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V
ery fewgaming genres have been as
troubled as the point-and-click
adventure.There was atime, going
back to the 1980s and 1990s, when such
games would blast their waytothe topofthe
charts, but then theywere gunned down by
first-person shooters, which replaced them as
the main attraction forplayers on PC.
Since then, critics would often read the
genre its last rites, only to see it bouncing
back. Developers would invariably spot an
opportunity to revive point-and-clicks on a
new piece of hardware such as the Nintendo
DS or the iPad, or they’d strike with some
success on the back of afresh approach to
an old formula and win anew set of fans.
REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD
Charles Cecil is in such aposition today,
working on away to revive the 26-year-old
classic Beneath aSteel Sky. As theco-founder
of Revolution Studios, he has been here
before: in 2009,hereleased aremastered
version of this much-loved dystopian jaunt
on the iPhone to take advantage of the
touchscreen interface.But this time,he’s
reimagining how such an adventure can
remain relevant in along-awaited sequel.
If anyone can pull it off,then he can.
Cecil has spearheaded the creation of some
of gaming’s best-loved point-and-click
adventures, among them the conspiratorial
Broken Sword series, the first of which
involved the Knights Templar in 1996, well
before Dan Brown put pen to paper for
The Da Vinci Code.
Going astep beyond
forpoint-and-clicks
Revolution Softwareco-founderCharlesCeciltalkstoDavidCrookes
aboutrevivingthe magicoftraditionaladventuregameswithalong-
awaitedsequeltothe classicBeneathaSteelSky
The cyberpunk styling will
continue,but players will be
able to respond to and subvert
the world by their actions
