Frogwares is
known for bringing classic novels and characters to life
in their adventure games: 80 Days, Sherlock Holmes, et al – why do you
think there is a market for the classics in today’s game atmosphere?

There are different reasons,

The
first one could be commercial; we are living in a marketing
world where the one who
shouts loudest is right. Basing our work
on well known brands or characters is supposed to bring us an
existing audience; I say supposed because most of the time
it’s not
true. The biggest successes are made with original stories. To work
with existing IP allow a flexibility in the game conception, we won’t
have to explain the steam punk style and justify it when working
with Jules Verne, we won’t have to explain who this detective
is or the way he is thinking, or why when we are making a Sherlock
story. So it has two consequences, first less work on the presentation
of the world/characters and second and most important, to go deeper
into the story and into the characters since we don’t waste
time explaining who they are and what they are doing here. So
it allows creating deeper environments which are enjoyable for
our players
in the genre.

Do
you find yourself limited when creating a game based on
a classic author’s novel?

Yes and no, as I explained
above, the usual limit we feel is when we present a character and
a situation: Who he is and why he is acting
this way. On the other hand when you choose a style you stick to
it, but we could do a dark “80 days” or a silly Sherlock,
it could work as well and we won’t be limited by the style.

Your previous games have concentrated on classic literature from Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne. Are there any plans to convert other classic
authors to the computer medium?

We
like classics, I’d like to work with other detectives,
but there are some patents and we would need to discuss the rights.
Other classics are very interesting too, but so far the game
play possibilities were the problem. We will wait for 80 Days’ complete
results on the market and switch our game play in the same direction,
even if we need to change or adapt. So far the feedback was really
good from editors and beta testers, so we are quite confident
that we are moving in the right direction.

While
your games are treated warmly by the adventure community, they
have yet to enjoy mainstream success. What, in your opinion,
needs to be done to improve sales of Frogware’s adventure games
in North America?

I don’t know any adventure who met a mainstream success in
the last three years, and the main studios closed one after another.
North America is trying to kill the PC market year after year, despite
players resisting, it is more and more difficult to find PC games
on the shelves. Frogwares is, today, the biggest adventure studio
in the world, as all other serious ones are closed. I say that with
humility as it’s not place we tried to reach, but it’s
a consequence of the market situation. And now we have to bet with
new publishers to improve our recognition; people who understand
the players and the game, and have the commercial strength to put
the game on the shelves.

Each successive
Frogware game seems to improve upon the previous game. What do
you use as a barometer to make changes: feedback
from forums, sales figures, etc.

We
want to improve at every game and if you look to “The Mystery
of the Mummy” and now to “80 days”, there is
only three years but a long way. Forums help a lot; there are
some very
good and very sharp opinions which help us to understand what
mistake we make. Games are a story between game developers and
players and
nobody can enter this relationship. The e-mails that people write
us, (we had a lot a mail of congratulations for the silver earring,
and it wasn’t the case before) push us forward to give
more effort for better games.

You have had
four different publishers for your last four games. Is it just
a matter of Frogwares looking for a perfect match
for their product?

We are not faithful!!!! I can say that every single publisher who
worked with us made money, in all territories and for all our games.
We are serious, deliver good games at a good price, but publishers
are not necessarily doing the same for many different reasons. So
far we signed twice with few publisher, the devoted to adventure
DTP AG in Germany, and in Italy with Microids. We would like to have
adventure passionate publishers and honest ones, and we hope Tri
Synergy who worked previously on some other titles, will do just
that.

The Just Adventure
preview of 80 Days mentions some technological
innovations for the adventure genre.
Can you elaborate on some of these innovations?

Your
reviewer clearly saw the innovations we propose in “80
days”, it’s an adventure game, which is in real time
3D (and playable 🙂 ). Adding 3D to the genre is not really new
but to this extent it is. We see very often on JA forums and
on other
sites if adventure games “can be in 3D,” or they “need
3D,” or anything else connected to “3D.” 3D
is enhancing game play! You could even say it adds a new dimension
to
it :).

The
idea when we conceived the game was; “let’s do a traditional
adventure game and let’s add some fun elements we find in other genres
and some original ones specific to this title.” So we created a
nice homemade receipt which will create the feeling of Adventure, Racing,
and discovery.

“80 days” has
giant and various environments, which are allowing more immersion
and discovery than in 2D, you will feel yourself in India, in
Egypt or in Japan. You can drive weird vehicles, which is fun, and additionally
we deleted the frustrating go back and forth during the level. Puzzles
are in
3D, means that you play with the third dimension when thinking; it’s
changing the way you solve the puzzles and stimulate other areas of your
brain (which
is obviously why we play adventure games). Dialogs and cut scenes are
integrated to the engine, assuring a complete immersion into the game
during all the gaming
experience. Real time physics from Ageia (Unreal Engine) allow you to
play with other type of puzzles than the ones we knew until now in the
genre.

We
are not pretending to create a revolution; it’s just a matter to go
through the gap between other leading gaming genres and our genre. Still there
is no fighting and no violence, as we don’t feel the need for
it in our game play.

What is there in your background that has inspired you to bring the
classics to life on the pc?

I
fear this “classic” element is not very popular in
computer games generally, but I strongly believe that classic stories
allow deeper development than “modern” stories. I don’t
have a lot of esteem for the stories we have in most computer games,
they are usually lame, using childish triggers, Manichean stories,
well known clichés and other sub-average keys for story development.
Games are really the most immature support we can have, they look
like bad B movies most of the time, or cheap travel books. It’s
due mainly to money reasons today, where the most talented people
work in movies (where there is money), and when they work in games,
even if they have good stories they don’t have enough money
to develop them fully and make them believable. Adventure games
suffer even more of this lack of money, as the genre is not really
selling,
it cannot interest financial people, who are key to development.
So bring classics to the screen is simple as put Sherlock Holmes
by his window, smoking a pipe, with a nice violin music, and
you are in the story already. This is simpler than explaining
a world
conspiracy or making you believe that you are the one to save
the planet (again).

How closely does
the 80 Days game adhere to the novel? What liberties have you taken
and why?

We adapted the novel for different reasons,

The
first one is that the people who originally read “Around
the World in 80 Days”, in the last century, were dreaming while
reading it, because traveling was for few people only. But today
travel is conventional, and travel by conventional means (plane,
boat, or car) isn’t that exceptional. The second is that “Around
the World in 80 Days” is a book where we don’t find
what we like the most in Jules Verne: strange machines ruling
the world,
giant steam pumps allowing fast travel and electro zinzulator
regulating the temperature of the Sun. All the travels are done
by conventional
means in the book. The third was Fogg himself, who is an absolutely
average person, who has no dream, no ambition, no thoughts and
in the book is more a machine himself than a human being (he
fired passepartout
predecessor for an incredible reason of shaving water temperature),
Fogg is described as a satellite in orbit around the planet,
he saves Aouda for obvious moral reasons and become human at
10 pages from
the end of the book. This is why passepartout was here: to balance
his master…

So we decided to make a Jules Verne world to be able to rediscover
places and dream, have strange machines and only one hero who has
enough various personality to go through all the adventure, met crazy
NPC, and live a fantastic story and experience. Also we could use
anachronism and get the best of the traditional and modern world
you visit.

What type of
graphics engine was used for 80 Days?

Our 3D engine, that we created specifically for the game, allow
it to be played on low end computer as we had 4 years ago and still
play pixel shader 3.0 when enabled. The graphic quality is very good
and when played you feel totally immersed in this strange fun world.
The texture quality used is 4 times bigger than in the current games,
providing better graphic than normal 3D and as good as pre-rendered
backgrounds. The engine is not too heavy so it can be played on 4
year old, good, computers. You can expect some nice graphic effect,
as reflection, water, bump, physics, clothes animation, and lip-synch
in every language.

80
Days is played in ‘real time.’ Can
you explain this concept for our readers?

“80 days” is a race, so you can do this race in “real
time”, meaning that you have 80 days to do it.

I want to say that
there is an option in the game to play without this constraint,
it is less fun but some players want to take their time.

In the case you choose
to play the game with the maximum difficulty, you have to manage
your global time, in every location or levels (Cairo,
Bombay, Yokohama,
San Francisco and in the transport which are levels themselves the
Colossus or Giant Boat, the Leviathan or Giant Airship, the Titan
or Giant Train)
you have a critical time to complete all the missions otherwise you
lose (you arrive
in Cairo at day 8 you have until day 14 to leave). You have a system
of auto save and checkpoint which allow redoing some missions if you
fail them or if
you want to do them faster.

As
it was not enough, you have energy to manage, meaning that
Oliver is a human being
and needs to rest and eat, so you’ll have to manage these
elements too. Go to the hotel and sleep or eat during the day
otherwise you will fall
down in the street of exhaustion and find yourself without money.

Then money is needed
to pay rest and food, buy items needed in some of the puzzles,
send and receive messages, buy your transportation
ticket,
rent a
vehicle, and even bribe guards and policemen.

So
you have these three elements to manage altogether, renting
a vehicle will spare you
time and energy but cost money, sleeping
regularly
is
good as you
won’t fall down during a mission but cost money and consumes
time, etc…

The idea is to have
the feeling that your actions depend on the world you are leaving
in (some shops are closed at night, some
other places
as a Harem can
be accessed only at night) and that this world has its own
agenda, and you have to fit in.

Thank you for
taking the time to speak to JA and we hope your newest game is
a success!