Tomb Raider began at Core Design in 1994, after Toby Gard showed lead programmer and co-creator Paul Douglas sketches of a woman carrying two pistols. Douglas, who was working on a golf game at the time, helped persuade co-founder Jeremy Heath-Smith to approve a prototype based on Gard’s idea.
The team built the game around four central elements: platforming, puzzles, combat and story. They chose Peru, Greece, Egypt and Atlantis as the main settings after considering a longer list of archaeological locations. Lara Croft’s concept also changed during development. She was initially Latina and more realistically designed, but the developers later gave her a more stylised physique and shaped her into a British aristocrat who pursued historical artefacts.
Technical decisions were often made under tight constraints. Douglas and Gard measured a hopscotch grid in the company car park to establish the proportions of Lara and the game world. Those measurements became the basis for the title’s movement systems and level design.
Creating the game was demanding. Douglas says he took only three days of holiday in two years, while he and Gard regularly worked until the early hours, including weekends. Gard became ill from the stress. The developers were nevertheless working at a moment when 3D games were beginning to enter the mainstream, and Tomb Raider’s action-adventure structure helped distinguish it from competitors.
Level designer Heather Stevens recalls developing much of the game in a Victorian building in Derby, where the team dealt with uncomfortable conditions but worked closely together. She describes Gard as eccentric and highly talented, and remembers an early demonstration featuring an Indiana Jones-like character moving through platforms.
The team used Lara’s pistols partly to highlight her acrobatic movement, while many of the threats came from animals rather than human enemies. Stevens says the sounds of bats and bears created a stronger sense of danger than gunfire. Limited memory and processing power also required the developers to assemble seemingly vast environments from interconnected rooms.
The levels drew on history, myths and legends, with the designers allowing their ideas to become increasingly imaginative. Stevens recalls that this approach led to a Tyrannosaurus rex appearing in Peru.
As the game gained attention, publisher Eidos Interactive concentrated heavily on Lara as a marketable character. Douglas credits that focus with helping Tomb Raider reach a much wider audience, although both developers criticise some marketing campaigns for oversexualising her.
The game’s success transformed the lives of its creators. Stevens says sales figures made the scale of the achievement clear, with some previously struggling employees suddenly arriving in sports cars. She was able to buy a house using royalties. For the developers, Lara became an enduring video game figure, alongside characters such as Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sources: The Guardian Business.