Xi was a huge project. We sta
ted work in December 2007, learning about Home and launched Xi in March 2009, some 15 months later. We were inexperienced, we had a crazily ambitious design and we were determined to deliver it regardless of the technical complexities.
The two emotion
s that I remember most from the three months that Xi ran were excitement and fear (in equal measures). H
ome wasn’t nearly as robust back then as it is
now, and each week we were doing things for the first time. Testing games in 64-person spaces when we only had 4 development kits was toug
h, and there were several occasions where things went wr
ong, a game didn’t work quite as expected or someone managed to hack the relatively insecure file system that we used back then. But there were plenty of great moments; seeing Xi’s popularity grow, the huge effect it had on Home usage, and the
reaction to the games/puzzles was fantastic. I’ll never forget moments like the billboard puzzle, and the exc
itement of the players on the forums, egging on a few individuals across Europe as they dashed to many billboard sites, took photos, and shared them with the rest of the community to solve the pu
zzle.
I think it’s fair to say that despite w
orking on many big ‘triple-A’ games including big franchises like Tomb Raider, Xi remains the proudest game of my career so far. And with the games I see in developme
nt at nDreams currently, I’d like to emphasise the words ‘so far’
Patrick O’Luanaigh, Director of Xi 
Images: Day one on the AlphaAFK website (top). An early prototype of the ‘Maximum Tilt’ game space (middle). Filming in Patrick’s house (below).
The Art of Xi
When it came to planning the environments for Xi, we worked very closely with the Sony core team to develop something that would help to serve our crazy ideas for puzzles and events and at the same time complement the beautiful world that Sony had created.
I think we surprised a lot of people with just how different the Xi Hu
b looked to anything else at the time, and we really pushed things with the c
avernous ghost mazes of Alpha Zone 3. I remember the first lighting pass we di
d for AZ3, the roof was so far up that the floor was left in total darkness!
But I think you very much ‘felt’ like you were still in Home while playin
g Xi and that really helped with the immersive experience essential to ARGs. Home was st
ill very young while we were developing Xi and the experimental nature of learning how a game engine behaves can lead to some pretty funny and sometimes cool
results.
If you remember the graffiti puzzle from the Summer House apartment, that was actually a result of us trying to lay oil stains over the f
loor of the Maintenance area! It turned out that making something both semi-transparent and glowing from certain angles actually made it completely disappear unless you looked at it head on which
was perfect for a treasure hunt game... not so much for making a grubby mess in a perfectly good maintenance hall. Luck
ily for us, the Sony tech team didn’t remove the ‘feature’ while we ran with Xi.
Xi feels like an age away now, and with the Home engine cons
tantly improving to be so much more than it was back then we’re seeing lots of great stuff coming through all the time. When you consider
how far out there we managed push the boat with Aurora, I sometimes wonder what Xi would be like with the functionality of today’s Home... and then I remember that I quite like my bed and don’t miss sleepless nights at t
he office
Martin Field, Artist on Xi 
Images: The original concept art for our ‘UFO’ AlphaZone 1 game (top). A “grey-box” version of the AlphaZone 1 space (middle). AlphaZone1 in its final glory (below).
Writing Xi
Games in virtual worlds have one distinct advantage over tradition
al console games. The players aren't running around as other characters, they are themselves. They might be dressed as ninjas (and who wouldn't in real l
ife if they could get away with it?) but their avatar is a representation of them. This to me is so impo
rtant. One of the holy grails for gaming - how d
owe engage emotio
ns more? Answer: set it in a virtual world.
Since the players were real, Xi needed to be too. We set it in Home, the internet and in the real world. If you closed your eyes enough Xi was real and the players really responded to that. Sometimes too much.
There was a particular quiet Saturday night, I was a couple of glasses of wine to the good and went onto the
forums to see the latest Xi ch
it chat (oh yes, we were keeping a beady eye on you...) only to find players had b
roken into the game code and acc
essed the following weeks Xi up
dates. There was alre
ady YouTube footage of playe
rs running around a space that wasn't due to open until the following wee
k. This sobered me up. A swift call to Patrick and he hea
ded off to the office while I re-wrote some lines that included the bre
ak-in into the narrative. The pla
yer
s loved that. It was like a living game- if you poked it, it rea
cted back.
To do this we had to be vigilant, oh yes. Lurking on the f
orums and actual participation in events. I must admit as a writer (we don't get out much) I had an absolute gas running around Home as Ignatius, joining in parties and
mildly insulting people. I met some fine people (you), had some very late nights and am conv
inced I am in some way responsible for the bizarre retur
n to fashion of the body warmer.
We always said if we did another one all the elements would adhere more closely to a coherent narrative. There was a narrative to Xi, though it was a little odd if you remember. Jess had disappeared and you were helping her clan- the AlphaAFK- find her. After that anything went. We had mutant fish, a schmaltzy pop son
g, text adventures. What? It was mildly bonkers. Bu
ton reflection, that was a huge part of its charm. You literally never knew what was ar
ound the next corner. "A mac
hinima message from Jachal?", "Naa, Jess is chasing aliens ar
ound Paris."
Console games rock but Xi, Xi was
punk.Christian Wheeler, Writer on Xi
Images: One of several billboards in the real world for one of Xi’s puzzles (top). The original teleport ‘graffiti’ from Home Square/Central Plaza (middle). Not many people earned all of these! (below).
Xi legacy
So here we are, 3 years since Xi finished. If you didn’t experience Xi,
make sure you check out the Xi Museum, which is live in Home at the moment. It has many of the games from Xi in there, all fully playable for free, some Xi merchandise and a great video and slideshow showing you what Xi was all about.
And if you did experience Xi, you’re probably asking “Why haven’t you made another one?”
Well, it can be tough getting stuff organised behind-the-scenes. But J
essica is definitely still out there. She’s just waiting for the right moment to get back in touch…
By the way, if you remember our Paul Ballard track with fondness, you can experience the magic of Home “machinima pop” here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwISFJxxgTY&list=UUemHPODXjklV80H_G2GDW1g&index=1&feature=plcp
Images: Jessica in the Whiteroom at the end of Xi (top). Many of Xi’s games can still be played in the Xi Museum (below).
There is no competition this month, but Stapler insisted on editing this newsletter before it went out; we’re not sure why….
Thank you for all the survey entries; the winner, who will be chosen randomly from all the entrants, will be announced next month
Stay tuned – next month we reveal the first of our huge 2012 PlayStation Home projects and it’s something truly special.
Don’t forget to check out our
website which we’re now updating more regularly, our Facebook
page and our Twitter
feed if you want more information about what we’re doing.
See you in Aurora!
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