During the recent E3, we
visited The Adventure Company booth and spoke with Philippe Gaudé,
producer of one of the most eagerly anticipated adventure games of
the year – Jack the Ripper. Philippe is a quiet individual,
until one broaches the subject of the Ripper, for then his eyes sparkle
and his hands become animated, almost as if he is wielding an invisible
knife…

Can you tell us more
about the Ripper plot?

In his game, you play
as a young reporter, James Palmer, in charge of
writing
a chronicle about a series ofhorriblemurder in the Low Side District
of New York. He begins to search witnesses, discovers the everyday
life of this poor district where he’s not specially welcomed. While
his search for witnesses leadshim to investigate suspects, he will
begin to foster friendship with a young singer – Abigaïl the
“Irish Nightingale” – and with her help integrate slowly
in the social environment. But his daily chronicles will soon trigger
the interest of the killer, who will begin to play cat and mouse with
him. The killer calls himself “Jack the Ripper”, and it
seems that this is not a joke
as his investigation
tends to prove this true..

How
do we know the murderer is the same Ripper
from London?

For those who know the
historical facts, there will soon be no doubt. Anyway, during the
game, the player will have access to documentation about the London
events, and will be able to compare the New York murders to the London
sequence and make his own mind about that. The player will have support
from the most advanced private investigation agency of the time to
analyze evidence and help him draw his own conclusions.

Why did you set the
game in turn of the century New York instead of
London where the killings actually occurred?

This was originally
the idea of Wanadoo and it has proven to be a very powerful shift.
If you ever make a game – or a movie, or even a book – about the real
Ripper event, you have to stick to the historic facts word-by-word.
Here, while staying faithful to the spirit of Jack the Ripper, we
are free to create a new sequence of events and a new story. Our goal
was not to to say “here is our vision of the real events”,
but to lead the player into a compelling
“what if” story while being true to both the myth of “Jack
the Ripper” and
the historical facts.

Are there any guns or shooting in the game?

Ripper is definitely
not an action game, and is in no way based upon any kind of shooting
or rapidity skills. But that doesn’t mean you never ever see a gun
in this game. The poor districts of New York in the turn of the century
are not exactly a quiet place… Though, your brain will be your best
arm.

Will there be alternative
endings?

No. Alternative endings
means alternative stories (even if the main part is
common),
and the timeframe of the games realization do not allow us to craft
and polish several interlaced stories at the required quality level.
Though, we strived to let the player have the maximum possible freedom
in his journey through the game. But the focus is on the player experience:
every scene of the game must provoke an emotion, whether it’s fear,
thrill, surprise, amazement… Our challenge is that every player,
when they have finished the game, remember the adventure they lived,
so that they want to play again. Not to discover new stories, but
merely to have a different look at some things he could have missed
at first sight and to live his experience
again: the same way we often watch good movies several times.

Do you personally have
any theories as to the true identity of the Ripper?

Though we’ve done wide
research about the historic facts, we are far from specialists about
Jack the Ripper. It would be a life’s job… We don’t have one theory,
but merely two or three suspects and possible explanations that stand
out the crowd. But we are not able to find one rock-solid enough to
say : Jack the Ripper is for sure… Anyway, this is a complex and
absolutely amazing mystery.

What
graphics engine has been used for Ripper?

We work with the Virtools
engine as a basis, on which we’ve added some powerful in-house technologies.
While the environments are still 360° pre-rendered (allowing extremely
rich and detailed graphics even on relatively small computers), we
can have now real-time characters, animations and eyes-candy. The
player experience is vastly improved as he can now act in living environments
and interact with characters.

Finally, we asked the burning
question on everyone’s mind – will the identity of the computer version
of the Ripper be revealed during the game? Well, we know, but if we
told you then we’d have to cut out yer kidney and have it fer breakfast.