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 :)