Full Moon in San Francisco, Alternative Games Interview

Interviews

Interview with the Alternative Games Team
Producers of Full Moon in San Francisco

With Bob Freese

December 13, 2002

First of all Hunchback_Man, thanks for the opportunity to talk with you!

Well, Bob, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to interview our crazy team. 🙂 And here we are, ready to answer your questions.

Who created Alternative Games, Inc. and was it created specifically to produce Adventure 1 of Full Moon in San Francisco (FMISF)?

Alternative Games was conceptually created on October 31st, 2000 by Dragon, Wizard, Reen, Coofy, Thorr, and myself; and yes, it was Halloween :-). It was then incorporated in late 2001, as several of our projects were starting to materialize, including Full Moon in San Francisco and Ambermont Online Magazine – http://www.ambermont.com . Alternative Games was created as a way to communicate our ideas to the rest of the world in an entertaining way, thus through games. “Full Moon in San Francisco – Adventure 1” is in fact, not only a crazy and entertaining game, but is also the artistic expression of a message that we wanted to send out to the world. First of all, we wanted to break stereotypes as much as possible, this may have upset someone, sorry, but we found it very amusing. In Full Moon in San Francisco the P.I. protagonist is a common person who wants to give the best of him and is ready to do anything and put all his effort to overcome any obstacle that may appear between him and his dream of becoming a P.I. We’d like to encourage people that any dream is possible to achieve with enough effort, courage, and self-esteem.

Was the team recruited, or were you mostly pals before the project started? I also noticed that the major players use nicknames exclusively. How come?

The so-called “AG Team” has actually been a team for as long as I can remember. We’ve been good friends and have been playing pen-and-paper role-playing games together and “ruminated” pretzels since the punk era (I’ll leave it up to you to figure out when that was!). At Christmas time in the year 2000, we recruited the Greeno, the most evil man of the whole AG Team, who was supposed to be our secretary and ended up instead being our anti-solicitors body guard and reviewer. The use of nicknames at Alternative Games is actually part of the whole “fantasy” and artistic expression feeling that we want Alternative Games to have: it keeps us in touch with our creative side the whole time!

Punk? Been there, done that! (No- please don’t figure! – ugh!) Where are you guys located?

Currently we’re located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, but we’re expecting aliens to pick us up at any minute now.

Hang in guys! During the nearly two years in development, did the team work side by side the entire time?

The AG Team worked side by side ferociously the whole time, “destroying” any obstacle that came our way and fighting against the unfavorable weather conditions that kept us frozen cold in winter and boiling warm in summer in our very crowded offices. During these two years we have worked on “Full Moon in San Francisco Adventure 1” as well as on several other aspects of Alternative Games and its line of products. It has been very challenging to coordinate so many aspects of these activities, but also very fun.

Why do you think Canada and Europe are producing good adventure games when the US producers and publishers seem to be currently ignoring the genre?

I believe US producers/publishers/developers left the adventure games in exchange for more profitable and higher demand games such as first person shooters, action, and related games. Moreover, there is a trend that “PC games” are a thing of the past while console games are “the” games you want to play, and unfortunately adventure games don’t work too well with consoles. Canadian and Europeans publishers jumped in and are trying to fill the gap left out by the US publishers.

And that’s why you guys had the guts to create an adventure game? [Thanks!!!]

We chose to produce an adventure game because our all-time favorite computer games were adventure games, with Tex Murphy being on top of the list. In addition, the way you develop and then play a “pen and paper” role-playing game is very similar to the way you develop and play an adventure game due to the detailed characters, story line, and related adventure feeling. In our opinion, the main differences between PC adventure games and “pen and paper” role playing games are that in a “pen and paper” role playing games you have the combat factor and almost no puzzles while for adventure games is the opposite.

Could you please give us a brief background of the major team players?

Dragon – He’s a picky man, as well as a writer and businessman. Resembles a lawyer, but he isn’t.
Wizard – He is dangerous and distracted. He usually creates chaos and breaks laptops. He’s a self-acclaimed “fantasy expert”.
Reen – She is an obsessive fiction writer. She can type 150 words per minute with 100% accuracy and she is the proud director of Ambermont.com.
Coofy – She has an unusually abstracted personality, and she makes a lot of noise. Coofy is an artist in distress who likes to paint the desks in the AG offices without our consent when she’s not busy with her artwork.
Hunchback_man – A person, mainly responsible for the unconventional humor found in Full Moon in San Francisco, who is being interviewed by Bob Freese.
Thorr – He’s full of ideas, concepts, and plots. He loves investigations and loves using the brain.
Greeno – He is green, he’s “evil” and he likes to read books and play games. He doesn’t get along with Hick the Brownie (Santa’s elf), and Christmas is his favorite holiday… (No wonder why!)

Love that Greeno dude! <G>. Okay, onto the game itself. Who came up with the idea of producing such a diverse and unique game – humor blended with mystery, murder, the occult and some other very strange and whacky stuff?

The game’s humor, like I mentioned before, is mainly my fault, but the rest of the team has worked with me heavily on all aspects of the game’s plot including the fantasy/occult and mystery part.

I would love to know how you and your team made this happen! Could you please highlight the steps you took, from “original concepts” through “boxed copy”?

It all started 2 years ago, on a cold day of December in the year 2000, when all of a sudden Thorr, Reen and I had the idea of making a computer game in addition to the other games that we were and are currently designing. The idea was approved and everyone agreed that we had the basic knowledge and enough gaming experience to start working on a computer game. Of course, we had to perform our researches and studies, reading and studying books to get more information on adventure games and their history and background, as well as studying possible programming and technical solutions to make the actual game. Once performed the research, we then developed the script of the game and at the same time drafted up the skeleton of our game engine. We produced a small demo that our brave beta testers tried out, and together with them we were able to continue developing the game. While we were working on the programming, our talented voice actors were recording the various assigned scripts. After receiving the voice over files, we then plugged them inside the game and after fighting with some Window’s programming limitations we were finally able to complete the game. And guess what happened then? We had a huge party!

COOL! Were there any unforeseen schedule setbacks?

LOL, it was a continuous unforeseen schedule setback. 🙂

I understand that Alternative Games has a FMISF game page at:
http://www.alternativegames.ca/fullmoongame/adventure1/ . What will our readers find there?

In addition to the website link you’ve mentioned, we also have registered http://www.fullmoongame.com/ for an easier access to the game’s website. On the website we have sample audio clips of voice actors from the game, as well as screenshots, story-line information and a downloadable PDF document with the story that precedes the game, and of course the possibility to purchase the game, and much more.

Where can adventure game fans purchase Full Moon in San Francisco – Adventure 1?

At the moment the game is available for purchase through our online store at: http://www.fullmoongame.com, but if players would like to purchase from their local computer stores, we invite them to go and ask to their favorite stores to order Full Moon in San Francisco for them, since Alternative Games Inc. can sell directly to retailers. Most retailers only carry games for which there is demand, so requesting our game would help bring it to the retail stores shelves.

Well, Mr. Hunchback_Man, on behalf of Just Adventure and its readers I’d like to congratulate you and your team on the production of your first PC game, and the first-hand insight you’ve provided us. Very best wishes for the future!

Thank you Bob! Thank you Just Adventure team! And thanks to those who have read this cool interview! Happy gaming to everyone. 🙂