Another Ryan Blog!

Good afternoon faithful Legacy Producer Blog readers!  It is me, Ryan, back with another insider look at game production for you.

Here’s  an inside scoop: What many of you may not know about Legacy Interactive is that we producers are often also the designers of the games we make. It’s true! That’s one of the benefits of our work here, we make what we want. But that also means that we often have to wear two hats. Well, lately it’s been a designer hat kind of job for me.

While I still can’t say yet what new game I’m working on, I can say is that we’re making a game for one of my favorite big name crime/drama TV shows, so that narrows it down, right? I can also say that we’re doing some really cool, refreshing reimagining of what can be done with crime/mystery adventure games.  Our goal is to make a souped-up casual game that tells a real story, has great gameplay and packs some big name power behind it.

One of the things we like to focus on at Legacy is real storytelling. We think that we provide meaningful gameplay and stories that make sense. That’s one of my favorite things about our upcoming Sherlock game. Sure, it’s a hidden object game, and everyone knows that they’re not known for making the most sense but  Jon has put in a lot of work to make sure each hidden object item you find actually has something to do with the story. I know, revolutionary, right?

I’ve also been focusing on meaningful storytelling. It is my belief that to make a game that is satisfying to the player, every component of it needs to tell a story. Every successful game from Pac-Man to Street Fighter has told a story in some way. Pac-man’s story is about a little yellow mouth, desperate to find enough dot-food to survive, evades the wrath of four cruel, dot hoarding ghosts hell-bent on capturing and murdering our hero. It’s a simple story, but there is a beginning, middle and end for each level you play. For our upcoming Zoo Vet DS game, I tried to think of each time you treated an animal as its own mini-episode that could stand outside of the greater story of “Zoo Vet” if it needed to.  I doubt if most players will notice, but I’m sure you guys would if we didn’t think that way.

For adventure games there is a double burden.  Obviously, there is a story being told, that is the point of an adventure game, but there should also be stories within stories.  As designers and writers we need to think about how each mini-game and each scene tells its own story. What are you trying to accomplish with this mini-game? Can this scene stand on its own? For our new mystery crime game we’re doing just that. We’ve got the real writers from the show working with our dedicated and sleep deprived design team to put together something that will hopefully give you the feeling that you’re actually in the show catching the criminals.

That’s enough for now. If you all are good, maybe next time I’ll let you in on the name of this top secret project!

Ryan

Comments

[Atle (Hidden Object fan)]

Hidden Object Games tied to a mystery/detective scheme is not revolutionary, but the story and the atmosphere that it creates are what makes or breakes these games. When done well, there is nothing I enjoy more than to emerge myself in the story and solve the clues. :) Good luck with you new game, we look forward to playing it!

Atle