While they were something of a rarity for many years, point and click games are making a comeback, and in a big way. Speaheaded by Telltale's storytelling tour de force, the Walking Dead, one of the most interesting upcoming games, and one that's set to be launching on consoles and PC alike, is The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief, a whodunnit adventure that'll have you guessing 'til the end. We sat down with Narrative Designer at KING Art Games, Marco Rosenberg, to learn all about their latest title.
I guess the first place to start with a game like this is probably a story. Can you tell us a little bit about what the story of the new game is?
It's a crime adventure that takes place in the 60s - it's a mixture of a whodunnit story, like the novels of Agatha Christie, and a heist story like the Sting or the Thomas Crown Affair. There was a famous burglar called The Raven, who always left a raven feather at the crime scene. He was apprehended and shot by a French policeman called Le Grand, but now, five years later, there's a new crime which features the trademark of the Raven, the black feather. Now, Le Grand is trying to find out if it's a copy-cat, or the old Raven, and he actually got the wrong guy before. The player takes control of a Swiss Policeman called Anton Jakob Zellner who's drawn into the adventure of the Raven. He wasn't very successful in his life or job, so he sees this as his last big chance to have an adventure, so he's giving it his all to stay in this case and help LeGrand catch the Raven.
Why did you decide to go down the episodic route?
Well, we wanted to create this kind of cliff-hanger experience, this buzz it creates where, like a TV series, people watch an episode then speculate together about how it's going to continue and what happens next. So, we wanted to have that without there being anyone who can spoil it!
Interviewing suspects, witnesses, and bystanders alike will be key to solving the crimes.
As the game's episodic, it does have some advantages in terms of both plot, and in terms of the potential to improve the game based on feedback from the earlier instalments. Will later episodes be influenced by the feedback you receive from the first few?
Well, as you said, the episodic approach gives us more time to polish the second and third chapters. As the story's already written and the voice recordings have been made, we can't change the story, but if there's any smaller changes that can be made, we can use it to our advantage.
I know for some mystery things in the past, they've had several different endings written. Is there anything like that at work here?
No, we concentrated on one ending and made that really, really good, so people will be surprised by that ending. Actually, the ending will make people want to play the game, to see if they notice the hints that they missed on the first time through!
Obviously, the story's a very important part of any point and click style game, but with a plot split over three chapters, and several separate characters, is it hard to keep track of where the story's going and make sure everything ties together?
The story's split over two perspectives mainly, there's the investigators, which is the first half of the game, and the burglar, or burglars (we don't want to say yet!) which is the second half of the game. The first episode is all on the side of the good guys, the second episode has the switch in the middle... Actually, the story starts from the beginning, but you see the same story from a different point of view, so players will be in for some surprises!
When we were writing it, we had brainstorming sessions with several people, then my boss Jan Tizer wrote most of it (I helped him a little as a co-author). Then of course we have test players who are looking for things, and point out things we've missed! It's a big challenge to make the story work from two perspectives!
Where did your inspiration come from for the game?
Stylistically, it's probably the movies of the Agatha Christie novels. We put a lot of effort into the mood, the lighting, we have a lot of different settings for night, day, bright sunlight, things like that. For the music, we also looked at famous composers for that time, and tried to write similar things. Our composers managed to emulate that, but also bring in his own style.
It's a stick up!
A few years ago, point and click games were starting to become something of a rarity. From the lofty heights of Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island and Sam & Max, they seemed to all but disappear from the shelves overnight. Now, as is often the way with games, they seem to be making something of a comeback, with the Walking Dead attracting a lot of attention - so why did they fall out of fashion in the first place?
Well, I think adventure games were really good in the graphics department in the beginning, because they didn't need a lot of moving pictures, so they could concentrate on making these beautiful backgrounds, and they also focused on story. Somewhere in between, people wanted more action than story - I think it's coming back to people wanting a more cinematic, story based experience more and more, with people watching more movies and TV series now. I think that's one side, and another side, which is really sad, is that many media don't really write about adventure games any more, it's like they don't want to touch that genre. It's like they cover all kinds of genres, but adventure games don't interest them any more. It's really great to see adventure games making a kind of comeback with the Walking Dead, and we hope to be at the front of the movement, and help the genre flourish again!
There was obviously a market out there of people who wanted to play something other than a first person shooter, so it seems strange that they disappeared. Was it the market that disappeared, or was it support from the publishers?
I think it was kind of both! The other market grew, and adventure games stayed the same size, so publishers lost interest in the genre and didn't want to take risks any more. Just like the movie industry, they make more and more sequels of games, so adventure games kind of fell out of news coverage from the media, which made the publishers think they're not interesting enough any more, and there's no demand for them. Things like the Double Fine kickstarter, and the Walking Dead show people are interested in this genre, they just have to discover it. Let's hope the genre can rise to its former strength again.
In the same vein, we understand that you need to sign with a publisher to release your game on the XBLA, while on the PSN, and on PC there's no such difficulty. Was it difficult finding a publisher to back the project on consoles?
We're really glad that Nordic Games believed in adventure games, and gave us a chance to bring them to consoles. We've put a lot of work in there, and it's a really beautiful game, so I think the console users will love it. There have been a few changes. One thing is you don't have the mouse on the consoles, so we've changed the controls for the consoles for a more natural feeling. You can't just put a mouse pointer in on a console game and let the player control it with the joystick, you have to adapt to the platform a little bit. Sadly, I don't think the Wii is capable of playing the game at the quality we intended it to be played in... It's much nicer on the PC already than on the consoles, because PCs are advancing and have better graphics cards, but the Wii was always the weakest of the consoles. Maybe we'll see a Wii U release, but I don't know of any plans!
With games like this attracting a much broader audience, accessibility is always key. No-one likes coming up against a puzzle and either being stumped, or having the game just give you the answer. Is there a subtle hint system to point players in the right direction on puzzles?
Yes, we have a system with adventure points that the player can use to display objects that you can interact with, and you can also unlock hints in the notebook that the character has. [If you do that], you lose adventure points that you gain in the game, so if you want to have a high score, you should use that system as little as possible! That way the hardcore adventure players can decide not to use it, but it's there for everybody else.
The grizzliest of crimes always happen in the nicest settings.
What sort of puzzles does the game have? Are we talking the stereotypical "use the fish with the plug socket", or are we talking more logical, Professor Layton style?
It has humour in it, but it's not a comic adventure like Monkey Island where you can combine rubber chickens with pulleys! We focused on keeping the puzzles as real as possible - at least, the kind of reality you have in Hollywood movies. We put a lot of effort in there to make the puzzles feel natural, so it's not forced, and the puzzles don't feel like they've been put in to stretch the playing time. There are a few Layton like puzzles where it fits into the story, but mostly it's natural interactions, like everyday objects that you combine. We also didn't want to have an unlimited inventory like most adventure games have, where you put a ladder or a big trunk into your trouser pocket! We have the characters carry the big items around with them, so if they have to interact with something, for example an axe, he holds it in his hands the whole time, and if he wants to open a door, he puts it down [to free up his hands]. Those were all little approaches to make the game more realistic, and also make it more logical, helping keep the gameplay flowing, and not have this stop-and-go gameplay where you're stuck for half an hour and have to search every single room. We don't have pixel hunting or stuff like that, which we know got on the nerves of many players!
Will there be any chance for players to affect the story as they play along through branching paths, or something similar?
We have some optional puzzles in there, and we also have several points in the story where the player has to make a choice that affects the behaviour of characters later in the story, but we don't have several endings or stuff like that. We focused on one tight, good story that has several incidents where you influence a character's behaviour.
Well, Marco, thanks for your time! I know I'll be looking forward to finding out whodunnit!
Thank you!
The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief Episode 1 is out now on PC, and will be launching soon on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 as a digital download.
