Introduction: Lebanon, the birthplace of Joseph Fars, may be the spiritual home that will eventually go to his works.
Hideo Kojima, a well-known game producer with a reputation among players around the world for the Metal Gear Solid series, has not yet won the TGA Game of the Year award.
Ken Levine, producer of the BioShock series and known as an industry wizard who combines sociologists and science fiction writers, has not won the TGA Game of the Year award.
In addition to them, there are also Eastern and Western star producers such as Shinji Mikami, Masahiro Sakurai, etc., who have fallen on the road to the TGA game of the year for various reasons. Even Hidetaka Miyazaki, who is equal to the word "altar", finally won the TGA Game of the Year award with "Only Wolf" after the success of "Dark Souls" and "BloodBorne Curse".
Joseph Fars, known for his "Fxxk Oscars" at the TGA Awards, became the 2021 TGA Game of the Year after "Escape" attracted limited praise.
Compared with the star producer mentioned above, Fars may not be the best, but on the other hand, his childhood, his career experience, and the seemingly unintentional but fateful fate between him and the game have made him a unique legendary experience and creative inspiration.
Let's pull back 100 years ago — you read that right, Fars is 44 years old, but our story begins 100 years ago in Lebanon in the Middle East.
The land of bullets, divided by warlords
In 1926, the First World War caused the European imperialist countries to be seriously injured, and the control of Britain and France over overseas colonies and spheres of influence declined, so they began to use territorial differentiation, support local puppet governments and other means to try to survive, and many of the so-called "historical problems" that still make some countries and regions unsafe to this day were planted at this time, including the separation of the Lebanese region from Syria, which was originally owned by France.
Unlike the surrounding muslim-majority countries and regions, Lebanon's population consists of two major parts, one is the descendants of the Greek Mycenaean people who believe in Christianity (the Fars family belongs to this part), and the other part is of course the Muslim majority of the population in the Middle East. The 1932 census conducted by the French showed that 52 percent of the population was descended from Christians and 48 percent of the population were Muslims, and although the results were widely questioned by local Muslims, the statistics made it clear what the proportion of camps within the Lebanese government was the highest level of leadership, Muslims held important positions, and Christians held more seats in parliament.
The explosion at the port of Beirut has allowed Lebanon to re-enter the vision of people in various countries in a tragic posture
In 1940, the Vichy French government, one of the major events of the "Milk Law", was established, and three years later, Lebanon officially declared independence from French control, and a new chapter in Lebanese history was opened. From the beginning of the founding of the country to the 1960s, it can be regarded as the golden age of Lebanon, in addition to its own natural resources and geographical advantages, as the only non-Muslim country in the Middle East except Israel, such as many paid armed organizations in the Middle East after World War II, due to the country's restrictions on entertainment activities, it will go to Lebanon for consumption at the first time after receiving a salary, which also greatly stimulates the development of Lebanon's local economy, especially the cultural tourism industry.
However, the peaceful days soon came to an end, and in the late 1960s, there were frequent wars between Egypt, Israel, Syria and Palestine, and Lebanon seemed to be a peaceful zone in the fires of war, but its own special social and demographic composition soon accumulated the powerful potential of war.
First, the Selje invasion of Syria led to the flight of a large number of Syrian Muslim refugees to Lebanon, forming large and small refugee camps. Then the Arafat-led Palestine Liberation Organization, while being rejected by the governments of the Middle East, became an uninvited guest in Lebanon, and Israel's response was, of course, those four words: although it is far away, it will be punished.
Beginning in the 1970s, external pressures led to growing tensions between Christians and Muslims within the Lebanese government, with the Maronites of Christians choosing to cooperate with Israel in expelling and eliminating the PLO that had remained in the region, while the Muslims, in alliance with left-wing groups and the Pan-Arab League, were in frequent contact with the Palestinian government in private.
Israeli forces invading Lebanon
By 1977, when Joseph Fars was born, Lebanon, a part of the city that was not yet the size of The City of Tianjin, had gathered invading Israeli government forces; Palestinian troops cooperating with Muslim factions in the local government; U.S. troops who never forgot to add to the affairs of other countries; Lebanese government forces; opposition in the Lebanese government forces; the Mubarak-led Palestine Liberation Organization (partially financed by the Soviet Union); and the Lebanese Allah Party, which had separated from the PLO because of dissatisfaction with Mubarak's leadership. There are basically only two ways of communication between the various forces, one is assassination and the other is massacre. At this time, the Fars family, like many Lebanese families, spent their childhood between gunfire and gunfire, while the adults worked hard until they had saved enough money for the family to escape the war and emigrate overseas.
If Fars has any hidden origins with the game, it is that there was a super Nintendo console (SFC) in the home at that time, and the immortal masterpiece "Key to Time" temporarily became the spiritual home of Fars and his brother to hide from the outside world.
Bergman's hometown, the director of the Fxxk Oscars
After many failed attempts, the Fars family finally immigrated to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, in the late 1980s, bid farewell to the war-torn homeland, and with a sense of unknown in a foreign land, Fars began a new life. Perhaps inspired by the environment to be more adaptable, or perhaps the war environment has a special role in promoting human growth, Fars and his brother Fars Fars (the name is the same as the last name, similar to Lisa lisa in "jojo") soon mastered English and Swedish, and at the age of 15 from an elder in the family a camera, the younger brother Joseph directed, the older brother Fars starred in this common combination of the later common form of Fars's directing career, From this point on, the initial foundation was laid.
Sweden's most famous filmmaker, is the national treasure director Ingmar Bergman, whose works are known for their esoteric shooting methods and profound and difficult to understand, so it is really not me pretending to be a literary youth, Ang Lee's classic meme "I don't understand, but I was greatly shocked" - "shocked" to Director Lee, the Oscar-winning director, is Bergman's film "Voice and Drizzle". Although Fars does not have the high artistic attainment of Bergman, the "Fxxk Oscar" that made him famous in the war is only filmed in Europe with the master in his lifetime, and has a bit of inheritance with the Resume of the Hollywood entertainment film industry in the United States.
Film master Bergman
Fars made his first film after graduating from film school at the age of 23 called Jalla! Jalla！ " is a romantic comedy focusing on how Lebanese immigrants integrated into Swedish society, and the film was a great success after its release, becoming the Swedish box office champion that year. In the following years, Fars has successively shot many films such as "Kopps" and "Zozo", among which the most acclaimed "Zozo" is a realistic theme work shot by Fars after returning to Lebanon after 17 years and using his real childhood experience as inspiration. By 2010, Fars was already a well-known director in Europe, so when a Swedish art school offered a game design course and wanted to invite a director to explain script writing to students, Fars was approached.
Film "Zozo"
Is the brother on a single person playing "Twin Legends"
"I've been a true gamer since I was a kid, and when I received this invitation from a game design course, I saw an opportunity to realize my dreams, which was about creative inspiration that I couldn't achieve through film, and I wanted to make my own game." This is what Fars said in an interview with the media after becoming a star game producer.
At that time, Fars used the 6 weeks of attendance at the course to have a more specific exchange with the game design students who had obviously been brewing the game concept for a while. He conceived of a single-player game with two protagonists (apparently fales and his brother), in which a player had to operate two characters at the same time, solving various scene puzzles in the adventure, and re-establishing the once contradictory relationship between the two brothers, if you enlarge this intention, you will find that in a sense, this is actually the root of various contradictions in Lebanon, that is, Christians and Muslims are in the same country, facing the same external difficulties, but each has its own history and current situation.
However, when Fars took his (self-considered mature) idea to find a game studio that could be celebrated together, he frequently ate behind closed doors, and in the eyes of most game practitioners, the director did not make the correct connection between the list of people playing and the two characters (this matter shows the superiority of "ICO" from one side). It wasn't until Fars met the newly established Starbreeze Studio that his idea was finally officially developed under the name of "Brothers Twin Legends".
Pay Day is one of the games released by Starbreeze
According to the memories of Carl Granberg, the chief programmer of Starbreeze Studio at that time, Fars mastered the process and technical requirements of game development in a short period of time, and unlike those crossover people who rushed to achieve their ideals halfway out of the house, Fars knew very well from the beginning where the limitations and boundaries of the game were, which greatly eliminated the need for "" I'd like to have a movie-like cutscene here, and we're going to fix it this week" is unrealistic, and more energy is focused on how to achieve a "single player operation two-player game" and a fun gameplay interaction with the level design.
What really caused the team members a headache was that the game obviously had a stable gameplay system, but because Fars hated the market for the same gameplay from start to finish, players only repeated and repeated games most of the time, so the development process had to constantly add new gameplay, and the work related to various designs and tests became more and more stressful, and Fars was reluctant to compromise until everyone on the team accepted his style (in fact, I didn't accept it and left in the early days of development), and finally completed "Brothers Twin Legends", a masterpiece with an average score of 86 on the authoritative rating website Metacritic.
To be honest, this peak came a little early
What happened next is relatively familiar to everyone.
In order to better realize his ideas, After the success of "Brothers Twin Legends", Fars set up Hazelight Studios out of his own pocket, which absorbed a number of developers who had previously established a tacit understanding with Fars at Starbreeze, and received $3.7 million in development funds from EA Originals' project department. This money alone does not seem to be a small amount, but the investor's money is not for you to buy Ferrari, Fars must make a corresponding return to continue to prove himself in the game industry, not to mention that the money is EA such a money string head, the project to make money is naturally happy, but there is no second chance if it does not meet expectations.
The "Fxxk Oscar" on the TGA did make players who watched the hilarity remember Fars, but it was not until "Escape" achieved a good reputation again that he officially established himself in the industry. Unlike "Twin Legends", "Escape Day" requires players to control two characters in two people to play, for this game in the release of a special set up a one-person purchase, two-person sharing mechanism, in order to those "no friends" players into the potential users, so the game after the release of more than 1 million sales behind the experience of more than 2 million players, Fars won the reputation, EA is also made money.
In my opinion, what is more shocking than the fame and fortune of "Escape" is the performance of "Double Trip" on the altar of this year's TGA (you may not recognize the authority of the TGA, but games such as God of War, Only Wolf, and The Witcher 3 cannot always be "Tu Yi Le'er"). The game itself has a rich gameplay throughout the whole process, reflecting the deep excavation and high degree of completion of the fun of the two-player game, in this era of two-player games, especially the offline two-player game experience is relatively scarce, it has indeed brought a lot of surprises to the heat. In addition to the game, it is the AAA masterpiece that queues up to perform the overturning after the outbreak of the epidemic, but it is a medium-sized project such as "Double Trip", and the core developer is fully responsible for the game, which can rely on personal control to ensure the final quality of the work and let the players feel the heavy sincerity.
Conclusion: Although Fars won the highest award soon after he entered the industry, I think there must be a bigger game in his mind, that is, according to the similar trajectory of Fars's directorial career, he will find a game that belongs only to him in his hometown, Lebanon, which is still suffering from war (due to the explosion of the port of Beirut, the country is still in a state of anarchy due to the explosion of the port of Beirut).