Lee Sheldon

By Randy Sluganski
May 1999

Lee Sheldon's willingness to discuss his creations openly and honestly on the newsgroups have made him a fan favorite. His Riddle of Master Lu enjoys an almost cult-like status years after its release, and his Dark Side of the Moon seems to share the same destiny. Just Adventure had the good fortune to talk with Lee after the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose, and we pressed his feet to the coals to delve into his past, fret about his future and question his wisdom in being so outspoken (though we wouldn't have him any other way!).

Tell us about some of the television shows you wrote for. Were you pre- or post-Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels?

I am primarily a mystery writer and wrote for most of the major mystery shows in the seventies and eighties and into the nineties, everything from Quincy to Simon & Simon to Cagney & Lacey to Murder She Wrote, etc. I was a writing producer on the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and worked on a few other science fiction shows as well. I also strayed into daytime television as Head Writer of Edge of Night. I wrote a PBS serial as well called The Perkins Family for WGBH in Boston. It starred all kids, even in adult roles. All in all, I have over 200 produced credits as writer, and many more as story editor, producer, etc.

I was post-Farrah and pre-Tanya. I wrote for the middle three seasons.

What clicked in your mindset to make you leave the lunacy and notoriety of Hollywood for the lunacy and non-notoriety of computer gaming?

I discovered that I was only watching TV shows that I had a chance of working for to learn them. Since 1982 I'd been playing computer games for fun more than watching TV. I wrote a pilot that same year that would have been a co-production with Atari that combined stories and games, but it didn't sell. Every time after that, when there was a writer's strike (and it seemed like there were quite a few!), I'd flirt with interactive. Somewhere in the early nineties, I complained in the Compuserve Gamers Forum that adventure games needed more attention paid to story and characters. I got yelled at by just about everybody who thought adventure games were fine and needed no improvement. Then when the first CD-ROM games showed up, somebody else expressed disappointment in the stories and characters, and I launched into my diatribe a second time. This time I got four job offers. Something had changed. Since I was royally tired of car chases and spaceship chases and needed a new challenge, I accepted an offer with Sanctuary Woods, at their Victoria, British Columbia, studio. I kept one foot in Hollywood as I tested the computer gaming waters but finally stopped writing for TV altogether in 1995 to concentrate on games.

How does writing and filming a script for a television show compare to writing and filming a script for a full-motion video game for the computer?

The challenge for me lies in finding new ways to tell stories that elicit an emotional response from the gamer, at the same time giving the gamer as much freedom as possible to determine the course of the actual game experience. With each game I move more and more toward entirely nonlinear storytelling.

You have worked on a total of seven different computer games, but the only ones you will ever name are Dark Side of the Moon and the classic The Riddle of Master Lu. It's time to 'fess up and let your fans know the names of your other projects.

My first was Digby the Dog with Shelley Duvall. It was more of an animated storybook than a game, although it had games in it. I did a rewrite of the script and some design work. Next was Once Upon a Forest, a kid's adventure game based on the 20th Century-Fox animated movie. My first real adventure game was The Riddle of Master Lu, co-designed with Francois Robillard. When the Victoria studio was sold to Disney, I moved to SouthPeak Interactive. I wrote a draft of the script for Temujin: The Capricorn Collection and did some design work at the beginning of the production and at the very end. In 1996 I brought a game to SouthPeak that is now called 20,000 Leagues: The Adventure Continues. It was a design Gary Winnick (a talented artist and designer formerly with LucasArts, now with LightSource) and I had worked on for Sanctuary Woods. Neither Gary nor I continued on the project. It is still in development. I worked on Dark Side of the Moon for most of my tenure at SouthPeak. Co-writer was Mark Barrett. It was released last fall. Right before I left SouthPeak, I was working on The Wild, Wild West, based on the upcoming Will Smith film, although it was my original story. I was writer/co-designer.

Speaking of The Riddle of Master Lu, it was not very successful when it was first released by Sanctuary Woods and now it seems to enjoy an almost cult-like status. Why did this game take so long to become popular, and what does this belated attention say for the gaming community in general? Are games not given enough shelf time to capture an audience?

I think it took so long to become popular because not that many adventure gamers knew much about it when it was first released. Promotion and advertising left a lot to be desired. Once the more heavily promoted games had been played, gamers looked around, saw it had good reviews and word-of-mouth, and gave it a try. Over the years word-of-mouth has grown. It also helps that it now costs under $8!

In 1994 shelf life was short but not as short as it is these days. Yes, it's a big problem.

What is Francois Robillard, your partner on Riddle Lu, working on nowadays?

Francois is now head of the Disney Victoria studio. He's one of the most knowledgeable people in this business, and although I suspect he'd like to design again some day, Disney needs his production expertise.

Your second major project in your gaming career was The Dark Side of the Moon for SouthPeak. You are no longer with them. Do you care to comment on your differences of opinion with SouthPeak?

I'd rather let my work speak for me. I'm very proud of Dark Side of the Moon and the talented team I worked with on that game.

Are you still a proponent of Video Reality (the game engine used on DSOTM)? Can this engine be improved, and if so, how?

I suspect the question is moot. Video Reality did a number of things well, particularly allowing all exploration and gameplay to exist in the same mode. It also had its problems, as have been documented in various reviews. Could it be improved? Certainly. Bigger video window for one. I still support FMV as a perfectly viable medium for gaming, and I think Dark Side of the Moon shows there are very few gameplay-based limitations when it is used properly. It annoys me no end when a medium of expression is dismissed out of hand because of past failures and a misunderstanding of its value. If Columbus had allowed previous shipwrecks to stop him, he'd never have discovered America, or the Virgin Islands, or wherever it was he ended up. ...

FMV brings human beings into games. This is not a small thing when you are attempting to create stories, characters and emotional response.

What was the secret project you were working on at SouthPeak? The Wild, Wild West?

Yes, now that it has been officially announced, I can say that was it.

You seem to enjoy getting "down and dirty" with the fans on the newsgroups. Do you find this input from the newsgroups valuable, or is it just your way of mingling?

In Hollywood, the creators of film and TV are almost totally inaccessible, not only to their audience, but often to each other. One of the things I loved about this industry when I first started playing games was that I could often reach the makers of games, to ask questions, offer unsolicited opinions, etc. I grew up in the Compuserve Gamers Forum where everybody, designer and gamer alike, was part of a big family who shared a joy of gaming. It feels perfectly natural for me to continue that interplay on the Internet. Also, I'm proud of games like DSOM and Master Lu, and I want to support them whenever I can. I'm pleased to see that a number of other designers seem to feel the same way.

You have publicly expressed your dissatisfaction with the manner in which game reviews are written. What do you suggest to help alleviate the problem as you see it?

Not all game reviews. I do take issue with the hobbyist approach that suggests that anybody can review anything as long as they can complete most of their sentences with the correct punctuation marks. I understand the economics. Many reviewers online are "paid" by being allowed to keep the games they review. When I reviewed games for the Gamers Forum years ago, that was my compensation. We won't need to alleviate this particular problem. Darwin will handle it. As the standards of gamers rise, so will the quality of the reviewers. The others will end up in the tar pits.

Do you see a major difference in the quality of reviews on-line and in magazines? Do you think most reviewers understand how to review a game?

At least with the magazines (and some prominent web sites), a true pay scale encourages some level of professionalism. And those that have reviewer's guides (again some web sites, too) are also making an attempt to ensure a level of quality.

I attended a panel discussion on developers versus reviewers at this year's GDC. I asked a question of the panel, "What do you think is the difference between a reviewer and a critic? And do you think there are any critics in our industry?" The only answer I could get was from Denny Atkin (CGW), who thought there were some writers with enough "longevity" to qualify as critics. The panelists said that even the print magazines were "hobbyist" and therefore their readership didn't really expect the level of critique, or even review, of book or theater or film critics. They hoped this was changing. But it wasn't clear who they expected to lead the change, if it wasn't themselves. And such a flawed understanding of a critic's role makes me doubt change will be coming anytime soon. Oh, and I couldn't get any names to the second part of the question.

For the record, a reviewer experiences something, then relates that experience with the idea of imparting enough information so that the reader can make a reasonably informed judgement whether or not to experience it himself. On the other hand, a critic speaks to the artistic merits of a work, compares it to other artistic works both past and present, and places it in context within our industry as well as the world at large. The critic is able to do this more in-depth analysis because the critic is aware of the rules of formal criticism, has an expert-level knowledge of the subject matter in general, and a writing style that can stand on its own literary merits.

Reviewers have a perfectly sound place in the scheme of things, if they know their craft and appreciate their responsibility to their audience. I'm not disparaging reviewers in any way. Not being critics does not make them lesser human beings. But simply wanting to write about games does not make a reviewer any more than longevity makes a critic.

If we ever expect our industry to be taken seriously, it's about time we realized we (as designers, writers, reviewers) have a responsibility to our audience that goes beyond our own joy in bestowing our pearls of trendy wisdom on the masses. We need to be aware of the social impact of our work and take responsibility for it. We need to strive for those artistic standards now accepted as part of other media, yes, even TV.

You publicly complained about a review that a major gaming site posted citing nonexistent bugs in DSOM. You then asked for and received a second review. Do you think your outspoken criticism contributed to your parting of the ways with SouthPeak?

To the best of my knowledge, that particular exchange did not contribute to my parting of the ways with SouthPeak.

Were you pleased with the second review?

In that the reviewer acknowledged he had not experienced any bugs, yes, I was pleased.

Would you like to see some sort of standards established for game reviews on the webzines?

I'm told some have them. For the rest it couldn't hurt. It might help balance the lack of pay. Maybe as a public service some far-sighted webzine could offer an online course in game review and criticism. Those who had completed the course could display a little Good Housekeeping seal on their reviews.

Your scripts all seem to tie the puzzles, characters and incidents into the main theme of the game while establishing an emotional and intellectual environment. Have you ever been asked to "dumb down" any of your stories?

I've cut stuff for budget and time constraints. But I've never been asked to dumb down a story for a game. For some reason, though, that happened a lot on Charlie's Angels. ...

Regardless of the good and bad reviews of DSOM, the reviewers all seemed to agree on one thing, and that was the superior quality of your storytelling. Do you think you are a step ahead of what games are able to deliver?

No. Storytelling does not depend on technology, and people have been telling stories in games for decades. I don't need superior FMV to tell stories. Books get along fine without it. There is something else operating here, however. A wonderful screenwriter named Eleanor Perry, being interviewed on PBS years ago, complained, "Everybody thinks they can write! Why doesn't everybody think they can play the cello? Writing is just as hard!" It is, you know. Yet companies who don't think twice about hiring the best artists and programmers they can find seem to balk at hiring professional writers. It shows. And as long as we continue to do it, we're pretty much saying we're not interested in reaching a mass market that is already there looking for dramatic entertainment. Not all games need story, but the ones that promise story better deliver story that is equal to the professionalism and artistry of all the other elements that combine in a game to create the entertainment experience.

During the recent Game Developer's Convention in San Jose, Al Lowe was extremely negative concerning the future of adventure games in the United States, as was Roberta Williams in a recent interview with JA. Do you share their bleak visions of the future, or are you more optimistic?

There are several reasons I came away from GDC heartened by the future of adventure games, not depressed at all. First reason is the obvious observation that every product has its cycles. Second is the growing interactive fiction presence online. There may not be a commercially viable model in place yet, but we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Third is that despite some recent examples adventure games do not need the astronomical budgets the industry felt moved to bestow on them. Fourth is that we're so incredibly egocentric here in the United States, we fail to realize that adventure games are alive and well elsewhere. Grim Fandango sold better overseas than here. And that shouldn't be seen as faint praise.

Adventure games sell very well overseas these days, numbering in the hundreds of thousands of units. If I were about to embark on another adventure game today, I'd strongly consider doing it for a European company that isn't so concerned about the death of the genre.

Outside of playing computer games, what do you enjoy doing for pleasure?

That I can mention in public? Let's see ... I hang out with my family, play tennis, coach soccer, read, write, watch tons of movies (old and new), bike ride, give talks on game design and writing. There must be some other stuff I'm forgetting. ...

What will we find you working on in the future?

I've just joined a new company called Imaginaria that is developing a massively multiplayer persistent world for online. The world is called The Gryphon Tapestry. Roe Adams, one of the legends of this industry, is also involved. Emphasis will be far more on storytelling than anyone has attempted up until now in MMP. Multiplayer presents a whole new list of interesting challenges. The entire team from management on down is committed to the art of game creation as well as the craft. I'm already enjoying it!

Thank you for your time, Mr. Sheldon.