Interviews

JA – What was one of the best moments for you when creating your game?

Steve Ince – With both Juniper Crescent – The Sapphire Claw and Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso, it was the point where I had put together enough gameplay to prove that my ideas would work.  At that point, the game crystalised in my mind to such an extent that I could see it very clearly from start to finish.  Thankfully, I found two very good engines that allowed me to develop the gameplay in the way that I wanted, Wintermute Engine for Sapphire and Game Maker for Nutso.  Because I’m not a programmer, without such engines and toolsets I couldn’t even begin to consider what I’m doing.

Jonathan
Boakes – Hmm,
I remember being very excited on March the 4th, 2002. I’d created
the first detailed room for Dark Fall.
It was also sunny outside, which was nice.
 

Britney Brimhall – I
personally love seeing the characters I’ve developed come to life.  I like seeing how the concept artist interprets the character, and how the modeler makes the concept reality.  I love viewing the character speaking the words written by the designer.  I really enjoy seeing how a team can turn a creative idea into something very concrete and real.  So basically, the best moment is developing a game and bringing a dream to life!

Tamás Marosi Z. (Pierrot) – The publication of our first game on the Internet, holding in our hands the first box edition of Agon, published in Hungary, the first contract with an international publisher have all been happy moments. But funnily for me the greatest cause for happiness is to look ahead, and to produce the sketches of another episode (like now the fifth Agon story), which need elaboration. Because that is the time when I feel that something is starting anew, that it is the period of creating something from nothing again.

Mikael & Eleen Nyqvist – The most rewarding moment is always when the game is ready for beta testing and you start to get feedback from the players.
 

Matt
Clark – Rendering, and proofing, the final images for Barrow
Hill was
a ‘best moment’, and huge relief. The experience compliments
the feeling I had when I wrote the first descriptive words, and sketched
the first scene, in my notepad, back in 2004.

Cos Russo -All the creative elements. Creating the 3D environments, coming up with ideas, building them and finally seeing them come to life.  Further down the track it was great finally putting it all together and being able to wander around Alida.

Agustin Cordes & Alejandro Graziani – The
response of the community, hands down. It’s nearly the only reason
why we have gotten this far. Sometimes it’s frustrating when people
show up saying that your game doesn’t deserve their attention because
its graphics aren’t on par with the latest Myst. But generally, it has been all support and enthusiasm from nearly everyone. A healthy state of mind is of most importance to us indies, yes sir!

As for the development itself, one of our most glorious moments was translating the crypt (the first in-game room ever created!) into that pseudo-3D. Moving and panning around it felt almost magical at the time. Of course, still nothing beats releasing that very first attic teaser!

Chris
Brendel – Although
it may sound silly, one of my best memories involves the final
video sequence from my first game, Lifestream.  Without
giving any story specifics here (to avoid spoilers for those
who have not yet played the game), when I rendered the first
draft of the sequence, the music (which was just a rough cut)
fit the visuals perfectly, which I had not foreseen.  Normally,
I just plug some stock music into the scene for a first draft,
to get a feel for what I am looking for.  This music never synchs
up and is only meant to be a showcase for the draft.  So,
after the first draft, I edit the music to specifically fit within
the scene.  In this case, though, the music fit PERFECTLY
without any edits, synching up completely by chance, and the
first draft is the draft you see in the actual game!  No
post work was necessary.  It
was the first – and to date, only – lucky break I have ever
had with the soundtrack of my games.  As it was the final scene
in Lifestream,
it really gave me the feeling that the scene worked and the game would
be a success!

Bryan
Wiegele – I
think the best moments come at the end when you can play through
the game in a near complete state and everything you’ve
been working on for months comes together in a complete package.

Gey & Silvio Savarese – Every
moment is a great moment when an adventure game is created. We
enjoy every single aspect of it! No kidding. Storyline, programming,
graphics, dialogues. Additionally, developing Capri and Anacapri gave
us the chance to live an adventure game experience within the project
itself. Let us explain. Since the graphics of our games are based
on pictures of a real world place (i.e., the island of Capri),
we are used to go to the actual place to take the shots.  This
is a very exciting and intriguing step. We need to explore (sometimes
for the first time!) real world locales and imagine that this is
the place where the adventure game will take place. We encounter
people along the way, we explain to them what we are doing, we
shoot pictures and they become characters of the game.

One segment
of Anacapri the Dream is
set in the northern region of Anacapri called the ‘Forts’. Here
a dangerous trail follows the mountain connecting the forts. Since
part of the game is set in this area we went there to take shots of
the trails and the forts. Well, the walk itself was very challenging:
we had to take hundreds of pictures along the trail with the risk of
falling down into the ocean from the cliff! So it was almost like experiencing
our own adventure!

In this trail,
we discovered, along the path, an old wooden bridge over a valley
plunging over the sea. A quite long staircase made of stones and
iron, carved in the rock, was there to reach the bridge. This place
became part of the game as well! It would have been hard to imagine
and draw such beautiful scenery, but that was the reality!

Another nice thing is that by visiting the actual place it is much funnier (and better) to organize puzzles. In fact, if puzzles are still under development, the place itself may inspire a new twist to the storyline and, most importantly, new ideas for puzzles.

Michael Clark – The best moment for me in game making is always the point where I finish creating a puzzle, and it works exactly like I planned.  I think my best puzzle was the Rock Crushing Machine in Harvest.  That was the climatic point in the game, and the puzzle came out exactly like I hoped it would. 

Knut Mueller – To see how the (game) world develops and to read the emails of gamers who enjoyed playing RHEM.
 

Keith Nemitz – Observing people who’d never played an adventure game before, become totally
wrapped up in it.