We have, of course, tried to run the gamut of world types in BZ2. From frosty planets beheld by nuclear winter, to chaotic planets stressed by asteroidal bombardment and massive tectonic activity. There are a few surprises in store as to all the planets you get to interact with, but suffice to say they are varied and alive.

We arrived at these planet types at first simply by brainstorming the different options available to us and then resolving them down to generalizations. We knew we wanted dynamic weather effects, alien rock formations, ancient civilizations, and all the things that go into making the worlds mysterious for the gamer. While you normally would not find a planet with its entire surface area contained in one ecosystem--say, the "all rainforest" planet--in a game it is sometimes better to give a planet some focus so that it will remain a memorable one. We wanted worlds so that while you were playing and you were told you were going to planet "bla-bla" you might get a chill remembering your last experience there.

When you dream up a world, are conceptualizing just the visual aspects or are you thinking about how it sounds as well? Talk about the conceptualization process.

One important feature of a planet is the life that invades its ecosystems. These various lifeforms--creatures and foliage--work together to mold the planets surface and help set the mood for the environment. As such, this mood is augmented by not only the visual but the audible as well. Early on, I drew up some sounds which I attached to the trees and lifeforms to give the mood a boost. This helped us sculpt the rest of the world and its "attitude."

Could you give an example of how you use color and texture to create mood in one of these playing environments?

We had decided that having the gratuitous ice-winter planet was a good thing, but we wanted to distort it a bit so that the coloring was not the traditional "grey fog, white snow" sort of thing. Envisioning a planet gripped with nuclear winter gave us the creative push to add some color to the world. We gave the snow a distinct magenta tint and pushed some purple into the mountain ranges to add contrast. Then we proceeded to add the gratuitous ancient civilization to remind the players that this was a devastated alien world.

Are there any new technologies available to you in BZII that make the worlds richer? How would you describe the differences in the playing environments in BZI and BZII? Was there one particular overall improvement you were determined to achieve?

The first and foremost technology that was required to bring these worlds to life was the terrain system. Without a kick-ass terrain system a strain would have been placed on the other assets in the world to carry the burden of mood. Well, with some luck and an awesome programming staff, we hit upon an incredible system, one with extreme flexibility and variation. With our new system, I have the benefit of a smoothly blended, highly variable terrain palette with which to sculpt the worlds.

Which world has been the toughest to actually assemble? Have there been any surprises as you've put things together? Which world has changed the most from your original concept?