JA: I’m sure Nucleosys would love to hear that! Have you talked with them at all? Are you writing your own engine or planning on using the SCream Engine that Nucleosys developed?

Mike: We considered many different engine possibilities for Prominence, including several commercial engines. I first contacted Agustin in January 2006 because the Scratches demo really impressed me, and I was excited to see them get a publishing deal. That demo was the first evidence I had seen of an indie adventure game engine that might work for us. Shortly after that, Agustin invited us to participate in the testing of SCream as it grew.

Kevin: Early on in the process, there was even some discussion about the pros and cons of building our own engine. While designing your own engine provides you with exactly what you need (and nothing that you don't need), it would’ve been a pretty daunting task to build a game engine within our anticipated timeline. We took a hard look at what SCream offered in terms of capabilities and felt that it was a better option. There was no reason to re-invent the wheel, especially considering that the engine provided us with about 90% of what we needed for Prominence.

We've been in contact with Agustin throughout our development cycle so far, both to contribute to the engine as well as to communicate any needs we have. The SCream engine has come a long way since Scratches was released, and we're happy to be a part, however small, of that development.

JA: With the flood of horror and mystery adventure games that most small developers seem to be doing, what made you decide to take on the lesser-explored sci-fi?

Kevin: Well, for one, it's a genre both of us really love. Mike and I are both really big fans of science fiction. When we were building our list of genres to consider for an adventure game, sci-fi was pretty much first on the list. In fact, we started with a science-fiction concept, then explored several other genres and ideas, but ultimately came back to the sci-fi story because we felt it could offer the best experience for a game.

Mike: That’s right. A good story can exist in any setting, but with an adventure game, we have the ability to really work the environment into the story and gameplay. We felt that a science-fiction setting could offer some new and interesting puzzle opportunities.

As much as it’s science-fiction, though, Prominence really has a very human story. We didn’t just string together a series of puzzles with a frayed thread of narrative; this is a story about people and struggle with an unknown future.

JA: Prominence.  Can you give us a bit of background on the game’s story and setting? How does that title play into the game?

Mike: The story of Prominence centers around a peaceful race of humans called the Letarri. After thousands of years as a free world, their planet was absorbed into the expanding Rynan empire. It seemed like a good idea at the time, bolstered by the promise of technological advancement and robust interstellar trade. But after a while, the Rynan government and their policies began to eat away at the freedom of the Letarri and their way of life. Over time, many of the Letarri left their homeworld and migrated to two neighboring planets that lie beyond the Rynan border.

Of course, barging into someone else’s home after yours has been taken away isn’t a great way to make friends, so while the Letarri are tolerated on these other worlds, they’re not exactly popular. It’s hard for them.

Kevin: As if that wasn’t enough, war breaks out between the Rynans and another empire called the Maedorans. Their conflict soon begins to spill into neutral space, threatening nearby worlds. The displaced Letarri are caught in the middle, so they begin a daring mission to migrate away from the war and start a new life on an uninhabited planet far from the conflict. This world would become their new home, where they could live in peace and maintain their traditional way of life.

Prior to the start of the game, a small team of people -- mostly scientists and engineers -- left several months before the rest of the Letarri population. Their task was to design and build a facility to meet the needs of the new settlement. Shortly after this construction was completed, the influx of new colonists would arrive to begin colonizing their new world. But something has gone wrong.

Mike: As for how the title plays into the game… that’s for players to discover.

JA: You have been operating Digital Media Workshop for 10 years now. It would seem that the experience of creating digital media and audio for clients makes creating an adventure game a perfect fit for you.  Is it safe to assume that, although this is your first title, players can expect a highly polished product based on your previous experience?

Mike: We’re striving to deliver a high-quality product by capitalizing on our previous experience. We’re not a big studio, but everyone on the team is passionate about making Prominence great, and each team member has considerable experience in their respective field.

JA: I would imagine that your location near New York City and the audio work you have done with DMW gives you a huge talent pool of highly skilled voice actors to draw from.

Mike: Yes, that’s quite right, although it’s a double-edged sword. There is a huge talent pool, and if we did casting calls in Manhattan, the lines would probably run around the block. Every actor I’ve spoken with says that, literally, a hundred people or more will show up for a casting call, even for a one-day job.

The catch is that most of them are union, which requires a fairly high rate of pay compared to the talent outside the metropolitan area.

JA: Yes, I can see how that would be a blessing and a curse. Which brings up the question of costs.  I’ve been unpleasantly surprised by just how expensive it is to develop a game, even as an indie where your costs are relatively low. For example, the going rate for music seems to be around $400-$800 per minute of music used in a game. Fortunately, just like there are indie game developers out there, there are also some very talented indie musicians who do this purely for the passion of doing it and things can be worked out which helps greatly. Have you guys encountered any unpleasant surprises with costs, or anything else for that matter, the further you get into development?

Mike: We’ve worked on plenty of multimedia projects over the years with 3D, music, and voice-acting. While there haven’t been many surprises with budgeting or costs on Prominence yet, one of the biggest challenges so far has been the volume of work.

There have been projects here where a client says, “Okay, we need 15 minutes of 3D animation for such-and-such trade show. We’ll supply you with materials over six months and spread it out.” Then, eleven days before the show, they call us up and say, “We’ve finally got the materials together. Is there any way to make this happen?” And we say, “Sure!” Then we work day and night and in ten and a half days, they’ve got their video and then we get to sleep. And that’s fine.

With Prominence, though, that’s not an option. The sheer volume of assets and content for this project is so huge that we have no choice but to pace ourselves or we’ll just keel over. So there’s this incredible feeling of looming deadlines that are practically a year away, but we’re already feeling the pressure because we know there is so much to be done.

There’s a Karen Lamb quote that I read on Tom Peters’ site: "A year from now you may wish you had started today." I think that’s been our unofficial mantra on this project.

Another surprise has been how my time is spent. In a given week, I may spend 25 hours on client projects and 40 hours on Prominence — but only 10 or 15 of those Prominence hours may actually be spent on asset production. The other 25-30 hours might be spent working on puzzle designs, story and character development, dialog, music, budget, firefighting, PR, etc. That’s been a real challenge.

Kevin: Like Mike said, there's really two sets of costs in terms of development: time and money.  On the programming and scriptwriting side of things, time is a big factor. I understood from the outset the enormousness of the project, but it's still surprising how much time I spend a week on Prominence. At times, I'm easily putting in 12-18 hours a day, even on weekends.  Both Mike and I have to schedule time where we just spend gaming or having fun, because if we don't, we'll burn out and the game will suffer. The problem with working from home is that you can't “go home at the end of the day” because you're already there. (laughs)  And if you're not careful, you'll never leave the office, either. So while it's important to get the work done, it's important for us to maintain our sanity.

JA: Prominence uses 1st person panoramic view. By panoramic, do you mean that there will be 360-degree movement? Was there a reason you chose this format for Prominence over the many other options?

Mike: Prominence offers a 360-degree panoramic presentation, similar to Scratches, Myst 4: Revelation, and The Secrets of DaVinci: The Forbidden Manuscript. We decided on that viewpoint for Prominence after a long, hard look at the options that were available. Part of the decision came from the particular needs of the story, which strongly favors a first-person perspective. The other part of the decision was for the sake of immersion. We really want the player to feel like they’re in this world, and what better way to do that than to put them directly in the lead character’s shoes?

Kevin: We also had the option of making a 3D FPS-style game.  But, in my opinion, a 3D style adventure game should bring something extra to the table-- like real-world physics puzzles, or sneaking and timing puzzles, or dodging and combat-- otherwise, it's just a gimmick.  Mike and I had decided early on that we wanted to make an adventure game that we wanted to play.  One of our requirements was that the game shouldn't have time-based puzzles, puzzles that depend upon the careful placement of real-world physics objects, crazy platforming skills, or the reflexes of a cheetah.  I'd much rather work on challenging the player's brain and heart than their reflexes and stacking skills.  There are already more than enough games out there that can do the latter, and sadly, not as many that can do the former.

That being said, we also understand and recognize that some gamers take issue with first person node-based adventures – whether it’s because they seem to “jump” long distances whenever they move and become disoriented, or there just aren’t enough points to stand or explore in each location. We’ve looked closely at these issues and are developing some interesting ways to address them.

JA:  Prominence features a fork in the road of sorts where the player will have to make a choice between two paths resulting in different endings. Was this a conscious effort to give the game some replayability or did the story just develop to the point where you could have taken it into two different directions, but instead decided to pursue them both and allow the player to decide?

Kevin: As we were working on the end of the story, we had a particular ending in mind. But another option for an ending, equally interesting, had arisen after one of those “Well, what if...?” conversations. We had the unenviable situation of having two equally good endings for only one game. (laughs) So we decided, why not have the player choose between the two? There was some discussion about the implications of two endings, especially since they required separate resources in terms of art and script and how that would affect the game's development time.  But, in the end, we felt that the two endings-- both providing positives and negatives fairly equally-- would benefit the player and provide the game with some level of replayability.

JA: You mentioned on your web site that challenges might have more than one solution just as in real life. I always found it frustrating in most games that there was only one solution and you pretty much had to figure out what the programmer wanted you to do – like needing a hammer that you didn’t have to open a crate when you already have a crowbar in your inventory.  Can players expect a lot of freedom here to come up with our own solutions to solve the challenges in Prominence?

Mike: That frustration is exactly what drove us to work this feature into Prominence. I think we even used that same example. At this time, there are three different flavors of this feature that we’re trying to implement.

First, there will be some cases where puzzles have multiple solutions. An example might be like what you mentioned – being able to use the crowbar or the hammer on the crate.

Second, there are sometimes two (or more) entirely different ways to overcome a particular challenge. Let’s say you need to get through a locked door. Maybe there’s a GUI puzzle that you can work through to pick the lock. But there might be another option – maybe the player has a bottle of acid that can eat through the lock mechanism, or a teleportation device that can warp them to the other side of the door.

Last but not least, there may be some optional, extra-sneaky puzzles. If the player can solve these, they may gain additional items to help them on their adventure and possibly offer access to secret areas.

Kevin: We know that adventure gamers come up with creative ideas to solve puzzles. And it's always disappointing to have come up with a really clever way to solve something only to find out that the programmer didn't code this solution in because they had something else in mind.  Now, let me disclaimer this by saying that there may be solutions that we didn't think of. We're only human, of course. But a fair portion of puzzles in the game had opportunities where the puzzle could have multiple ways to solve it, depending upon how it was approached, or certain puzzles that could be bypassed entirely by finding a different way around the situation. Like the situation with the two story endings, at first we tried to resolve which way would be better to solve the puzzle. But we realized that there's no reason why a puzzle can't have multiple solutions, or a player's path through the game can't take different paths based upon their strengths. Players' approaches to puzzle-solving take different forms; there's really no reason why we should dictate a particular way to approach a puzzle, or particular solutions to puzzles, if we can keep the number of solutions open for the player to explore.

So, the player can expect the freedom to explore different options for solving some of the puzzles in Prominence. Likewise, if a player becomes stuck at a particular puzzle, if the puzzle has another solution, this provides a way to solve it in a different way, which is always welcome.