How Revolution survived the British games industryInterface
wfmag.cc \ 23to my wife and saying, ‘We’re going to have to
bankrupt the company.’ Though we never did...
we actually got to the point of talking to people
about doing it, because we wanted to be as
responsible as possible. We were very, very
close. Then we got a call from Apple.”
AN UNLIKELY ALLY
It was during this time that Paul Burford, a
technology evangelist at Apple, reached out
to Cecil to ask whether he’d be interested
in bringing the Revolution back catalogue to
iPhones. Cecil immediately jumped at the
chance. This working relationship would help
Revolution to rebuild, and would also introduce
its games to a whole new generation of players.
With interest in Revolution’s work renewed,
the company took the opportunity to start a
Kickstarter to raise funds for Broken Sword 5 in
- The Kickstarter would raise over $850,000
from 15,000 backers, and Broken Sword 5: The
Serpent’s Curse released episodically across 2013
and 2014 in two separate parts.
For Cecil, it represented a chance for him
to finally get in touch with the community that
he had helped create with Revolution’s games,
and break down some of the frustrating barriers
between developers and fans.
“The passion of people who play adventure
games is extraordinary,” says Cecil. “Because
people will come and say, ‘I remember I used to
play this with my grandmother. And we played
for weeks and weeks and weeks and now that
she’s gone I remember the relationship of
playing the game, solving the puzzles together,
experiencing the story.’ It’s a genre of which I
think we should be very proud, and of all the
games and all the genres it is the one that
people remember more.”
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse has since
been ported to multiple consoles, including the
Nintendo Switch as recently as last year. Now
Cecil is working on the long-awaited sequel to
Beneath a Steel Sky, called Beyond a Steel Sky,
which was announced at a recent Apple keynote
as part of Apple Arcade.
Cecil may have overcome a lot of difficult
and turbulent times working in the games
industry over the years, but ultimately, the
continued appetite for adventure games – and
his compelling stories – ensures that we haven’t
seen the last of him yet. Despite their adventure
taking them far afield, Nico
and George always return
to a quiet apartment in
Paris when they need to
crack a mystery.