Andrew Brazier

By Randy Sluganski

Andrew Brazier of Headfirst Productions is part of the development team of the upcoming Simon the Sorcerer 3D.

Are you still on target for a late July release date?

It's looking possible--there is a lot of hard work being done at the moment to get it out on time.

Hasbro has the distribution rights for the UK, but not North America. What has Hasbro convinced that the European market is more conducive to adventure games than the North American market?

Our games have always sold best in Europe, most specifically Germany, and I think that was the market that Hasbro were most interested in. They were less convinced of Simon 3D's selling potential in the USA, but Southpeak were more eager!

There have been rumors that Southpeak might forego distributing Simon 3D in the United States due to some system incompatibility problems. Can you comment further on this?

As far as I am aware, the only problem with Southpeak was that Simon 3D disappeared from their release schedules, and there was brief panic amongst fans that they had dumped it. What actually happened was that because Simon 3D slipped past its original release date, they removed it from their schedules until they knew a more firm date.

You have said that it costs more to make a game in 2D than in 3D. Can you elaborate on this?

Adventures are probably the most expensive and laborious game you can make--there is so much work that has to be done: design, script writing, voice recording, animation, backgrounds, and programming, it's no wonder that there are not as many being released now as in the "old days." 3D is better in a way, because as far as backgrounds go, changes can be made very easily and quickly--whereas with a 2D hand-drawn background, you have to redraw a section of it if a door needs moving or something else is incorrect, which takes a long time.

Simon 3D was originally conceived as a 2D game and then scrapped in favor of 3D because many publishers were not interested in 2D. Do you think that the publishers were speaking for the market in general or for adventure gamers as a whole?

It was definitely because the market was heading towards 3D--adventure gamers still, on the whole, want 2D games, but I'm afraid they're not going to get them. 2D nowadays is pretty much confined to RTS games--everything else is done in realtime 3D now. No publisher is going to invest money in a game that they see as using an outdated technology; they want cutting edge, hardware-pushing titles that drive the genre forward.

Just Adventure recently conducted a survey, and an overwhelming amount of the respondents replied that it did not matter to them if an adventure game was 2D or 3D. What can adventure gamers do to convince publishers?

True adventurers will play a good adventure even if it was purely text-based--they enjoy the story, the puzzle solving, and exploration, they are not as impressed by frames-per-second or polygons counts as fans of other genres. Publishers, however, have to look at the future market and think ahead--a game that has a new technical feature or fantastic graphics will always secure more press attention than something that is not groundbreaking, and press attention translates directly to potential sales. It would be a very brave publisher who releases a text adventure in today's market--the adventure fans are a dedicated bunch, but unfortunately not as big a target audience as the first-person shooter market.

Will Simon 3D be CD only, or will we possibly see him on DVD?

At the moment there are no plans for a DVD version, but it's a possibility. The cost of mastering to DVD is pretty expensive at the moment, so I don't know if we could recoup the costs in sales. It's something to consider for our next games, though.

Has your marketing department given any thought to including Simon 1 and 2 with Simon 3D since a great many newer adventure gamers have never played or been able to obtain these classics?

We thought about that, but Simon 1 and 2 still sell well separately, so we'll still be selling them on their own. They are still available to buy direct from the Adventure Soft online store at www.adventuresoft.com.

Have any characters been carried over from the previous Simon games? Sordid? Alix? Calypso?

Sordid and Calypso are returning, but Alix is taking a rest in this game. There are also a few other recognizable characters, such as the Swampling, Runt, and even Hedgehog Boy. Plus a whole host of new characters to meet (over 80 in fact).

Will anyone who has not played the first two Simon games have a problem understanding Simon 3D?

Nope--there is a handy "Previously, on Simon the Sorcerer" bit at the start that explains what happened in the last two games. Simon 3D has a real "pick up and play" feel about it.

Is Simon 3D still to be keyboard only, or will there be gamepad or mouse support?

There should be gamepad support, but not mouse. It is not really possible to control a character in a 3D world in a third-person viewpoint with mouse only, so the keyboard has to be used. It is a very simple interface, though, and very easy to pick up.

You have said that you let your imagination run wild in the realtime of Simon 3D. Can you give us an example of something weird and wonderful that you were able to do in this game that could not have been done in a 2D version?

I don't really want to mention anything specific because it'll give the game away, but there are a lot of puzzles that couldn't really have been done to the same degree in a static 2D environment. Plus, we can get in puzzles that involve things like using sound in a 3D space, which is also impossible in 2D.

How much of Simon has been influenced by other British comedy writers such as Douglas Adams, Eric Idle, or Terry Pratchett? Or are all British people just naturally funny?

Funny weird or funny ha-ha?! Simon (the lead designer) and I are naturally fans of the best British comedy, like Douglas Adams, as you mention. I certainly wouldn't compare Simon 3D to the standards of the British comedy greats, but it has its moments that should raise the odd chuckle or two. Terry Pratchett's Discworld stories are very similar to Simon's world in a number of ways--but I guess there are a lot of comedy-fantasy crossovers.

Simon seems to never have been as popular in the United States as he is in Europe. Is this due more to the Pythonesque humor of the games or just poor marketing?

A bit of both, I'm afraid--the Americans sometimes just don't "get" what us English are on about, which is fine, because it works both ways! Sarcasm in particular works differently across the Atlantic, and that is one of Simon's key features (it is the lowest form of wit, after all).

As far as marketing goes, Simon 2 was never released in the US, which may explain why he isn't so popular over there. The majority of orders taken on the Adventure Soft online store are from the US, though, so there are a lot of Simon fans out there--thankfully the Internet means it is easier for them to get their games from Europe than it was before ... hurrah for the WWW!

As Simon matures, what type of woman do you see him with? Is he more the Pamela Anderson Lee or the Martha Stewart type?

He'd undoubtedly want it to be a Pamela Anderson Lee type--but she'd eat him up. He fancies himself as a bit of a ladies' man, but history (and Simon 3D) shows that he isn't really that successful. I guess he's just always going to be unlucky in love ... getting rid of that ponytail and pointy hat would probably help him out a load ...

Celebrity Death Match--Simon versus Harry Potter. Your prediction?

Simon in the 2nd. Harry's just too nice to stand a chance. There's been a lot of debate in our office about Mr. Potter--he is so like Simon it is uncanny. Let's hope Simon 3D gets sales figures as good as the Harry Potter books !

Who would play Simon in a movie?

Hmm ... difficult ... I would say Macaulay Culkin but isn't he like 36 or something now? To be honest, I can't really imagine Simon in anything other than cartoon form ... that's it--Cartman would be an excellent Simon the Sorcerer.

Screw you guys--I'm going home!