Broken Sword: The Angel of Death Q&A Feature

The Broken Sword brand from Revolution, one of the UK's premier teams, has managed to cut through any negative factors associated with the decline of the adventure game and positioned itself as a game of really imaginative ideas that has in fact stretched the boundaries of the genre. It has almost single handedly kept the adventure genre fresh, vibrant and alive. With endearing main characters, some truly detailed settings and a plot line that captures and plays with the mind of the gamer much is expected from the next saga in the series.

TVG recently spoke with Charles Cecil, Founder and CEO Revolution Software and Director of Broken Sword: The Angel of Death.

In terms of progression, the storyline and the creation of a brand, do you feel that each subsequent Broken Sword game has added to series? Could you briefly encapsulate in a few lines what each of the three titles have offered and what you feel makes the brand stand out?

The games have been designed such that each one can be played without the need to have played any of the previous games. So, while games contain self-referential elements, none of the key plot strands rely on knowledge of the brand.

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars introduced George Stobbart, a tourist in Paris, who witnesses a brutal assassination. He soon meets up with Nicole Collard, a photojournalist, and they decide to investigate. They become embroiled in a far reaching conspiracy. The game uses the history of the Knights Templar as a backdrop, the repercussions of their persecution and destruction resonating to the present day. While George and Nico are clearly good friends, a relationship fails to materialise.

Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror starts with Nico investigating a South American drug cartel. In her investigations she unwittingly takes possession of an ancient Mayan stone. After inviting George to a rendezvous, they are both caught up in a violent plan to resurrect Tezcatlipoca, an ancient Mayan god of death. George has been away and, on meeting with Nico, discovers that she has struck up a friendship with one of her odious former boyfriends. As they investigate together, the relationship of the three of them causes constraint tension.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon starts with George and Nico having lost contact with each other. Extraordinary weather conditions are battering the world. George has been invited to the Congo by a crazy professor who wants to patent a perpetual energy machine. En route his plane crashes into the jungle. Meanwhile, and independently, Nico has been asked to meet with a computer hacker who claims that the earth is danger - she arrives to find him dead. They soon discover that an ancient civilization had learned how to harness the earth's natural energy - the sleeping dragon - and that plans are afoot to use this energy to potentially devastating effect. Once again George and Nico team up to thwart the megalomanic plans.

"This is the first title that brings together Revolution as the writers, and a third party production house for a specific project - the much anticipated 'Hollywood model'."

I feel that the strength of the brand comes from a number of elements. We devote great importance in the attention to detail of the historical backgrounds which are based on interesting and exciting history. We interweave the puzzles and the narrative and aim to make the player feel that the challenges are narrative-orientated rather than being there simply to slow them down. George and Nico, and the relationship between the two is dynamic - George is an unwilling hero, Nico is a strong, non-clichéd heroine. And we take the story element very seriously - applying movie script criteria to ensure that the characters are believable and motivated, situations are dynamic and interesting.

With Broken Sword: The Angel of Death are you specifically targeting fans of the series; if so will new gamers fresh to the experience feel comfortable and be at any disadvantage?

We are very lucky to have a loyal audience, and we certainly want the game to appeal to these people. We take the comments that we receive directly or read indirectly from forums, whether positive and negative, very seriously. I feel incredibly flattered that so many people have so much passion about the Broken Sword series.

However the game has been carefully designed so that it is not necessary to have played any of the previous games, but those who are have done are rewarded with references and in-jokes that they will recognize. A few of the more flamboyant characters from previous games do make a re-appearance.

Can you tell us about the collaboration between Sumo Digital and how you have gone about creating the fourth title in the series?

Revolution both wrote and undertook the production of the first three games. With requirement for ever larger team sizes, I found that it was no longer feasible to maintain a large development team to write our original games. So at the end of the third Broken Sword we closed the production side in order to concentrate on design. This is the first title that brings together Revolution as the writers, and a third party production house for a specific project - the much anticipated 'Hollywood model'.

I have worked with and been friends with many of the key staff at Sumo and regard the company very highly. Their strong technology base and project management expertise is second to none. When we started the project, a number of ex-Revolution staff were brought aboard and their experience and skills have been of enormous value.

A huge benefit of this way of working is that I can concentrate on the design and story while Sumo can concentrate on the production. This dividing of responsibilities will ensure that the story is better structured than the predecessors and that it is conveyed more effectively through gameplay.

"Being interactive, and with the requirement to be both fun to play and to have a compelling story, narrative-driven games are considerably more complex to write than linear narratives."

Naturally George Stobbart reprises the role as the central character in the game; please tell us a little how this character has evolved and his traits, how important it is to have a real affinity with him early on in the game and how you achieve this?

George is, at heart, a good man in a bad world - he has a burning sense of justice and fair play. That's primarily why he found it hard fitting into the family law firm's Idaho branch: since when did corporate lawyers need a strong sense of right and wrong? He certainly doesn't see himself as courageous but when push comes to shove he will do what he feels is right - regardless of the danger. George is boundlessly enthusiastic and has an intense curiosity that gets him into trouble on a frequent basis. It was his strong urge to "do the right thing" that got him involved in the mysteries of the Broken Sword conspiracy in the first place and that has propelled him along ever since.

In playing through the games we reveal more about him - his past and his foibles. That he went back to America to tend his dying father at the end of the first Broken Sword, that he fancies Nico but has never made a serious approach. That he has a bizarre set of relatives in America that he would rather not talk about.

It appears that there is always a very focused effort on areas that could easily be overlooked by gamers, so please tell us about the work that has gone into voice acting and presentation of the game and do you hope to bring in any named actors?

We certainly take the voice recording very seriously. Unlike many games, actors record the lines together so they can play off each other. We also work with very experienced voice directors who are experts at getting the best performances from the actors.

George has always been played by Rolf Saxon, a highly accomplished actor who has brought a great deal to the series. Rolf has appeared in films such as Mission: Impossible, Saving Private Ryan, as well as many West End theatrical productions - and yet, he claims, he gets more communications about Broken Sword than anything else. We have not, as yet, selected actors to play any of the other parts.

What kind of research has gone into the locations and settings for the game; tell us about one location within the game that you have created?

As well as our historical references, I also take the research of our locations very seriously and will generally visit the locations to take notes. Of course this is almost always a pleasure - the games aim to feature locations that are exciting and interesting. The only locale that I can mention without giving the story away is New York, the game's opening location. Featuring New York has given me gratuitous opportunities to explore this wonderful city while claiming to be undertaking research!

What is the hardest aspect in putting a storyline together and tying this into the gameplay; do you have to accentuate things onscreen to give them more importance?

An adventure game should be led by the story / puzzle matrix. Being interactive, and with the requirement to be both fun to play and to have a compelling story, narrative-driven games are considerably more complex to write than linear narratives. That is probably why the stories for so many games are weak and clichéd. We will design the story overview first which defines the locations and the key plot points, then check that these elements will offer great puzzle opportunities - if not, we go back and revise the overview. Only when the story / puzzle matrix feels right do we move forward - always ensuring that both aspects will fit with each other to deliver a great gameplay experience. This approach is unique to the adventure - for most game genres the gameplay experience is encapsulated by the short term interface-orientated gameplay - normally with a linear story bolted on for good measure.

We do, of course, need to accentuate objects in order to signal their importance. For interactive objects, this is done by highlighting the object when it can be interacted with. For plot-related objects we choose revealing camera angles and employ relevant cinematography.

" The Game will be the first to use Sumo's next generation development technology: Emmersion."

What gives the team inspiration and ideas for some of the puzzles; do you purposely try to push the gamer a few red herrings and will humor play a part in this offering?

Personally, I am always inspired by real-life experiences. I dredge my mind for interesting characters that I know - so that our character's motivations and behaviour feel believable. For example in Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon General Butley is based on the military father of a friend of mine who was not dissimilar to the character that appears so stern in the game. The same for locations - I lived in the Belgian Congo when I was young - and my memories are replayed in the opening scenes. Expect more of the same in this game - although I don't want to give too much away.

We do, of course, push red herrings provided they fit into the game structure. Our motivation is very much to make all the puzzles logical - from time to time we aim to stop a player in their tracks and, provided the solution is logical and they get an "of course I should have worked that out" moment then it feels satisfying. If they get a "how on earth could I possibly have know that" moment then we have done a poor job!

"...'of course I should have worked that out' moment then it feels satisfying. If they get a 'how on earth could I possibly have know that' moment then we have done a poor job!"

Can you tell us about the 3D engine behind the game and the kind of advancements you've made with lip syncing as well as animation in the game?

The new system has been built from the ground up and is a complete development solution covering all aspects of game creation from 3D rendering to task tracking.

The system is extremely flexible and extendable and squarely aimed at empowering the artists and designers to express themselves creatively. Being a PC-led game, we are able to deliver state of the art technology such as depth of field, motion blur, normal mapping, dynamic mood colourisation, adaptive HDR approximation, colour balancing etc. This will ensure very high production values - far above those expected from a traditional adventure game.

The game will improve on previous iterations of Revolution's proprietary Virtual Actor System, by the inclusion of new deformer blending code, which can blend up to 8 different facial poses simultaneously in hardware, allowing for more varied facial expressions. The animation blending system has also advanced. Taken together, this technology will allows us to get a much richer and natural performance from the in-game characters.

What one aspect of the game are you most pleased with so far and what is the current state of the game?

At the risk of sounding like a politician, I would say that there are several aspects that I am very pleased with. Graphically the game looks superb. I have been able to devote much more time to the story and puzzle aspects which are more robust. And the control system is looking very interesting - who said 'point and click is dead'? All of these things should deliver the richest, best looking Broken Sword game to date.

Finally, you do not like to class Broken Sword titles as adventure games as they convey the wrong image, but can you see adventure gaming making a bigger impact in 2006 especially with games like Fahrenheit doing so well?

I like to class Broken Sword as an adventure in the movie sense - the problem with categorizing the game as an adventure in terms of video games is that many immediately think of the point-and-click adventures of the 80s and 90s. The classical adventure market has declined because its key feature, that of telling a story, has been embraced by many other genres. I believe that an adventure needs to be clear on its objectives, namely that the gameplay is driven by story - story and puzzles are interwoven, that gameplay is primarily cerebral, and ideally that the narrative fits the movie definition of an adventure!

With Fahrenheit I admire both Quantic Dreams and Atari for creating / publishing a really interesting game that approached interactive narrative in an innovative way. I was pleased that they were rewarded with commercial success.

TVG would like to thank Charles Cecil for this comprehensive early look at Broken Sword: The Angel of Death. Look out for further coverage on the eagerly awaited title across TVG soon...