Interviews

An in Depth Interview with Culpa Innata Designers Burak Barmanbek (Exec Producer & Designer/Creator) Laura MacDonald (Senior Designer, Business Director) Conducted by Randy Sluganski & Aya October 24, 2007

BB: Momentum is a research and development group located in a special technical campus, near Istanbul. We have been developing core technologies for use in digital media and related applications for several years then we decided our next step was to take all the technical tools and processes we had developed and put them to use making a game. First it was a natural step for our company, but on a personal level, game production was instinctive, the thing I needed to do creatively.  Our group was also drawn together by a shared drive to create a game driven by each gamer’s thoughts, choices and perceptions. One that was also centered on story and thinking. Not in the sense of toying with thinking by throwing puzzles at gamers, but in a larger sense where each gamer can create their own personal story and perceptions of events, people and the history of Culpa Innata.  

LM:  All of us are drawn to the narrative possibilities of gaming. And a narrative, character driven genre, was the ideal medium to create games that allow people to explore possibilities, feelings and thoughts in an imaginative realm. From a design perspective, classic adventure games should be uniquely focused or driven by these elements. But, they need to become better at player created stories and offer up deeper plots, characters and dilemmas. Why separate the challenge from the story, why not make the story itself the challenge? So in a broad sense, that is exactly what we did with Culpa.

Were there any technical problems encountered that forced you to change aspects of the game? What type of graphics engine and other technologies were used for the game? 

BB:  There weren’t really technical challenges that affected the game development. It was more the design we chose and the game we wanted to make directed technical choices. 

We wanted Culpa Innata to be built around a great story. But a great story is only as good as your ability to tell it. So we focused on technologies that would bring this tale interactively into a live 3D world. For instance, Culpa Innata has unique characters and correctly reflecting these personalities to the player was a big challenge. We built on patented technologies for 3D head and face modeling, in order to achieve characters with credible personalities and depth.

We also wanted to create a non-linear game, with plenty of exploratory freedom for players. To achieve that, we created a logic engine with a graphical user interface, so that our game designers could link the parts and pieces of the game and design the gameflow in a visual manner. This technology gave us great freedom to create all the elements of non-linearity that we’ve were striving for. There are about 10,000 condition links between the events of the game in Culpa Innata, creating a massive combination of events, so that the experience of every player is somewhat different. We integrated a third party 3D Graphics engine to our 3D head modeling and animation technologies and to our logic engine to make Culpa Innata what it is.

What problems, if any, did you have finding a North American publisher for Culpa Innata?

LM: I wouldn’t say we had problems as much as a self-imposed delay. We decided to focus on developing business relationships in Europe first since PC gaming and adventure games in specific are more dominant there, In Germany, for example, the unique dominance of PC gaming and also the terrific efforts of the German publishers to entice new people into narrative driven games stand out from other regions. 

We also started localization of Culpa in late 2006. Releasing it in North America while pushing through the lengthy process of translation, recording and implementation would mean an equally lengthy effort to keep interest in the game going while people waited in each territory. So we held the English version while working through the localization process. In the end, this delay benefited North American gamers, as rather than sit on the product, we used the time to tweak and update the game considerably.

Can you comment more on the differences between how adventure games are viewed in parts of Europe as compared to North America?

BB: In some ways, adventure or perhaps narrative based games are treated more seriously in Europe. But there are as many territorial differences across Europe as between North America and Europe itself. So in the end it comes down to the game itself. A good game will do well across most markets and a great game appeals to gamers across a wide spectrum of personal traits, preferences and geographical locations

LM: Compared to Europe, many North America publishers are not particularly focused on PC based adventure games as a product line. They don’t generally seem as enthusiastic or knowledgeable about the genre as their European based counterparts. We were fortunate to find a partner in Strategy First; they bring a lot of energy and creativity to their marketing efforts, have a well-developed distribution reach and really listen to Developers.

Culpa Innata portrays a very disturbing image of the future in a world that is based on greed and beauty.  Is this a statement on how Momentum views the world today or is it a warning that Culpa Innata’s vision could become reality?

BB: Culpa Innata is a game based on the universe created in a two-volume novel named “Schrödinger’in Kedisi” (Schrödinger’s Cat), by Dr. Alev Alatli. Dr. Alatli is a prominent Turkish writer and philosopher who built a hypothetical story of where the world could be in the next few decades, based on an unchanged historical timeline from today’s political, social and geological events. When I asked to borrow her universe for an adventure game, she didn’t hesitate. The result is Culpa Innata. We aren’t saying this is how the world will be 40 years from now, and certainly don’t believe any of the events should be true. In science fiction, you think of what might happen if things go unchanged.

LM: Culpa Innata is a game, which has a great deal of satire and even critical subtleties about a projection to the extreme of many cultural and political currents present in our world today. Since North American culture dominates much of the world, well there are a lot of subtle and not so subtle references to western concepts of profit at all costs. Of course this is taken to an extreme, which is the point of satire. So perhaps if individuals and even nations consider the implications of their choices on our own future – Culpa Innata will remain just a fictional world designed for a challenging, highly immersive and interactive game. But, we think that gamers might take away more from our game than just entertainment values. So there is a sense of a warning about what the future could bring.

What games have you played that you feel influenced the development of Culpa Innata?

BB. Since the original inspiration was Dr. Alatli’s book and inherent philosophies, the primary force behind the Culpa design was to bring those ideas to life in an interactive player driven environment. But a game also has to be fun, and enjoyable, with a design that works to engage the player on all levels. I follow recent games, try to gauge gamer and critical perceptions, but my own range of gaming experience wasn’t as broad based as I would like. One of the reasons we sought team diversity, particularly at a later stage in the game’s production, was to have a wide range of actual gaming exposure and knowledge added to the process

LM: Once the basic build was completed, there was a long process of looking at the game from all sides and making it more accessible. We wanted to break parts away that didn’t serve playability, accessibility or interactive enjoyment. So not really one game, but all the best parts of great games served as a knowledge base when refining Culpa. For example, a playable character that becomes more real and familiar as you progress through the game – that is fun. You also want to create challenges that aren’t too easy, but with a perceivable logic. Having those same challenges flow with the game rather than exist merely to slow down the gamer is a definite design plus.  So games like Tex Murphy, Zork, Gabriel Knight, Blade Runner, The Longest Journey, Broken Sword — all of these exist as reference points in some manner or another.

Culpa Innata stands out from today’s average adventure game as it offers a deep, rich world and lengthy gameplay.  Considering the popularity of casual games and adventures that can be completed in under a week, are you concerned at all that today’s gamer might be loathe to become immersed in the complex universe you have created?

BB: Judging by the constant postings and critical statements about “ what happened to our games and where are the great games we used to love?”  I think the reverse is true. People are craving deep, richly detailed adventure. If you look at the games that have done the best in recent years they are not small games. The Longest Journey, Syberia 1 and 2, none of these could possibly be even touched in a short development curve. Even the games doing well on their own as episodic games like the new Sam n Max series certainly aren’t done in a week or even a few months. Though with ready built characters and reusable environments you can build episodic content across a very tight production schedule.

LM: Exactly. Between casual games and full-length adventure games, these are two very different projects catering to different markets and gaming preferences. I play some casual games, but these are time killer type games not what you play when you have a bit more time and want to get deeply involved and entertained. It is the similar to having books that are absorbing versus taking a magazine or two along to kill your waiting time at the doctor’s office or for short reading at night. I think the two different game styles serve very different needs and are not competitive styles.

How did you process your storyline? Story first? Part of it? All of it? Fly by the seat of your pants and develop the storyline as you go?

BB: There was a great deal of thought and research that took place as I built the world of this game. Not in the sense of finding details and matching them up. This was more of a philosophical build. In Culpa Innata, I examined a great body of critical thinking on the contemporary west, and explored the boundaries of its paradigm, using binary thinking as the fundamental tool. The outcome was the future that the game describes (I certainly think that things may turn this weird someday). There are strange results to many contemporary issues (terrorism, unemployment, taxes, health care, education, crime etc.). I tried to include as many issues as possible, to spur more interest of the players to the game universe.

LM: I was drawn into this development project by intense weeks of discussions involving these philosophies. Also a great deal of back and forth on Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which led to theoretical ideas like Fuzzy Thinking and Chaos Theory, among other things. It turned out we were both intensely curious about how these ideas shape and predict the course of societies, custom, beliefs and group or national behavior. I think these same perceptions affect how people play games and on a deeper level, why they feel absorbed by some stories, characters and challenges and not others. At the bottom line, the game universe of Culpa Innata reflects the clash between binary and fuzzy thinking. No absolute good or absolute evil: There are no villains in black or heroes in white. Everything and everyone in this game are shades of grey. In the re-design phase of development, these private discussions formed our core approach to what needed to be enhanced or cut to promote this design focus.

BB: We are definitely fuzzy thinkers in this group. 🙂

Can you talk about Phoenix Wallis – the heroine – a bit?

LM: Phoenix has evolved even during the development. She is a young woman, who doesn’t quite fit in to the world that she lives. But at the same time, she wants deeply to succeed in this society. She also has to confront and work around the reality of her own personality, thinking and behavior. She is very different from all the people she meets and deals with on a daily business.  If she were just like everyone else, it’s doubtful she would be drawn into or been so persistent at pursuing this adventure. So she is also curious, self directed and determined. Despite the fact that she faces all sorts of obstacles, she keeps exploring into what is going on.

BB: And she has a great deal of inner conflict. Like most people out there, she has her “public” persona and then the “real or internalized Phoenix” The parts of herself that are kept inside, suppressed and hidden from others, but drive and sustain her. So she is looking for answers, not just about this case – but about herself, her world, and the events in her life. The game is a process of growth and challenge, for events, Phoenix herself and assuming gamers ID with any of this – for themselves vicariously. At the end of experiencing the world of Culpa Innata, we wanted a character that was open to scrutiny by gamers, and perceived as having evolved over the course of gameplay. 

Culpa Innata’s conclusion leaves open the possibility for a sequel.  Assuming there is such a sequel, would it feature Phoenix Wallis or be based in an entirely new world of Culpa Innata and maybe even be an entirely different genre such as a simulation?

BB: Further adventures involving Phoenix Wallis, many of the characters in Culpa Innata and the world of tomorrow would be “hypothetically speaking” an interesting focus for another project.  We do have a game project that has been in the works for a few months now.  We also are deep into a great many technical and design advancements, as well. It is premature to discuss many of them, but we do plan to have two playable characters, and emotive components to the game play. There are a number of other technical enhancements that will definitely be a surprise to gamers, but we’ll leave that for future discussion.

How does history play into your scenarios?  How much research do you put into Culpa Innata in order to reach the level of realism you wanted?

BB:  This is where the creative process comes into play. We are students of history, and avid thinkers. All you have to do is look around and take note of where we are, think on what came before and then extrapolate what could come next. The realism that you create is based on how well you can write a convincing story and visualize in an interactive sense what you want the gamers to experience and learn. This is fantasy science fiction, which really is beyond reality and current history so you have a great deal of personal freedom to create that future as you see it. It does have to be credible, so if you don’t have a fluent sense of our past and current events it can over reach logical or acceptable boundaries of possibilities. But it isn’t like a historically based game.

LM: I think that that anyone who writes, designs and creates must have a strong sense of imagery and communication skills or they won’t be very good at creating games. I know when writing dialogs, I often visualize how a specific character would think, act and speak. I wouldn’t know how to research that. I think that if it’s not good or credible  – you know it from the start. The burden lies on our abilities to make the game come alive for gamers in the play, atmosphere, environments, characters and the all-important story.

Has there been any discussion about offering the complex world of Culpa Innata as an online multi-player experience similar to Uru Live or the rumored online version of The Longest Journey/Dreamfall?

LM: It has been discussed, though that is a huge project to take on and we have the current game in production. The detail and depth of Culpa is similar to persistent online societies and gameplay like URU. We are looking at a number of optional systems, platforms for our creative work. If they support a narrative & character driven challenge filled gameplay – we definitely are considering them.

BB We have looked at console applications such as the Wii, which has a unique interface and level of player involvement. There is an ongoing discussion over system applications like the DS and or straight console ports or even mobile gaming. So, we have been following adventure games designed for such systems closely. We attended the recent GameCon in Leipzig and spent a little time away from our own booth to check out player reactions to these games on different systems and also try them ourselves. But, we shall see. There are a few more titles coming out on these systems and we are watching them with great interest.

What do you think is more important in a good game? Storyline? Graphics? Puzzles? Integration of all? Other?

BB: This is another reason why the adventure game in the traditional sense is the best medium for interactive narrative & character driven games. Since shooting, level ups, traditional strategy skills are not the focal point of the gameplay – Adventure games, when done well, focus on player directed exploration, discovery and challenge.  The best should have these things designed in a way that the player never feels like they are passive spectators watching the game. That would be a movie – not a game. Even the choice of 3D real time rendered cinematics, dialogs and gameplay in Culpa, was primarily to keep everything in the game seamless to enhance player engagement.

LM: Definitely a synergy of all of these things is important to us in designing and building a game. Storyline, challenges, ambiance, and even the graphical style and also player interface all of it should work together in a tightly constructed, well-paced gameplay. It is also about telling the story we wanted players to experience, but designed to enable gamers to create their own unique version of events. So we picked some design elements from classic adventure games and others more common to genres like RPG’s and even strategy games to create a game we wanted to play ourselves. One that gamers will feel they built by their choices, their wits and their successes in beating diverse challenges.  So there isn’t one factor. It is simply using everything available and needed to create a singular and hopefully credible game world and experience for gamers.

Are there any plans to merchandise different aspects of the world of Culpa Innata?

LM: I think if you want to play it smart you have to think on all possible applications or revenue streams for your original idea. And you also want to take care when negotiating with various business partners, to protect yourself down the road and preserve as much control over your ideas and their uses as possible. So sure, we have thought about merchandising, movies, graphic novels and even a persistent online world version of Culpa. But I have to say these are fairly fleeting thoughts, as right now we are purely focused on one thing – the release of Culpa Innata. 

BB: Yes, you have to stay focused or you won’t create very good games or stay in business very long. And that business for us is the development, marketing and release of this game, Culpa Innata. There are plenty of sad tales about people who had some great teams, original ideas and lost their design focus and ended up with a game that wasn’t as good or well made from a player’s perspective as it should or could have been. For every game being announced and released there are some development houses with a lot of games under their creative belt that were forced to shut down through circumstances, some tough luck and even poor Publisher performance. But getting back to merchandising, if you have any proposals we are always open to new ideas. 🙂

What impression do you most want the gamer to go away with after finishing Culpa Innata?

BB: That they loved the game and want to replay it to catch all the people, events that they missed the first time around. That Phoenix, the supporting cast of characters and the World Union itself seemed credible and real. Also, I think that people will be surprised by what they discover as they play through the game. It really is one of those games that you have to play it to get the whole idea of it. Hearing gamer’s reactions to the story, culture, game universe and play is something I am definitely looking forward to, positive and negative.

LM: If their final thoughts are that they enjoyed Culpa and hope to see more games from us, this would make the long nights, endless working days worthwhile for me. And the replayability is huge. There are so many ways to go through this game – we even missed some possible pathways. For example you can play through the game and miss a very large area of the game and never know it until you hear about it from others. So if gamers end up feeling all that anticipation was worthwhile, that’s the real pay-off.

Now that you’re a big name adventure game developer, do people hit on you all the time?

LM: I think this question is for you, Burak, though I think the time is right for booth dudes to take their place of power among the booth babes of game shows. As for being “big time” give us a few months or more at least 😉

BB: On a serious level, development (and release) work consumes all your time, energy and effort. Then there are the bumps in the road you have to navigate around or fix along the way.  We all spend a great deal of time working long hours, typically hunched over a PC either alone or as a team. However, one of the best things about attending the GC in Leipzig was the chance to interact with other creative people and developers. Thinking of it, Steve Ince was wandering around with his own personal booth babe. Okay, I am sure there are plenty of adoring supporters for dude and lady developers, just show us the money!

LM:  Hmm I will have to consult my guru of gaming and say.. What would Jane (Jensen) do?  Alright, the answer is, yes… we are eager and ready to be hit on big time. After all, bold creative thinkers make adventure games – all the rest are mere humans.

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