Karla Zimonja has worked on many video games, including the critically acclaimed Tacoma. In this interview with Game Developer, Zimonia explores science fiction, world-building, and game design. Here’s more from Game Developer:
I’m curious about the other media that you’ve enjoyed that had an effect on the game. What films or novels had a big impact on your designs for Tacoma?
Who can say? Oh my god, so much. Solaris, specifically the Tarkovsky space station. I took a lot of screenshots of that for reference. I don’t know how much actually really made it in, but it sure was there for reference. I read Alastair Reynolds’ Blue Remembered Earth specifically for the space elevator and things that might happen in a world with a space elevator. This is the sort of Neal Stephenson-like “there’s real information in these science fiction books.” (laughs) That used to happen to me embarrassingly often, where I would get a lot of actual real information from science fiction books and just not have any further context for it. It’s not the most flattering. But yeah, it definitely helped. I am a big Phillip K. Dick booster, and so honestly a certain amount of the oppressive capitalistic systems probably had some roots there.
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