111111
RETRO
IISSSUUEE 338899 |COMPUTER SHOPPER|JJUULLYY 22002200
With Beneath aSteel Sky, he told of an
orphaned character called Robert Foster,who
was adopted by an indigenous tribe only to
find himself being seized at gunpoint and
flown to Union City,adark metropolis
controlled by amysterious computer
network called LINC. Players watched as
Foster escaped, and were tasked with
helping him figure what was going on.
In true point-and-click adventure tradition,
this meant moving acursoraround the
screen before selecting and examining items,
and working out how theycould be used to
solve ahugenumber of puzzles.
Since Cecil has decided to move away
from the 2D stylings of the original with a
game made entirely in 3D,thatkindof
interface is being made redundant. The new
game simply cannot stick to the tried and
tested method of point-and-click adventuring
if Revolution Software is to recoup the not
inconsiderable sums that have been shelled
out on the latest game so far.
“If you look at recent games such as
Dreamfall Chapters [a sequel to the point-
and-click game The LongestJourney] and Life
Is Strange [which many players compared to
apoint-and-click adventure], then you see
these are these very successful adventure
games in 3D,” Cecil explains.
“Since they’re in 3D,theyoffer great
cinematography opportunities, and it just
felt to me that we could createasequel that
fans could be very excited about. Those who
we talked to were enthusiastic about the
dynamic world that could be achieved within
a3Denvironment and theywere very happy
about us moving in that direction.”AN EVOLUTION
It wasn’t all that long ago when Revolution
Softwarewas quitehappy sticking with a2D
environment. In 2013, it released Broken
Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse,having raised
more than $771,000 on Kickstarter,and the
game was the first entry in the series for
seven years. It came on the back of two
forays into3Dwith the third and fourth
Broken Swords, both of which split fans of
the first 2D games (the latter being
particularly panned by critics).
But Cecil reckons there were lessons to be
learned from his previous attempts to movehis adventures to 3D and, more importantly,
he says he’s fully taken them on board.
“I do think that adventures need to evolve
alittle bit, and Ithink LifeisStrange was one
ofthose games that did evolve it,”hesays.
“Adventures, as agenre,are in adynamic
place right now,and they’ve kind of moved
beyond point-and-click. That’s not to say
point-and-click is not at the heart of
adventures, but we have the opportunity with
Beyond aSteel Skytomaybe just take some
ideas and be innovative.Ifthere is one thing
I’ve learned from writing adventures for40
years, it’s that people love innovation.”
Certainly,the point-and-click genre has
twisted and turned its waythrough history,
taking its initial cues from text adventures by
eventually ridding gamers of the need to type
commands such as ‘get Computer Shopper’,
‘go to the Retro section’and ‘read avidly’
while generally sticking to similar principles.
At first, they’d make use of graphics to
bring their environments alive,actually
showing players what theycould grab and
use.King’s Quest on the PC, forexample,still
used atext parser,but it became the first
adventure title to incorporategraphical
animation. It was apopular evolution that
spawned along-running series. It also led to
the company releasing the best-selling
adventures Space Quest, Police Quest and
Leisure Suit Larry.
LucasArts arguably made point-and-click
adventures mainstream, however.Itwas the
publisher’s 1987 release of the spoofhorror
Maniac Mansion, which introduced the
scripting language SCUMM (Script Creation
Utility forManiac Mansion). This was agamea o a y t t⬆Characters had bags ofpersonality in the original
game and theywere inspired bythe workers Cecil
saw when he was amanagement trainee for Ford
⬆Charles Cecil has been making adventure games
for40years, including Lure ofthe Temptress,
BeneathaSteelSky,BrokenSwordandInColdBlood