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InterviewAttract Mode
The real world has encroached on
some dystopian elements – mass
surveillance, AI, etc; has that
informed the tone of the game?
Is it hard to inject humour into
something that’s a bit... well, scary?
When I first founded Revolution
back in 1990, our idea right from
the very beginning was to write
serious stories with humorous
dialogue and in the way that, you
know, 1984 was such a wonderful
book and a wonderful film. But Brazil
does exactly that. Brazil captures the
essence of 1984 , but in this ludicrous
environment, and the humanity comes
from the situations that evolve quite
naturally within that world that seems
ludicrous to us.
That is the humanity we have in [the
protagonist] Foster, who is an outsider,
coming into this world. The humour comes
from the juxtaposition of his normality,
which of course, as an audience we share,
and the ludicrous situations that have
evolved within this city. Certainly, what I
was very keen to do was reflect some of
the elements that are important to us
today – mass surveillance, the social credit
system in China, identity theft – in the way
that the original Beneath the Steel Sky back
in 1994 was very much reflecting the idea
of social change, of Margaret Thatcher
talking about society not existing anymore,
and so on. All of those things which seem
very alien now, but at the time felt very
profound and very impactful – they were
very impactful, in some ways for good,
in some ways for bad. I guess in the way
that, again referring to 1984 , which to me
is a profoundly important book, it was
important for when it was written to reflect
the rise of the Soviet Union. In a way,
what I think is really exciting, is to write
futuristic, slightly [cyberpunk sci-fi]. I have
to be a little bit careful because clearly,
we’re not going for the [tone] of Blade
Runner – rather, this idea of [reflecting] the
present, rather than [making a prediction
of] the future.Revolution is in the unique position
of being almost a one-genre studio.
How much of a positive impact does that
have on your development?
We are a one-genre studio, and that’s
because I’ve been writing adventure games
for 40 years. I love playing adventure“Beneath the Steel
Sky back in 1994
was very much
reflecting the idea
of social change”
games. I’m particularly excited that the
genre is flourishing at the moment – I don’t
know if you’ve played What Remains of
Edith Finch, which was a great adventure
game, or [Return of the] Obra Dinn,
another great adventure game, although
a little bit difficult, or Her Story. This sort
of renaissance has come from the fact
that clearly adventure games are niche,
and they were too niche for retail, but
they’re a massive niche, so there are
huge opportunities for people writing
in this area. To be honest with you, it’s
just a wonderful genre. Obviously, there
are advantages in that we hopefully
build on our expertise both creatively
and technically. It’s hard to think of
disadvantages. If we were a big publisher,
we’d want some sort of portfolio, but we’re
not, we’re a small studio, so we focus on
what we think we’re good at.How small a studio are you? How does
that function on a day-to-day basis?
We have a small studio in York, and in
the studio, we just have 16 people. We
have another five or six who are working
full-time on the project for Revolution.
Then we have a lot of subcontractors and
outsourcers working on art and animation. It’s immediately apparent Union
City isn’t quite the City Of The
Future it presents itself as.