Charles Cecil

By Ray Ivey

Charles Cecil is the creative genius behind the widely acclaimed Broken Sword series. His current project, In Cold Blood, is currently being sought after by numerous North American companies for distribution on the computer. It is to be released in the US for the PSX by Midway and in Europe by Ubi Soft. The European "Save John Cord" marketing campaign is among the most ingenious ever devised for an adventure game. Our Ray Ivey recently spoke with Charles Cecil, and here is what he had to say.

How would you describe In Cold Blood (ICB) in one sentence?

In Cold Blood is a narrative game set in an action environment which takes place in the mind of our hero, John Cord.

In this era of 3D characters, the 2D animated characters in ICB have a welcome retro feel, reminding me, of course, of your Broken Sword games. Can you comment on your decision to use that type of format instead of the current lock-step polygon-based 3D characters?

I am flattered that you thought that the ICB characters were not polygon-based 3D. The characters are actually polygonal but are lit using ray tracing technology to give them a better defined shape and a more solid feel. The advantages of using polygon technology is that we can dynamically shine several coloured lights at the characters to light them with both an ambient and a directional light. Characters that are correctly lit by the same lights that light the background look like they belong in the environment. Further advantages of using a polygon system include the ability to view the characters and scene from any camera angle, and the ability to generate correctly shaped shadows. At the start of the project we took the decision not to utilise 3D graphics hardware because we wanted to escape from the standard polygonal look of our characters that the hardware tends to deliver. A further advantage of not using 3D hardware is that the game will operate on a broader range of hardware.

Who do you see as your target audience for ICB? Broken Sword players? Baldur's Gate players? Tomb Raider players?

It is difficult to define an audience based on other games because ICB is unique. I would really hope that our core audience would include all of the above!

I've often heard other game designers talk about building a new game using a set of "dos" and "don'ts." While working on In Cold Blood, were there certain game aspects you wanted to definitely avoid and others you wanted to definitely include?

We wanted to write a game that seamlessly and convincingly meshed a variety of game styles together while appealing to the thinking gamer rather than the twitch player. The "dos" include making the puzzles logical within the narrative environment, the "don'ts" include making the game too difficult to control in terms of the action gameplay. We tweaked the game based on feedback from the focus testers, so hopefully it is about right in these regards.

The impressions I get from ICB make it seem a bit more related to Beneath a Steel Sky than the Broken Sword games. Would you agree?

Broken Sword was very much inspired by high-quality cartoons, while Beneath a Steel Sky was inspired by comic books. ICB looks more to movies with its slightly more realistic look.

What's up after In Cold Blood for you, besides a vacation?

A vacation is booked for Christmas--until then there is too much to do to go away. Until then we are working on the game of the DreamWorks cartoon El Dorado, which is due for release in November. This creates backgrounds to look like they are hand-drawn with very adventure-oriented gameplay. So far it is looking very promising. We are also starting a PlayStation 2 project for Sony.

Are you sick of us fans begging for a third instalment of the Broken Sword series?

We are very flattered by the continued interest in the Broken Sword games and in a third game in particular. We fully intend to start the project in the near future. We will not be writing any more games using the point-and-click interface. What we need to determine is how best to drive the adventure genre forward while ensuring that it appeals to the broad audience that enjoyed the original games.

Besides you, who has been working on ICB who also worked on Beneath a Steel Sky or the Broken Swords?

Many of the team from Beneath a Steel Sky, and indeed Lure of the Temptress, still work at Revolution. The cofounders of Revolution, Tony Warriner and David Sykes, are still programming the engine and tools, respectively. Noirin Carmody is still working on the commercial side, Steve Oades has been lead animator on all our titles. From Broken Sword 1, Mike Ryan is still an animator, Steve Ince is producer, Andi Forster works as a background artist, Jonathan Howard on writing, Pete Ellacott on programming. Revolution is pretty evenly split between those that have been with the company for five years or more and those that have joined since the end of Broken Sword 2.

Can you explain why ICB is only being released for the PSX in the United States?

This is not the case. The PlayStation version has been licensed to Midway. There is a lot of interest from publishers in the PC version, and we are actively in negotiation to license the PC rights. It is expected that the PC version will ship around the same time as the PlayStation version in the US.

Do you see a future for adventure games on the PC in the future, or will everything be on the console?

It is hard to tell. On one hand, the PC format will generally decline as gamers switch to the new generation of consoles that are more powerful, cheaper, and easier to use than a PC. The games that stay strong on the PC will be the games that suit being played in the home-office rather than the living room. I believe that adventures are often played socially and as such suit consoles well. On the other hand, adventure games are played by more mature players who are more likely to stay loyal to the PC.