Overlord Q&A

Ars Technica has published a short Q&A with Rhianna Pratchett, writer and co-story designer on Triumph Studios' Overlord.
Q: You're writing for evil characters, but the game has a strong comedic streak through it. How did you balance making the character a "bad guy" while still making people want to play as him? Was there ever a moment where you had an idea and worried that the player would recoil from their own actions?

A: Let's face it, everyone loves the bad guy. So I'd say that's a pretty easy sell! We've deliberately made it humorous, almost Peter Pan-evil, in nature partly to keep our ratings reasonable (we're not trying to be Manhunt with goblins) and because it was actually a lot more fun to design and write for that kind of story. You're "evil" in an amusing, rub-your-hands-together-and-go "Mwah-ha-ha" kind of way, rather than a pickling-babies-and-eating-human-livers way.

We didn't want to force players into doing really evil acts (ratings alert again!) but we wanted to give them the choice. So you start off as being default evil you've got the dark tower, the spiky armor, the army of loyal minions at your command and where you take your innate evilness from thereon in is totally up to you.