their personalities with their animations and their abilities.
TFW: And there’s the campaign that goes with this, which does a nice way of bringing in the different characters and introducing the different elements.
SF: Yes, we keep upping the stakes as the story unfolds, and in each new scenario we’re introducing new elements.
TFW: I particularly like how Grimlock is played as the voice of not quite understanding all that is going on.
SF: Yes! It was fun to work in a bit of the big, dumb Grimlock in there, he’s a bit of a mix of the comics Grimlock and the cartoon Grimlock.
TFW: So, with games in the genre of Earth Wars, there are sometimes big events. Are there any plans for something like this, say an event based off of Target: 2006?
SF: We’re looking to bring in some side stories at some point as the game expands. We know roughly where we are going with the main campaign, but yeah, for this one the sky is the limit.
TFW: And are there any characters you’re really pushing to get into the game?
SF: Not really, the game guys are going with it, bringing in all the main and not-so-main characters and one-by-one they’re ticking off all the characters on my wish-list.
TFW: So, moving on to talk about comics, which you’ve been involved in the whole way through from Marvel to Dreamwave, Titan, and IDW. One of my favourite stories – outside of the Marvel UK comics I grew up on – was the Titan movie story arc that started with Twilight’s Last Gleaming.
SF: Yes, that was a fun alternate universe, and a good way to tell stories with those characters in a different setting than we’d have had them in otherwise.
TFW: I loved that storyline, but I’d always felt the ending was a bit abrupt. Had you hoped to carry it on and bring in some elements from Revenge of the Fallen?
SF: The [Titan] movie comics were always a bit predicated by the movies, they were aimed at a younger audience so there was always a need for a break and a fresh start. It would have been lovely to have carried on and played around, but I don’t think we’ll ever have the kind of freedom that we had in the Marvel UK days.
TFW: Yes, it’s all tied in with what is going on in other media these days. I’m enjoying the IDW take on things.
SF: Yes, I am a big fan of James’ writing on More than Meets the Eye, and the new direction he is taking things in. He’s doing a fantastic job.
TFW: Thinking on different directions, one of the series you wrote for Dreamwave was Transformers Energon, which you very kindly shared your outlines for the ending of a few years back which led into Transformers Cybertron, and I’ve always been curious, what would Simon Furman’s take on Transformers Cybertron have been?
SF: For Energon, we’d sketched out the rest of the series – some of the issues were fully scripted, and others were just odd paragraphs. For Cybertron, we never got that far with it unfortunately, but it would have been a continuation of the Armada / Energon story we had been doing.
TFW: And with Primus in Cybertron, and Unicron a major player in the other two series, would we have seen the big Primus VS Unicron throwdown?
SF: Absolutely! We’d have done it if there had been a chance.
TFW: And speaking of Unicron, there was another group who you contributed to the mythology, the 13, who have been getting a lot of play from Hasbro over the last few years. I’ve always been curious what your feeling was on the decision to make Optimus Prime one of the 13.
SF: The 13 were something that Hasbro was always very invested in. We dropped hints and tried to work some characters in, but ultimately, we’d have gone along with what they wanted. It’s not the way we’d have gone with it, but we never nailed down all 13. It was really Hasbro’s thing with the movies.
TFW: Though in my mind, it started when you brought in the Liege Maximo in that awesome reveal at the end of Generation 2.
SF: *chuckles* The Liege Maximo was something we’d never fully laid out when we did him. We’d have fleshed him out if we’d gone on, but it’s like a lot of things where we’d have carried it on.
TFW: And you did get to tell a bit more of his story in the UK convention story, Alignment, to wrap up that storyline.
SF: Yes, and we got to do Regeneration 1, and finish off Generation 1. It’s not how we would have finished it back in the day, because we know more about Transformers now, but it was good to give it that definitive end.
SF: All in all, I don’t feel that there are too many loose ends. And Transformers keep on transforming, so it is all onwards and upwards, or as I am fond of saying, it never ends.
TFW: And hopefully your involvement with Transformers can also carry on!
SF: Yes, there are a few more things I am working on, and we’re talking about where we might go from here. There’s plenty more in the pipeline – watch this space!
Our thanks to Simon for taking the time to talk to us.
Transformers Earth Wars is out now on Android and iOS. Click here to check it out!
Hooper_X
I figured Furman had to be involved when Blaster used the phrase "well and truly" in a cutscene. Like, right there I had this moment of "Hey, Furman worked on this, didn't he?"
(I haven't gotten far enough into the campaign to really judge it as a story yet, but so far it looks like a stock "race to find the parts of the macguffin"….)
SouthtownKid
I didn't know Furman was involved with the game. That explains why the dialogue works so well. I just wish the developers had chosen a different format for the game itself. Clash of Clans seems like a really odd fit for Transformers.
Novaburnhilde
Very nice!
Great interview.
Sol Fury
As a part of the launch of Transformers Earth Wars, Space Ape games set up an interview with one of the longest-serving writers in Transformers, Simon Furman, who is writing the scenarios and character bios (amongst other bits) for Earth Wars.
We also took to opportunity to indulge in a few slightly less frequently asked comic questions such as the Dreamwave Transformers Cybertron series – if you've ever wanted to know more about this like me, you might find that part interesting!
TFW interviews Simon Furman on Transformers Earth Wars – Transformer World 2005 – TFW2005.COM