TouchGen attended ‘Broken Sword: A celebration’ at the Regent Street Apple Store in London today.
The Director of Broken Sword: Director Cut (AppStore link), Charles Cecil (Revolution Software), was joined on stage by artist Dave Gibbons (co-creator of Watchmen with Alan Moore), Barrington Pheloung (composer), and the voice of Nico herself, Hazel Ellerby… as well as a few others, and swapped stories about the creation of the game from the original release to the Directors Cut for iPhone and iPod Touch.
Dave Gibbons talked of his collaboration with Charles on the new version of the game, which involved creating the close up character art, to amplify their emotions now that the original art appeared much smaller on the iPhone.
Charles described Revolution’s eureka moment for creating the iPhone and iPod Touch versions: “it was the first person views (for example the close up of the body of Pierre Carchon), because originally we thought we would need to draw an onscreen hand to show you were examining the body, but it became immediately obvious that your hand ‘is’ the hand… making it more tactile than even the DS version.”
“Broken Sword is just amazing on the iPhone… like it was made for it.”
Co-founder of Revolution Software, Tony Warriner says: “.. the iPhone is the best version we have created, because the interface brings you closer to the game… you are touching it, there isn’t that disconnection you get with the use of a mouse and pointer… you are actually there, part of the game… even though it’s a small screen, you somehow feel closer.”
They went on to discuss the freedom of the AppStore versus traditional games publishers, in that you can add that extra level of polish to a game and release it when it’s ready. You can announce a game only a few weeks prior to release, as opposed to months… giving them less pressure to hit the deadline.
With the process working so well they alluded to the possibility of bringing the Broken Sword sequels to the AppStore. But more exciting to hear was the news that Charles and Dave are already fleshing out ideas for a brand new game that is not based on their existing properties, but exclusively for the iPhone. However, they did say that it won’t be ready this year.
As well as the game, Dave Gibbons has created a Broken Sword mini-comic, which explores the back story of Nico, taking us back to her childhood. We have a copy of the comic, signed by both Dave Gibbons and Charles Cecil to give away… so stay tuned for how to win this weekend.