Did you ever want to forget about the puzzles and have a game that mostly
focused on story? You seem to have done an “all puzzles” game withHodj ’n’
Podj.
My desire, and I think this goes for most adventure games writers, is to do more story
and less puzzle, but puzzle is necessary to keep that thirty- to forty-hour playtime goal.
Of all my games,AMFVwas certainly the most in the story direction, andZork Zerowas
probably the most in the puzzle direction. I certainly don’t agree thatHodj ’n’ Podjwas
all puzzles, as the board game certainly has a well-developed opening and closing story,
and the gameplay fills in a little more between those bookends: prince rescues princess,
prince confronts brother, et cetera.
Did you ever add puzzles to a game solely to make the game longer?
I have definitely added puzzles simply to prolong the gameplay. I’d say the whole third
section ofAMFVwas partly that, and partly feeling scared that the game was too differ-
ent and too puzzle free and that people would rebel if at least there weren’t some
puzzles in the game. I thinkPlanetfallandStationfallwere definitely cases where, as
the game went into testing, there was kind of an impression that the game was too easy
and over too quickly. Some more needed to be put in to keep people from finishing the
game in ten hours and feeling that they hadn’t gotten their money’s worth.
Do you ever fear that some people who might like the story elements of adven-
ture games are scared off by the really hard puzzles?
Well, it is kind of a conundrum, because it seems like what makes adventure games so
compelling and obsessive are really difficult puzzles that have you up all night, thinking
about them even when you’re not sitting down playing the game. Then, when you’re
away from the game, you’re thinking about it and all of a sudden “Oh my God, the kum-
quat over in the hay shed seven rooms over, I’ve never tried that!” And you can’t wait to
run home and boot up the game to your save and run over to get the kumquat, bring it
back, and try whatever. And maybe it works and it’s the greatest feeling, or maybe it
doesn’t work and it’s the worst feeling, or maybe it doesn’t work but at least it gives you
some new direction or hint or something. And in a game with no puzzles or pretty easy
puzzles you just don’t get that same rush. But, on the other hand, particularly as time
went by, it seemed there were more and more people playing adventure games who
really, really disliked very hard puzzles. It’s very hard to satisfy both audiences.
Attempting to satisfy the people more interested in the casual gaming experience
seemed to, over time, dribble the audience away, because it resulted in a less compel-
ling gameplay experience.
Did you also serve as a programmer on all of your games?
ThroughHoboken, I did both design and programming, and since then just the design. I
certainly prefer to avoid programming if possible; doing so was always just a necessary
evil. Of course, it certainly has some great advantages in terms of efficiency and one
hundred percent perfect communication between programmer and designer. But even
if I loved programming, games these days are too complex for one programmer anyway,
so I’d never be able to do all the design and programming myself anymore.
198 Chapter 10: Interview: Steve Meretzky