Legacy Games Blog

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of!

Hello again! Jc here to talk a little bit about what’s been going on since last (and first) I blogged. I am approaching the Beta phase of my Sherlock project which means crunch time for me so I’m busy, busy, busy trying to get everything polished and completed. I know you’re all excited because it means the game is getting close and you can taste the hidden object goodness already but let’s take a moment to pay our thanks to the poor, tired, producer who has poured his heart and soul and countless hours into making the best game he can for you. (Can you hear the violins?)

Ok, enough with the self-pity. I actually love doing what I do, so in reality, I don’t really work at all. But don’t get me wrong, it does get hectic. On top of the crunch time I have begun work designing another game for this fall. This one is based off our classic Emergency Room series but with new twist. I can’t give too much away yet but let’s just say it does more than just give you better graphics same gameplay. This game will take you to a whole new level of interactive medical sims combining arcade and adventure elements with the signature Legacy realism and content. But I don’t want to jump the gun and get you too worked up yet so tune in later to hear more on this one.

Back to Sherlock; along with stressed, I am getting very excited about this one. On a daily basis, the characters come more to life and the story gets more intriguing as the finer points are worked out. Speaking of story, I was doing some “research” on hidden object games and was surprised how little attention the story gets in most of these. Even when they attempt to create a good story, it rarely gets the “showing” it deserves. I think this is a crucial element to gaming. That isn’t to say the story has to be immense and deep and take you 200 hours to get through; that would actually be contradictory in this situation seeing as the original Sherlock adventures were all short magazine stories. (In fact even the four books Doyle wrote are considered Novelettes.) But, I do think a good story can be attained without getting heavy, and it can be presented in a way that is fun and immersive for the player without becoming awkward. I am proud of what our writer has done with stories (Oops, you caught me. That’s right; there is more than one story to enjoy. Actually, try 16 different cases to enjoy). They have such a fun tone and feel that they seem as though they are perhaps lost writings from Sir Arthur himself. It is always rewarding to see your work (and everybody’s work involved) come together. It is the closest thing I have found to a dream come true (except that one dream I had where I saw myself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at me; because that actually did happen).

But seriously, I have to get back to the grind now. I wouldn’t want to delay your gaming experience by spending too much time on the one-way therapy sessions.

Until next time.

Peace to the east,

JC

P.S. I have a quoted an old movie in my blog, as I often do in every aspect of my life, so I challenge you to figure out what it is. Here’s a hint: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Click here to get the answer, CHEATER!!!

A Fantasy With an Interesting Twist...Dream Chronicles 2

Lord of the Rings is the standard for everything in the fantasy genre, but if you're a fan that doesn't even need to be said. While I enjoyed the books and movie (it would be sacrilege to say otherwise), it was a little “aggressive” for my tastes. I like fantasy stories to be more passive and magical, all unicorns and fairies and beautiful waterfalls. It's really cool to see how casual games approach fantasy and come up with interesting twists. The Dream Chronicles games are probably my favorite in this storyline genre.

Being a fan of the first, I was truly excited to see Dream Chronicles 2 released. What really sets this game apart from all others is its high production value. The artwork is breathtaking...it could be straight from fantasy posters. There are lots of tiny details, like leaves falling from the large tree, and ripples in the pond water. The music is just as good, being both varied and immersive. The whole experience is surreal, and its very easy to become completely absorbed in the story.

I did find the narrative a bit less suspenseful than the last, but thus is made up for by longer game play than the first title in the series. There are fifty different backdrops, all a pleasure to look at, and 80 different puzzles. Sometimes you must backtrack to be sure you've completed everything, so the game isn't overly linear. In total, it took me around six hours to beat, which is pretty acceptable for a casual game, and the replay value is only so-so.

As for the puzzles, most are unique and reasonably challenging, though very few are what I would call difficult. In general, you can expect logic puzzles, hidden objects, memory games, and some mazes. There are also side puzzles, like collecting jewels and “meditating” to unlock their powers.

It's really a wonderful and amusing fairytale. I'm hoping they'll make it a trilogy.

Lisa

DOWNLOAD DREAM CHRONICLES 2 HERE>>

Colored Bricks From The Sky...The Sims: Carnival Snapcity

Well when your too sick to work, but not too sick to be bored you need something to do.  Well play a game!  Which one, well you need something simple especially once that cold medicine kicks in.  You might want something that has some easy controls but with a few puzzles.  By George I’ve got it!  The Sims: Carnival SnapCity is a great game whether you are sick or if you have a little one and you want them to stop destroying your house…not that I have any little one right now destroying my house…that watch was my Grandfather’s and I’ll never…just ignore that last part and lets get into the game!

Well most people who haven’t been living under a rock have heard about the Sim series.  From the countless SimCity’s to the popular The Sims series, just about everybody has tried it out.  Well this new game you build cities, and nothing more, save for a twist.  You get to play Tetris at the same time!

Yep you heard me, some colored bricks in odd formations come sliding down from the sky and its up to you to make these formations to combine and make large shapes.  The strange thing about all of this, is you won’t be able to stop playing.  I don’t know why but for some odd reason, the easy playing and the ability to shape a city as you see fit.  You can let it all crumble into a pile of ruins or you help it grow and change into a prosperous utopia!  Just make sure you keep an eye on that little one or don’t forget to call into work, just in case your still “sick” after a long game play session.

Well as I said before, this game is perfect for that little one or little ones at home.  It is not only a great way to catch their attention, but it also is a good way to teach them shapes and colors.  And, for the older ones you can assist them so they can budget for their city.  This game is not just a simple game, but in reality it is a multipurpose game!  It can assist in teaching kids different important life lessons, and it is a simple game so anybody can play it without any regret.  Plus, the cute cars zooming back and forth along the roads is another way to steal away others from their house destroying antics.

So go over to Legacy Games (www.legacygames.com) and try this game out.  While you’re doing that I’ll be looking through the yellow pages for a good watch repair person.  Too bad I didn’t get this game up on my computer just a minute sooner…my poor, poor watch.

Aaron Roberson

DOWNLOAD THE SIMS: CARNIVAL SNAPCITY HERE>>

Do You Buy Pink Games?...Try Family Restaurant and Hot Dish!!!

Do you buy pink games? By pink games, I mean games that are overtly designed to appeal to women, often featuring stereotypically female themes like fashion, beauty, childcare, cooking, anything cute or romantic...sound familiar? No surprise -- the casual game industry is full of pink games. I admit, I like and buy these pink games too...but I can tell you, there are lots of female hard core gamers who are upset by this trend, claiming that its sexism on the part of the mostly male developers. Since casual games is a 2.4 billion dollar industry, you can make up your own mind about the place for pink in gaming.

Where was I heading with this? Oh yeah, cooking games. After playing Cooking Mama on the Wii, I've been hungry for more culinary inspired games, but I've played the waitress genre to death. Happily, there are 2 new cooking inspired games out this past month.

Family Restaurant has you playing as Jenny, a budding chef trying to save the family business. If you like fast paced games, this is a good pick. You get customer orders, and then have to recreate the dishes that they want. For example, putting together sundaes in the right way, cooking pizza or fries, etc. Sometimes you get to create your own recipes, and name them too. It's a time management game, because you have to use your time budgeting skills to accomplish the tasks, but its much more complex than just a waitress title. My only complaint is that it gets very tough once you beat the first few levels.

Hot Dish is another unique game. If you want a more realistic cooking sim, this is your best bet. You have to manage an Italian kitchen, and try to gain stars from critics by creating perfect dishes. You prepare foods by stirring, chopping, and mincing at the right times. It gets hard to do when you are preparing 2 or 3 dishes at the same time. It's got some quirks so it isn't perfect, but on the whole its really good and original and fun to play.

Funny, but all these cooking games have me wanting to get creative in the *real* kitchen! Anyone fancy some pumpkin pie?

Lisa

DOWNLOAD FAMILY RESTAURANT HERE>>
DOWNLOAD HOT DISH HERE>>

I’m “Igor” for Presidents Day!

Hi everyone!  We’re getting ready for the long Presidents Day weekend here, so I’m going to make this one quick.  I’m still gearing up for our amazing upcoming Igor video games, based on the AMAZING movie coming out this year, and would love to share some of the great experiences I’ve had as we start work on Legacy’s first video game based on a motion picture!

The first step of making any video game is to put together a design document.  This becomes the core of the video game, the description of every activity, every character, every function, and unless you’re very, very careful all the little mistakes that will come back and bite you on the tush when the time comes to implement your design.  Luckily, I’ve been blessed with incredibly gifted designers collaborators on this project.  I can’t tell you much about the actual designs yet, but I have that giddy little feeling right now when everything’s going right!

Yes, that’s often followed by that sinking little feeling when the walls start sagging and your house starts leaning ominously to the left, but darn it I fully intend to enjoy myself while everything is going well!

Now working out the game design document is something I’m used to, but now I’m starting to look for writers and composers.  Now, as a big music and TV lover, I’m approaching this partly as a fan boy.  When I saw my first list of potential writers for the game, I didn’t recognize their names but I totally recognized the TV shows listed as credits for the writers coming across my desk.  Family Guy, Simpsons, CSI, Law and Order, every show ever on Cartoon Network…the list goes on and on!  The talent in that stack of resumes is staggering, and picking out the few writers that will try to do justice to the hilarious Igor movie and bring it to life in our game is a little daunting.  The few I’ve spoken to are hilarious, charming people, blowing the whole myth of the mousy, shy screenwriter right out of the water.

And then the composers!  While looking at a writer’s resume and reading their samples can be fun and impressive, I can’t even begin to share with you how cool it is to sit down and go through the musical submissions from the different composers that have submitted to write our music for us.  I’ve heard a Goth symphony with gypsy singers, techno beats from Seattle, Chinese influenced orchestral work from Los Angeles, dark but comical music from Russia that seemed to have been performed on rubber bands, and even a submission from my favorite video game composer that featured an ode to Danny Elfman complete with kettle drums and an eery choir of children.

I swear as I listened to that last one, I could almost see the rows of sunken cheeked orphans staring blankly at me and playing with the little hatchets at their sides.  Danny Elfman.  Gotta love him.  Not right for our game, but WOW.

OK, time for barbeque and white sales!  Thank God for white sales…every time I eat barbeque anything white in my general vicinity usually needs to be replaced.

And there WILL be barbeque.

Have a great long weekend, everyone!

Donald Marshall

A Complex Blend of Time Management and Hidden Object Games...Go-Go Gourmet!

Yup, I'm still into cooking games this week! This might have something to do with the limited time I've been spending in my own kitchen, because the electricity has been up and down for a couple of weeks. I've mentioned before that I live in South Africa, and you might have read about the gold and diamond mines closing here, temporarily. We've had a huge amount of growth (yippee), and the powers that be sort of forgot to upkeep the electricity systems, so we've been doing some “load sharing” (that's what we call scheduled blackouts). Thank goodness for laptops and cellphones, eh?

But, back to the games. My latest obsession is Go-Go Gourmet. I dig it because its different than what you'd expect, blending time management and hidden object genres into one cooking sim. You have to locate ingredients in your kitchen, and then put them together to make dishes for customers. It starts off easy with only a few ingredients, but gets more complex as you add more stuff to do. If you like multitasking, this is a good one to play. The pace is fast, but not overwhelming, which helps make the game addictive. It kind of reminds me of Jane's Hotel, with all that frantic yet well-timed clicking.

If you're a visual person, the graphics are a combination of cartoon (characters and food ) and photo realism (complete dishes and some of the background). It's inconsistent enough to notice, but not enough to really irk a player, imo.

Kind of off topic, but you know what I find ironic? How many games are modelled after stuff we do in real life. I mean, I put off cleaning my own house, but yet love playing Nanny Mania. Tell me I'm not alone in that?

Lisa

DOWNLOAD GO-GO-GOURMET HERE>>

Legacy Interactive, A Female Friendly Game Developer?

Hello Everyone!

Did you know the roundworm is a common parasite that infests our cats and dogs? Did you know that it has a life cycle that takes it from the intestines, to the bloodstream, to the lungs and back to the intestines? Did you know that these worms can grow to be 5 - 7 inches long? That is not the worst part of the news; the worst part is that they can be transmitted to people! Ewww!

These are just some of the interesting pet medical facts that I have learned in my time as the newest producer at Legacy. In preparation for the development of our newest veterinarian simulator title, I have been playing older versions of our vet games and reading, a lot. In a short time, my research as both surprised and scared me. I have probably learned more about companion animal health in two months than I have in the last 10 years.

For me, coming to work at Legacy was a shocking experience. I have been surprised over and over again by the company and its products. For example, I have a Neuroscience B.S. which means that I should know quite a bit about biology. At least I thought I did until I started playing some of Legacy’s older vet games to become familiar with the brand. Have you ever played the quiz in the office in Zoo Vet 2? Did you get a perfect score your first time through? I know that I didn’t. This was unexpected because the game is meant for children. Either I don’t know much about animals or children get to learn a lot from these games. I really like the idea that the games are educational because it’s good for the kids and it means that those animal questions are meant to throw you for a loop sometimes.

Before I came to Legacy, I worked for several different mainstream game companies over the years. The games I worked on were never educational and occasionally, I was personally offended by the content.  I find it refreshing to work at a game company where an African American female game character always keeps her clothes on and is portrayed as intelligent and hardworking (Regina from Zoo Vet 2). Actually, if you think about it, Legacy’s games often portray women as professional, educated people.

It’s not only the games that are different at Legacy, it’s also the staff. This company has the highest ratio of female employees of any game company that I have ever worked for. “What does that matter?” you may ask. Well, for one it gives me the opportunity to work with women. Yes, you have that right, as a female producer, you don’t get opportunities to work with other women. I have never met a female game producer and I have never had a female supervisor. Also, the having more women means a friendlier work environment for women. At other companies, posters and desktop wallpapers of scantily clad women are normal run-of-the-mill cubical accessories. I know it may seem that would not be annoying, but try to see it from the point of view of the only woman working in that area. Day in and out, you start to feel like a girl in the boy’s locker room. Awkward!

Well, all the great things about Legacy aside, I am excited to produce my first educational game! While I do not have a title locked down for the project yet, I can tell you a little about the game. To give you a hint, I did gameplay research by watching Animal Cops Houston which is a reality show about the HSPCA and Animal Precinct , the reality show about New York City’s Humane Law Enforcement. The game will be set in an animal rescue and because of this; the cases should take on a more serious tone. I am planning on the game focusing on people’s commitment to companion animals and the basic functions of a rescue. Oh and don’t worry, I will be sure to include a good quiz in the office for you all!

Until next time,

Natascha Thomas

The Adventure of the Legacy Producer

Hi all!

My name is Jonathan Cooperson but most people call me Coops or JC. I am the next producer in line here to talk to you about what’s happening behind the scenes here at Legacy. First off let me just say how refreshing it has been working here over the past year. Although I had some bumps and hurdles on my last project Brain Spa (Yeah, that title was one of them, as those who have played it will know, but trademarks are trademarks so you now have Brain Spa--remember, it’s what’s inside that counts), things here are always inspiring and everyone contributes so much in all aspects (and I mean everybody). I really value the collaboration and teamwork that goes on here and I think it shows in the games (okay now I’m getting misty so I’ll move on).

As Don said below, we have some top notch PC titles in store this year but, unlike Don, I get to talk about one of them haha! I have been working on a new casual PC title based on the stories of Sherlock Holmes. That’s right! The super-sleuth himself. The most popular fictional character of all time. (So popular that there are still people debating over whether he was actually real or not).

I was extremely excited to work on this project as I am a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s books. As we got into the design process some amazing things started to develop and the game took on a very unique shape. Craig Brannon and I were in sync from the get go on the concept so we have a game with all the intrigue, mystery, characters, and feel of the original stories but with a great hidden object gameplay. (I know you are drooling for more hidden object games.) The difference here is that everything feels real; no penguins in the garden or pretzels in trees. Everything makes sense and if Sherlock wouldn’t pay it any attention neither did we. We have also developed a unique puzzle to help the player identify the culprit in the mysteries (yes, there are more than just one) which is part classic logic puzzle, part sudoku, and part visual perception challenge. It has much to commend it to the sober judgment of thinking men. (I’m not really sure what that means but in Victorian London it was a big compliment.)

Narcissistic trivia fact: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jonathan Cooperson were both born on the 22nd of May (obviously not on in the same year though).

The challenges with this really lied with keeping a hidden object game anchored in reality but not just any reality, the reality of turn-of-the-century England. I am sure the rabid Sherlockian fans will tear me apart as to “this wasn’t invented yet in 1900” or “this wasn’t discovered until after Sherlock...” etc. But I assure you we did all we could to stay true to the time period and I think we did a pretty good job although it is possible we took a few small liberties and something may have slipped by us so I apologize if it does and you are welcome to call me on it (but please be nice m(_|_)m thanks).

We are in the full swing of production for the game now so I’ll give you a couple quick sneak peeks at the game but don’t let it leak too much or people will start camping out at the stores and you’ll have to wait in long lines just to get cut off when they run out of copies, etc., etc. (Ok maybe not but I can dream, can’t I?)

Well that’s it for me; I’ll talk to you again soon. I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures of me with famous people or cool cartoon version of myself so you’ll have to settle for this -

Penguins wearing sweaters!

What’s that? You want to know when it’s coming out? I am exceedingly sorry that your request comes to me at a time when I am so pressed by my own affairs that I cannot, with any convenience, comply with it. (<- now that’s a polite way to say no!). Check back with Legacy and you’ll be seeing it within the next few months.

Game on!

Jonathan Cooperson