Charles Cecil on Broken Sword 3
Your statement that the point-and-click adventure is dead has already become notorious amongst adventure gamers. But is the problem really related to the interface? One could argue that adventure games have been evolving only superficially in terms of interface, graphics and sound. But the soul of adventures, the narrative, is still the same as 20 years ago. What is your opinion on this?
Games designers over the past 10 years have tended to be more concerned with what the formats can do rather than what they can do on the format. So games have tended to become superficial–designed with ‘realistic’ water effects viewed more importantly that the plot. Now that technology has almost reached a plateau, I do think we’ll start seeing the re-emergence of games with more depth and soul. However the point-and-click interface does restrict us in terms of creating contemporary gameplay and so we have decided to change–our objective being to reinvent the genre. Hopefully, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon will lead the way.
Continuing on the subject of storytelling in relation to 3D, in the past many adventures have tried to create “real-time” environments. Lure of the Temptress pioneered this idea. There have also been puzzles based on timing, non-linear adventures (like the elastic story-line technique by the now-defunct Discreet Monsters) and even day-night cycles as in Quest for Glory. Would you agree that 3D is ideal for implementing such features? Will BS3, or a future Revolution product, try to introduce something similar?
It’s an interesting one. We will have elements of the ‘Virtual Theatre’ we pioneered in Lure of the Temptress in The Sleeping Dragon in so much as non-player characters will navigate the environments independently, but we’re not making a big deal out of this. It’s important to continue to break new ground, but it’s also important not to go too far. The elastic story-telling idea of Discreet Monsters was an interesting concept; however, it never fulfilled its potential. We think the move to 3D is radical enough for this game. We’ll certainly look to innovate further in our future titles.
Revolution games became famous because of their brilliant, cartoon-like graphics. Will BS3 continue this tradition?
Very much so. The previous games’ art was much more traditional–not just in look, but in terms of generation. That is, characters were hand drawn and animated, which allows us to see immediately how they integrated with the background and interacted with each other.
Moving to 3D is an entirely different process. The most obvious change is the amount of time it takes to render characters and make adjustments, so it has taken a great deal of time to get the look just right. But now we’re there, it has been time well spent–I think the game will look better than ever. We’re still hand animating rather than motion capturing to retain that artistic look and feel.
If Broken Sword continues to sell well, what kind of BS 6 or 9 could you imagine–let us to say–in 5 or 10 years?
Firstly we have no plans for any further Broken Sword games–this is the third part of a trilogy. But more generally I would love to see games affect people the way that some films can. Films make you laugh, they make you cry, and they make you think. Games very rarely do any of those–which is silly, considering games are interactive and films are passive. We need to concentrate on making credible titles that appeal to a much broader market; a market outside those we consider hardcore gamers. I hope that we will be leading that revolution in five or 10 years’ time.
Finally: do you think there is a possibility to regain the old glory of adventure games? Or will this genre remain some peripheral style, an “elitist” form of entertainment like opera, or classical music?
Yes, I do–but not in the way that happened previously. Currently, the emphasis is very much with ‘twitch’ gaming–action adventures with plots tacked on. As I’ve said previously, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon is very much an adventure game with action elements, not an action game with a story bolted into cutscenes. As more and more people get into gaming, I can see the industry maturing and strongly believe that narrative-based adventure games will be the only viable single-player titles around. Only time will tell…
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