I run an obscure Northern Irish video game studio, and I take no offense in the fact that you’ve ever heard of us. This was intentional, obviously. Our cunning PR plan was always to keep a low profile these past six years to ensure maximum impact when our new space themed comedy graphic adventure game Assts Store, Her Majesty’s SPIFFING, lands on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Steam and Humble Store this month.
In all seriousness, we sport a rather familiar indie back story, living in abject poverty, scraping together what little we could to get by while working on our debut game -- par for the course when it comes to indie game development. We did also do a spot of commercial animation work, producing adverts for Irish television back when we were finding our feet. Mercifully though, I’m confident you won’t have heard of them either
What: A point and click sans point and click
You remember adventure games, right? That chap who invented Kickstarter, Timothy Schafer, used to make them. Then publishers stopped funding them because games became more action-y, more shoot-y, more 3D-y… basically more fun.
I’m being facetious of course, but the fall of the triple-A adventure game is something that is well documented. Once a genre that sat aloft Electronic Boutique’s best seller shelves, it has since gone underground: a bit niche and a bit indie.
Traditional adventure games are still being made, of course, but not
with the budgets seen during the genre’s heyday (the elephant in the
room being Telltale, however traditional point and click fans would
argue that they are a different type of game all together).
That and, after 20 odd years, the mechanics are still typically the same. This makes sense for games that are intentionally throwbacks, channeling fan’s nostalgia. However, we wanted to make something a little different. We set out to create an adventure game that had the soul of a mid-1990s LucasArts title but looked and felt a bit more contemporary. Basically, we ended up making a point and click, just without the pointing and clicking.
Now, there are a few different schools of thought when it comes to controlling player characters (or avatars) in video games. Some argue that this main character should be nothing more than a vessel for the player to interact within this virtual world. The developer cannot design a personality for the game’s protagonist as you want the player to feel that they are personally the arbiter of this world.
This approach is great for certain games, however if you go down this particular design route there are limitations to what you can do. For example, you cannot show the main character on screen, it must be done in first person. If the player sees this character running around that doesn’t look like them, the illusion is broken.
Examples of hilarious games Assts that have done this well are things like Portal (yes, I know every so often you can see Chell but she is, at the end of the day, a shell!) or The Stanley Parable. Early in the concept stages of SPIFFING this type of perspective was considered however, for this approach to work, the supporting cast would have to become the stars of our story (like GLaDOS, Wheatley or the Narrator). English was too big a character, too rife for satire, that we couldn’t make this approach work. We also felt this was straying too far from the game’s point and click roots.
We still wanted the player to have a closer connection to English than you would see in a typical point and click adventure. Playing these games now I always feel that there is this disconnect between you and the protagonist. It’s the same feeling you get when playing strategy or management type games.
That and, after 20 odd years, the mechanics are still typically the same. This makes sense for games that are intentionally throwbacks, channeling fan’s nostalgia. However, we wanted to make something a little different. We set out to create an adventure game that had the soul of a mid-1990s LucasArts title but looked and felt a bit more contemporary. Basically, we ended up making a point and click, just without the pointing and clicking.
Why: Empathy
In Her Majesty’s SPIFFING you jump into the space boots of Captain Frank Lee English, the quintessential British gentleman. He drinks tea, apologizes a lot and is filled with good humored self-loathing.Now, there are a few different schools of thought when it comes to controlling player characters (or avatars) in video games. Some argue that this main character should be nothing more than a vessel for the player to interact within this virtual world. The developer cannot design a personality for the game’s protagonist as you want the player to feel that they are personally the arbiter of this world.
This approach is great for certain games, however if you go down this particular design route there are limitations to what you can do. For example, you cannot show the main character on screen, it must be done in first person. If the player sees this character running around that doesn’t look like them, the illusion is broken.
Examples of hilarious games Assts that have done this well are things like Portal (yes, I know every so often you can see Chell but she is, at the end of the day, a shell!) or The Stanley Parable. Early in the concept stages of SPIFFING this type of perspective was considered however, for this approach to work, the supporting cast would have to become the stars of our story (like GLaDOS, Wheatley or the Narrator). English was too big a character, too rife for satire, that we couldn’t make this approach work. We also felt this was straying too far from the game’s point and click roots.
We still wanted the player to have a closer connection to English than you would see in a typical point and click adventure. Playing these games now I always feel that there is this disconnect between you and the protagonist. It’s the same feeling you get when playing strategy or management type games.
