There’s a sense in which this interview may be 20 years premature. One hopes that Hollis, creator of the seminal Nintendo 64 Bond game, Goldeneye and, more recently, WiiWare’s Bonsai Barber, will have many more career successes before he’s done. As such, it would be more accurate to subtitle this conversation ‘The Story So Far’.

Nevertheless, I’ve been eager to try a career retrospective with an esteemed game maker for some time. Too seldom do we ask our most successful creators about how they started writing games and why they continue to do so today. So thanks to Martin to agreeing to this extended conversation, and thanks to Gamasutra for commissioning it. It’s something I’d like to do more regularly with other game makers. If I manage it, you’ll be the first to know.

Head over to Gamasutra for the full transcript of our conversation. In the meantime, here’s my favourite bit:

Simon Parkin: Looking back now, of which of your games are you most proud? All the way back to those most formative titles on the BBC Micro?

Martin Hollis: Pride is an interesting question. I think it’s important. It’s classified as a sin, but I think it is important to be proud of your work, and I think if you’re not proud of it, that would be a big problem. I personally wouldn’t want to work on something I couldn’t be proud about. But for me, I tend to want to rely on my own judgment. I want to satisfy myself, it’s that kind of pride. And for me, right now, I feel the project that’s changed me the most is Bonsai Barber. I feel a really intense pride about that game. I know that Nintendo loves it, I love it, and I learned an immense amount through building it. I’m a changed person because of this game.

You used the word ‘changed’ twice there. What do you mean when you say that the game’s changed you?

Well, I like nature. And in a way, I’ve spent a lot more time with nature making Bonsai Barber, and that’s changed me.

Do you mean staring at Bonsai trees or…

I have always loved looking at trees. I think trees are amazing things. I love looking at the sky, I love looking at trees and parks.

But surely, the virtue of trees and parks is their tangible reality, the counterpoint they provide to the virtual nature of our games? The trees and plants in Bonsai Barber are fake, no?

Yeah, they are. But we’re holding a mirror up to nature.

So, you still found that enriching.

Yes. Because I spend a lot of time looking at virtual trees, and I can see real trees better now.

Did that happen with the guns in GoldenEye?

Yeah, certainly. When I went into GoldenEye, I wasn’t interested in guns at all. When I came out, I knew quite a bit about guns.

Through that game you could better understand the beauty of Hollywood combat?

I think it’s a fact that can’t be denied. The stories you are told or the stories you tell yourself have an immense influence on you. I think that’s an important fact.

Does that belief lead you to challenge not just game designers, but also artists to consider the responsibility they have for the things they build into their worlds?

I believe there is a great responsibility, very much so. I’d like to make games that enrich the world somehow. But I don’t think that… This might sound evil, but I don’t think that guns are evil. I think that in general, conflict is a part of the world, and that can’t be eliminated. I think the black and the white, they can’t exist without each other.

There’s also an aspect of making videogames where guns perform a real utilitarian function. They’re something that enables player to interact with a world with more efficiency and reach than almost any other human tool.

Yeah, I agree with that, but even so, I feel regret that almost everything in games is funneled through the interface of the gun.

Yes but we don’t really have anything better do we? I guess maybe a bow and arrow?

On one hand, it’s a pattern of thought that people have fallen into because there are so many games that function like that. But it’s also a security blanket. Maybe that sounds patronizing, but it’s a positive thing as well as a negative thing because you can actually make a game more reliably if you use design scaffolding from previous games on proven successes. Nonetheless, I have to be honest and say I do feel sad that I see so many things funneled through the interface of a gun. And I’d like to try and make a small contribution to opening out games to think about other tools, other human tools and other methods of interaction tool-free.

Thanks to Goldeneye, do you feel some responsibility for guns becoming the primary tool in videogames?

Yeah, I do, but it’s important to not get weighed down by anything. You have to relax to get into a place where you can think of ideas. I don’t think you can get in the ropes about it and feel a great Atlas-like burden.