Interviews

In the midst of going through the beta-testing phase of his latest game Shady Brook, independent developer Chris Brendel was kind enough to take a break and allow his first ever interview. Shady Brook is Chris’s second adventure game to date - the first being Lifestream that met with favorable reviews.

JA – Chris, tell us a little about yourself.

Hi, Eric. First, I’d like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to ask me a few questions! Well, I’m 22 years old and currently attending college in Chicago, IL where I am majoring in computer game development. While I’m not busy with my schoolwork, I like to spend my time writing fiction and designing games.

JA – So what got you into Adventure Games and why did you decide to make your own?

My interest in computers began at a time earlier than I can remember. At the age of eight, my father bought me my first computer game: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? It was fun, and I played it a lot on our old computer with a yellow-and-black monitor, but it never really absorbed me as I had hoped it would. A few months later, my mom took me to the store where I was given the opportunity to pick out my very own game for the first time. I was an imaginative child, and so I headed right to the adventure section. I narrowed my choices down to Space Quest IV or the Police Quest 1 VGA remake. Being a typical 8-year-old boy interested in “good guys and bad guys”, I chose the latter. I installed it onto my computer and was instantly hooked. It took over a year for me to complete the game, but I loved every minute. It was at that point that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I started teaching myself the QBASIC programming language immediately, and went on from there.

JA – Your first game, Lifestream, met with favorable reviews. Did its sales meet your expectations?

The sales surpassed my expectations. I told myself that if I sold even 100 copies, I would be happy. Imagine my shock when I had over 100 orders upfront!

JA – Lifestream had one of the strongest stories that hadn’t been seen in years in an adventure game. What was your inspiration for it?

From the start of my education through high school, I attended Catholic school. I had always been fascinated by the concept of Heaven, and the perception of it. In my freshman year of high school, during a philosophy course, the discussion came up, and a student asked the teacher what her perception of Heaven was. Her response was a world in which our every wish could come true. This sparked my interest, and I wondered if I would like to be in a place like that if the only condition was that I could never leave. The story for Lifestream was born. After I had the concept of what the Lifestream was, I developed a story around it that felt both mystical and somber, which was the mood I wanted for the game.

JA – Seems like both of your games had some sort of religious line running through them which I assume is part of your background and influence, yet you never go too deeply into it. It plays a role, but is never the central focus that some gamers may be put off by. Was this intentional?

In the case of Lifestream, the religious theme was intentional. In fact, initially, I had planned on delving deeper into it, but later decided it would be best if I simply touched upon the subject. For Shady Brook, I had not initially planned to involve a religious theme, but the game simply evolved to the point at which I felt the story needed to include it. This is not a central theme in all of my stories, however, and it will probably be some time before you see me touch upon it again.

JA – Having played through Shady Brook, it’s a much larger game than Lifestream and involves a lot more character interaction. I think most developers, let alone an indie one, would find that task quite daunting. Did you ever have any reservations about attempting to undertake such a large project?

It’s funny you should ask this. Initially, I had planned on making Shady Brook before Lifestream. In the end, I decided to make Lifestream first because of the scope of Shady Brook. Even while I was developing Shady Brook I felt like I was in over my head, and there were quite a few times in which I was ready to scrap the project. Luckily, it all came together in the end, though!

JA – What were some of the biggest obstacles you faced?

The biggest obstacle was no doubt having the lead voice actor quit on me halfway through the game’s development. Originally, I hired a professional actor to play the game’s main character. He was perfect for the part, and provided all of his lines in a timely fashion. However, after I had already finished making half of the game’s video sequences, I received an e-mail from the actor saying that he no longer had the time or interest in continuing with the project. He quit, and I was stuck with over an hour of video containing a voice that I could no longer use. That was definitely my lowest point in development. Other difficulties included lowering the number of polygons in certain scenes in the game so that they would render without freezing up my system and finding a way to program one of the game’s puzzles, which took me three weeks to perfect!

JA – The people of Shady Brook are rich in character and the dialogs are superb. They each had unique backgrounds, personalities, and stories to share; yet their common bond was living in that town. Where did your inspiration come from to create them?

I’ve probably just seen one too many scary movies. Basically, I’ve always found the whole small town scenario to be extremely creepy, and I felt it would be the perfect setting for a story. As far as how I came up with each individual character, I first wrote a history for the characters essential to the plot and expanded from there. I tried to come up with varying and conflicting personalities to keep things interesting.

JA – You have some nice options for the player at the start of the game. For example, turning off some of the more violent scenes and nudity as well as avoiding some action sequences. I’m not big on action sequences in adventure games, but I must confess that the three times it was required (because I didn’t turn that option off), it was a LOT of fun and fit the story well. I have to admit that I reloaded my game several times just to do two of those sequences again. I think the options to turn those parts off to avoid them were a great idea, why did you choose to do that?

One of the most frequent pieces of feedback I received from Lifestream was that the game’s action sequence, which involved moving the curser through an onscreen maze without touching the maze’s boundary, was too difficult. On the other hand, I knew that Shady Brook required some sequences that could only work in an action form. Given the choice between including action sequences and keeping those moments in the game non-interactive, I felt it was best to choose the former. Knowing, however, that certain people would not enjoy these sequences, I decided to provide an option to skip them.

JA – Going back to the character interaction, in one part of the game, you get to play pool against one of the characters. It was another one of those memorable experiences in Shady Brook. It seemed like you put a lot of thought into breaking up the game to avoid it becoming the routine of finding inventory items, solving puzzles, or going through long dialog trees. It seemed like you put a lot of thought into the gamers experience with the game. Was this a conscious effort?

Shortly after the release of Lifestream, I came across a wonderful document online that depicted the different types of puzzles commonly found in adventure games. It categorized them wonderfully, and I was horrified to see that out of the fifteen or so puzzle types it listed, Lifestream only contained the same four or five! I resolved to make sure that my next game – in this case, Shady Brook – contained at least one of every one of these types of puzzles.

JA – Sounds like you read “Application of Puzzle Theory” by Scarpia! It’s a great article that does a good job of summarizing all the different puzzle types.

Yup, that’s the one!

JA – Speaking of dialog trees, despite the rich dialogs in Shady Brook, there didn’t seem to be any conversations that felt excessively long, yet everyone still managed to get their stories and backgrounds across in a way that wasn’t exhausting for the player. You’ve definitely got a gift with writing.

Thank you very much! I’ve written fiction for as long as I’ve used computers, which is to say as long as I can remember. My first love is definitely fiction. To me, there is no feeling more wonderful than getting absorbed into a fictitious world where anything can happen. My ultimate goal in life is to bring my love for telling stories and combine it with my love for gaming and to create an experience that consists of more than simply solving puzzles. I want to tell the story, but allow you, the player, to guide it. In my opinion, the story should always be the focus of a game.

JA – John Bell and Inferno did outstanding voice acting in Shady Brook. The voice acting for Kate was incredible though. The emotion behind the words came pouring out and I felt the need to protect that character. Who was that?

I am SO pleased with how the voice of Kate Ekan came out. The actress, Page Purgar, is a long-time gamer but first-time voice artist. She can be found over at the Gameboomers community, and she was an absolute pleasure to work with. I'd recommend her to any and all other indie developers out there!

JA – On the techie side, what tools did you use to create the game?

Shady Brook was created using the Adventure Maker game engine, Multimedia Fusion, Flash, trueSpace 5, Simply 3D, Video Studio, Poser 5, Audition, and the usuals, such as Photoshop.

JA – What do you think about the current state of adventure games today? Ok, that was a joke. Every interviewer asks that question and I couldn’t resist…moving right along…Lifestream took you 4 months to put together – which is phenomenal. How long did Shady Brook take?

Technically speaking, the Shady Brook project began right after Lifestream ended. That would put the total time at 7 months. However, I am embarrassed to say that I actually didn’t start the project until February, and so a more accurate representation would be five months. I suppose my secret is giving up on any attempt at a normal social life during the process of the game’s creation.

JA – Ha! Don’t be embarrassed about not working on it for the first 2 months. After cranking out LifeStream in 4 months, sounds like you needed to take a break and recuperate!

The sad truth is, I couldn’t wait to get started on Shady Brook! I had to consciously force myself to take a break and focus my time on selling Lifestream.

JA – How do you plan on selling Shady Brook? Self-publishing?

Definitely. One thing I do not want is to rush into finding a commercial publisher for a game that isn’t ready for the big league. For now, I am perfectly content selling the games on my own website. My goal in this has never been to make money. It has been, from the start, to tell a story.

JA – What makes you feel it isn’t ready for the big league?

No one is a harsher critic of my work than me. I suppose I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I don’t feel like, as a gamer, these games are games that should be sold in a commercial environment. Furthermore, I don’t want to present myself to publishing companies until I feel I have something that is worth their time. As fun as it was to make Lifestream and now Shady Brook, I feel that I still have more to learn before I have that product.

JA - Will Shady Brook only be available on DVD?

Yes, unfortunately. As it turns out, the complete file size for Shady Brook, when in it’s installed and uncompressed form is a whopping 3 GB! The choice came down between offering the game only on DVD or via 5 CDs. I checked the pricing, and the 5 CD option would not be doable unless I charged at least around $25 per game, and I am not willing to do that. In order to keep the price down – both for myself and for customers – I decided to make the game DVD-only.

JA – What’s next? Any other games in the works?

Two, actually. This is actually the first time I will be mentioning these publicly. The first has a working title of Awaken, and it will be a dark, gritty whodunit adventure set in a prison. The second is titled The Alpha Report, which is a science fiction story, though it won’t be out until next year. Both titles will have teaser trailers included on the Shady Brook DVD…assuming, of course that you manage to beat the game.

JA – Those sound intriguing. Can’t wait to see them!

JA – That about does it. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. It’s very much appreciated!

Thank you very much again, Eric, for this wonderful opportunity!