Interviews

Law
& Order: Justice is Served Q&A
Christina Oliver, producer at Legacy Interactive

Interview
conducted by James Saighman

1. The first thing
that many fans of the games will notice is that S. Epatha
Merkerson’s character of “Lt. Anita van Buren” is gone in JiS, while
this time around we get to interact with Jesse L. Martin’s “Det. Ed Green” (as
well as our old friend Jerry Orbach/Lenny Briscoe). Can you talk about this?
Was it a decision based on game design? On Merkerson’s availability? A choice
that flowed naturally from the script you started with?

The decision had mainly to do with Merkerson’s availability, although
we know that the fans of the show have their favorite characters,
so we thought it would be nice to change up the stars we had in the
game to appeal to more players over the course of the game series.

2. Suzanne Oshry,
writer of Law & Order: Dead on the Money,
once again provides the writing for JiS. Although she has proven
quite talented at writing the L&O games, Oshry seems at first
to be an odd choice. My research indicates that she only ever scripted
a single episode of the L&O TV series. Are there other skills
that Oshry possesses that led you to approach her in the first place?

Suzanne has a great sense of the characters and structure of the
show, as well as a true interest in adventure games and the game
industry. We found her to be very adept at translating her skills
as a television writer to the more complex and non-linear demands
of an adventure game script, so we were delighted we could work with
her a second time.

3. The script
of JiS bears more than a passing resemblance to both the L&O TV episode entitled “Doubles” as well as the
real-life Monica Seles stabbing incident. Was this a conscious choice
going into the game– an effort to make players feel more deeply
immersed in the L&O world? Or is it simply a case of “this
is the script we were given?”

The resemblance to the
episode entitled “Doubles” is purely
coincidental, although the Monica Seles stabbing incident was certainly
in our minds as we planned this case. We wanted to set a story in
the world of professional sports, where there is tremendous pressure
on the characters coming from all directions, and many people involved
with the athlete that have a stake in their success. After tossing
around several ideas, such as focusing on an Olympic swimmer, we
settled on women’s tennis.

4. I know that
L&O:DoM was criticized in some adventure game
circles for its relative lack of “puzzles”. With each succeeding
game, you have included more of the type of puzzle fare that many
adventure game players like and expect. Would you like to talk about
the challenge of incorporating such puzzles into the games’ very
realistic approach to police investigation?

To be honest, including
puzzles in the first Law & Order game
was something of an afterthought. At first the game was just going
to include collecting and testing evidence and interviewing witnesses,
as well as figuring out the search and arrest warrants. As we were
moving through the development phase of the game we felt that there
wasn’t enough variety in the gameplay to make it engaging enough
for players, so we added the puzzles and the bargaining with witnesses
feature. For Law & Order: Justice is Served we knew from the
beginning that we wanted to include puzzles, and that we wanted to
make them satisfying to the adventure gamer, whom we consider an
important part of our target market. It is certainly challenging
to come up with a wide range of unique puzzles when the game world
is set in modern day New York. It is easier to design puzzles for
a fantasy world where realistic conventions don’t apply. We worked
very hard to find ways to create organic puzzles that aren’t too
basic, like your standard finding of keys for locks and opening of
safes, and while we have our share of the basics, we are proud of
the ways we were able to incorporate some innovative puzzles without
completely ignoring the convention of reality that we’re working
under. As we’ve progressed in this series we’ve also allowed ourselves
to take more liberties and stretch the “realism” concept
a bit in the interest of fun and unique gameplay.

5. Next up for
Legacy is your Law & Order: Criminal Intent game.
For fans of the TV series, much of the show’s attraction lies in
watching Vincent D’Onofrio’s “Det. Robert Goren” use subtle
(and sometimes not-so-subtle) psychological attacks on suspects until
they crumble and confess. Goren’s other primary attribute, of course,
is that he knows absolutely everything! Can you talk to us about
whether these attributes will be incorporated into gameplay, and
if so, how?

We’re building a brand-new game engine based on a new design for
this series, partly to account for the particular characteristics
of Detective Goren. When the player questions a witness in the Criminal
Intent game, they will always select topics along with an approach
or attitude, such as confrontational, flattering, deceptive, or empathetic.
The witness will respond differently based on how the player as Goren
treats them. The game also incorporates a criminal profile feature,
that emulates Goren’s understanding of what types of crimes are committed
by what kinds of people, a skill which helps him hone in on the right
suspect.

6. Can you give
us any hints as to what lies ahead for Legacy’s L&O franchise?

Another Law & Order
title is just now starting development for release in the Fall
of 2005, and we’ll have a second Criminal Intent
game following on the heels of the first.

Thank you for
taking the time to answer these questions and “speak” with
our Just Adventure+ audience.

You’re welcome!