Interviews

In some ways, The
Forgotten: It Begins was a game way ahead of its time. Meant to be episodic,
it did not catch on with adventure gamers
who at the time of its release in 1999 were accustomed to games that
took 20+ hours to complete and stood on their own. Today, almost
seven years later, the buying public has accepted not only casual
games, but also episodic games – such as Bone, Delaware
St. John & the upcoming version of Alone
in the Dark – that
must be purchased in installments and usually only offer a few hours
of playing time.

The Forgotten:
It Begins received mixed reviews, mostly due to the
shortness of the game and also because too many adventure gamers
were loathe to try something new that in the long run would involve
a substantial investment of both time and cash.

Set in the 1930’s
French Quarter of New Orleans, you must search for clues to the
disappearance of esteemed archaeologist and
explorer Richard Haliburton. The story has no true ending and instead
feels like a prelude to what is to come. But behind every game there
is a story and it is these stories that shape the games we play and
so it was that we seized the opportunity to speak with Troyan Turner,
the creative director of The Forgotten: It Begins.

Would you tell
us a little about yourself, your background and if you have worked
on any other games?

I grew up on a farm
in the middle of South Dakota, 30 miles from anywhere. Not a
lot to
do in our spare time so we played a lot of
games. I was hooked on video games ever since we got the first
PONG game that also had skeet and hockey, pong with a “goal
net” :).
My brothers and I were all artistic and creative and we would
compete to see who could draw the best picture of superheroes
or fantasy
scenes. Our Aunt and my brother are avid readers and turned me
on at a young age to all kinds of writing, like Stephen King,
Koontz,
Anne Rice and Tolkien. I started using a Macintosh in college
and taught myself graphics and 3D in my spare time. Spent 1 semester
at the Ringling School of Art and Design for 3D Animation, but
the
expense was too great and decided to take a job at a small design
firm (5 of us total) in Memphis Tennessee. They were primarily
a Packaging Design firm and my deal with them was I would work
on packaging
designs during the day and I would be allowed to use their systems
to develop a 3D and Multimedia branch of the company. I picked
up a copy of MYST shortly after and was blown away at the experience
and HAD to try my hand at it.

What was your
ultimate goal with The Forgotten?

Ultimately I just wanted to create an immersive world that evoked
emotions in people and tell a unique story that people would remember.

What were you
hoping to accomplish with the first episode?

Artistically, the first
episode was to be extremely vague yet hook you in to wanting more.
It was only to be an introduction into the
world, the main players and the scenario and provide more questions
than answers. Answers that were too unfold throughout the series.
Financially it was to finance the 2nd installment which would perpetuate
into the other installments in the series. Because the company was
only 5 people and primarily a design firm, there was only myself
and another person working on it full time and we were hoping we
could at least double or triple our team during the course of the
series. I can’t think of any other game that was created and
published entirely by 2 people at the time.

For our readers
who have not played the game, could you provide us with a synopsis
of the storyline?

You’re dropped into a study you don’t recognize with
no memory or no idea who you are. Not a unique scenario in that aspect,
but unlike other games, there’s a very good explanation for
it that would be revealed later in the series. You find a letter
from Richard Haliburton (a person who really existed and wrote a
series of books called The Complete Book of Marvels and was the inspiration
for Indiana Jones-he disappeared mysteriously sailing a Japanese
junket to LA) who briefly explains the Collection. Cards with powers
that when assembled grant the possessor even greater power. So powerful
that some of the greatest influential powers in history used them
to their advantage…always with a tragic end shrouded in mystery.
Like a common deck of cards, there were themed sets. When a set was
collected, it would grant you one type of power. If anyone were to
ever collect the entire deck, it would basically give you the power
of God. People like Hitler, Czar Nicholas and Rasputin, etc.

The cards were created
by a race of beings of pure energy, referred to as “The Forgotten”, that existed in the time of the
planet before Man when the continents formed Pangea. They were exiled
to parallel plane of existence when the Cataclysm happened, clearing
the path for the rise of man. The beings still had ties to this plane,
drawing energy from it, and they seeked to manipulate the human race
to their advantage, which they did through the cards. The caveat
to the cards were the more they were used, the more the power inhabited
their host. If the power began to become too great, they would act
as a homing beacon and The Forgotten would “collect” the
person using them, spreading the person’s collection to the
wind for others to collect, continuing the cycle. If the host had
absorbed enough energy and had perverted it into a new form, the
beings would sometimes convert the collected possessor into a new
card themselves. Anyone could possess the cards as they were extremely
powerful, but neutral.

Our story fit very nicely
into people from history, like Amelia Earhart and Richard Haliburton.
People of fantastic adventures or
powerful influence who disappeared mysteriously. In the first story,
you find out that Amelia had begun a collection that granted her
the power of bodily flight. Richard and Amelia have a romance. Amelia
has disappeared and now so has Richard. Richard sets you on the path
to finding them which starts in a mysterious part of New Orleans,
the place that Haliburton’s books begin.

Do you think
your game was ahead of its time? Or was The Forgotten: It Begins simply a bad game or a victim of poor marketing?

I think it was definitely
ahead of it’s time. I didn’t
start making the game thinking I’d see how the first one did,
then I’ll think if a concept for a sequel, the episodes were
already planned from the beginning. From a marketing point of view,
we entertained and researched the idea of creating the first one
as a download, but in 1997 there was basically NO security and there
was no competing with games on a shelf in a store with a tangible
box. From a development point of view, we implemented features like
360° environments, panning stereo sound effects that moved with
your view and dynamic effects, like water you could run your cursor
over and it would make ripples and waves. This was huge at the time,
especially for this medium. We played with concepts that would have
taken way too long to develop that you don’t see in any other
game today. People applauded our efforts but thought we were crazy
in attempting to develop a game in an episodic way with a small first
introduction. Since then, we’ve seen this work in not only
games but in other franchises. Harry Potter is a prime example of
this. Whenever I read feedback from people who didn’t like
it, it was either they did not understand the concept (as it didn’t
fit into any of the other “me too” concepts of aliens,
zombies or Egypt-nothing against any of those developers, but how
many Egypt based games can be made?), because the game was so short,
or they were hung up on the technical bugs it had. I definitely also
think it was a victim of poor marketing as I never saw any advertising
for it in any medium. I think Dreamcatcher cut it short because of
the complaints on the shortness and the few bugs it had.

What kind of
problems, if any, did you encounter during development of The
Forgotten: It Begins?

When I first introduced
the concept of developing a game, I was pretty much laughed at
and told we needed to concentrate on our core
revenue generator which was package design. It wasn’t until
a few months later after I had spent my nights and weekends creating
a website with sample images and game content that their eyes were
opened. I released a short scene demo of the game that was available
for download and the traffic crashed the servers at our service provider.
That content got the notice from clients like Playboy, Neutrogena
and 20th Century Fox. They finally let me work on the game full time
and gave me free reign after that. Everything was going great up
until about 6 months from release. Since we weren’t programmers,
we were using off the shelf interactive engines. Our choice at the
time was Macromedia Director or mTropolis. We decided to go with
mTropolis as it’s approach was far ahead of it’s time.
Extremely elegant and powerful, it dwarfed Director and during it’s
course, forced Director to implement features that competed. Being
they were virtually unheard of in their field, however, they suffered
from financial stresses and were eventually bought out by Quark.
Instead of funding the next release, Quark killed it for some unknown
reason. So 6 months from delivering a gold master of the game, our
engine was killed and so was the next update that was to fix the
few bugs left in the game. To start over with Director would have
delayed the game easily another year, so we decided to let it release
as the bugs were annoying, but not a showstopper. The other problem
was after 3 years of development, this was looking to be a big fish
in the company’s small pond, which created all sorts of dissent
and drama within the company. Also after 3 years of writing content,
creating artwork and sound effects, programming and negotiating contracts
I was stressed to the limit. I chose to leave about a month before
the game was delivered as it was finished and only needed things
like the manual written.

Do you still
own the rights to continue the series and, if so, would the original
development team still be available?

Currently I don’t
own the rights as the game was developed while I was employed by
a company and used their resources and money
to develop the game. The other person of the development team is
available but we did not part ways on good terms after claiming several
of my ideas as his own. He was since fired from the company under
speculative circumstances. There was a third person named Chris Robinson
that helped with the initial brainstorming and storyline who I could
bring back in if development began again, but that will remain to
be seen.

Is there a possibility,
especially with the current success of episodic games, that we
might see The Forgotten continued as an
online download?

I am extremely interested
in finishing the series as I think I’ll
regret it if I don’t. The series concepts are already fleshed
out and ready to be developed. Again, the problem is the rights
and I have no interest in sharing them with the design firm.
If I can
get them back, it will continue. If you see the series continued
and don’t see my name on it…don’t blame me
🙂

If not The
Forgotten,
then do you have any other projects in mind?

My wife, brother and I
have developed a really cool game concept from a biblical reference
from the Old Testament called a “Revenger
of Blood”. We’re not religious, but the concept is extremely
cool. There is another I have fleshed out based on the Flying Dutchman
legend (which is now in the latest Pirates movie, grr) and my wife
has a 3rd sci fi concept she is developing that will probably wind
up as a book. The problem I face is unless I have a access to a sizeable
development team I will probably only be able to develop one of them.
The Forgotten was my first love, so I will wait and see what happens
with that, then I will make a decision.

If there are
gamers interested in playing new episodes of The Forgotten, what
can they do to show their interest?

The most important part
of this kind of medium is you. And by “you” I
mean all of the people that love this medium. Without you, no
games like this will be created. If there is a market that
exists, I would
love to hear their voices. Not literally J, but if a form or
petition of interested people signed it, it would give me the
push I need
to make the leap. I think the time is good for downloadable content,
but if necessary, a proof of market would give me ammo for a
publisher. If the next episode is created, please BUY it :).
Piracy does not
keep the computers on. If I could make money on the content,
it would definitely fund a team to bring the episodes faster
and at higher
quality. Basically, let it be known that you want the Forgotten
series! Create a buzz anyway you can! If you loved the first
one and the
story concept, let it be known you want ME and a team I assemble
to finish it and you don’t want inferior shlock thrown
at you by people who never wanted it created in the first place
except for
their financial gain. Email Dreamcatcher and other publishers
of these games and tell them you want this series. Simply speak
up and
be heard 🙂