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Interviews

A Chat with Independent Developers

By Eric McConnell
January 18, 2006

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JA - Anything in your games that you wish you would have done differently or weren't really happy with?

Steve Ince - I would have put fewer box-puzzles into Broken Sword 3.  :)

 

Jonathan Boakes - Yes, lots! Far too much to list here. This is a Q&A, rather than some postproduction evaluation. I will say, though, that I regret not cleaning the outside toilets in Dark Fall 1. They are filthy! And also, I am not happy that I left Parker stuck in a cave, at the end of Lights Out. The poor thing only has a crab for company, and the supply of quality tea bags in 2090BC is shocking!

Britney Brimhall - It would have been nice having more people on the development team - a lot of times, we felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work on our plates.  But we've made it through, and I'm happy with our results.

Tamás Marosi Z. (Pierrot) - The serial nature of Agon makes it possible to develop continuously, to correct mistakes, the polishing of the production, working on feedback and criticism. Only time and physical possibilities limit us. Of course, everything could have been different, perhaps much better, but I don't think we have released anything that we should be ashamed of.

Mikael & Eleen Nyqvist - Looking back at our first game, when we made the second one, there were some things that we wished that we had done differently. We'll probably feel the same way when making the next game. 

Matt Clark - I very much wanted to create a 'classic adventure game'. I don't believe in the 'death of the adventure game', in the same way I didn't believe that computers would replace drawing with a pencil. (If anything, I use a pencil more today than I did before.)

I wouldn't change the way Barrow Hill has been created, and feel the game has the retro feel, and involving atmosphere I aimed for. The visual styling, interaction and natural texture, which were visualized, has remained intact. It has been a fantastic and mysterious process.

Cos Russo - Implementation of copy protection.  Because of inexperience I did not think about copy protection at all.  I think Alida has been illegally 'shared' and copied quite a lot.
 

Agustin Cordes & Alejandro Graziani - Overall, we're very happy with the outcome of Scratches. It has by far exceeded our expectations - and thank goodness it did as we've put into it twice the time we originally intended! However, there are several things we have learned and definitely would have done differently. While the story, characters and major puzzles were all devised in very early stages, it was only until much later when I sat down to put together an in-depth design document. Bad move. In retrospective, that document could have saved us time and headaches as certain aspects of the game had to be assumed and handled as temporary. It wasn't so bad and, on the good side of things, it allowed me to have a very rich vision of the game. For instance, a few puzzles were either created or adjusted after Alejandro's design of the locations and the available graphics provided just about the right mood to finish the writing.

All in all though, next time we won't do a thing (other than concept artwork maybe) unless there's a throughout document written, but always leaving a few doors open or 'blank' scenarios for the inclusion of later puzzles.

Another thing that just hasn't worked as I expected is the interface - but I'm going to leave it there as I'm taking too much space and everyone else must be booing at me.

Chris Brendel - As I stated previously, I was not happy with the final voice of the main character of Shady Brook, and I wish my first two games featured better graphics.  Hopefully, the graphics issue will be resolved in my upcoming game, Awaken.  Of course, it is my opinion that, no matter how perfectly a game turns out, the developer will never be completely satisfied with it.  We are our own harshest critics!

Bryan Wiegele - In every game I've ever worked on there's always something that I wish I could go back and change or add to. While I'm not sure it's possible to walk away from a game saying 'THIS is exactly what I wanted' I do think it's a good goal to get as much in as possible given your time frame and budget. I think it's a good feeling to come off of finishing a game full of ideas that will work great in the next game.

Gey & Silvio Savarese - Hmm... the issue is that everything can be always improved. As many artists may experience, it's very difficult to create something and say, ok this is perfect - many times things go to the garbage bin just because we realize they can be done better... Also, as independent developers we have limited funds, hence many ideas cannot be implemented as we wish. So we need to find a trade off.

Michael Clark - Yes, I wish I had taken the time to do the ending to The Arrangement better.  I was in a hurry to get the game done, and rushed the ending through the quickest, easiest way I could, and that decision killed the game.  I learned that the creative process can NOT be rushed. 

Knut Mueller - There is always the wish to make things better. But this is the incentive for the next game.
 

Keith Nemitz - Yep, but then I just release a new version. Right now things are pretty smooth. I need to take another pass on the art. I finally figured out how to get rid of the jaggies, correctly.
 

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