Noel Bruton of Arberth studios in Wales talks quite extensively about Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches. look out for it from the 24th October 2008 in UK stores.
1. Firstly thank you for taking the time out to speak to Twitchy. Can you introduce the team and tell us your roles in the development of the game ?
We’re a UK-based trio, Karen, Richard and yours truly, Noel.
Karen and Noel are a married couple living in Wales, Richard is Karen’s brother, still in England. Karen is the avid gamer and has been so since the Sinclair Spectrum. She came up with the idea that three people who had never done this before could produce a commercial PC adventure game. She also led the research into significant objects and puzzles, produced most of the animations, and set the standard for gameplay. This was based on her own preferences and experience and tempered by findings on various gaming forums.
Richard produces graphical computer models for a living, so he produced pretty much everything physical you see in ‘Rhiannon’ including most of the larger cutscene videos. Karen did most of the animations. She and I produced the documents – books, diaries, papers – between us. I did the computer programming, all the music and most of the sound effects.
Puzzle and plot ideas came from all of us, with the basis of the game stemming from my research into the collection of Welsh legends known as the ‘Four Branches’, part of ‘The Mabinogion’.
2. At the outset was your primary interest in adventure games or mythology ?
The gaming aspect most definitely came first. In all the games Karen played, occasionally with me going along for the ride, she rarely found complete the particular mix of adventure, interface, story, inventory usage and plot features (like an element of the supernatural) she liked. ‘Barrow Hill’ was probably one of the closest though, and having been made by a small independent studio in Cornwall, that game gave her the belief that it was possible to create one’s ideal adventure. I’ve been in IT for years, so she asked me how it might be done technically; I found that there are lots of tools out there, which even first-timers can use.
Suddenly the prospect of making an adventure game lit a fire in each of us. I’ve always wanted to do something serious with music composition, and computer games would be a vehicle for that. Richard too was fascinated by the idea of creating graphical models from scratch rather than just illustrating the ideas of an architect, and with producing 3D spaces that the observer could move through rather than making mere snapshot views. Karen has always been captivated by the ideas of pulling research threads together.
I’ve had a bit of a fascination with the Mabinogion ever since Karen and I moved to Wales in the 1990’s, and that eventually yielded the base of the game. But the initial driver was more to make an adventure game than to illustrate the Welsh myths. However, when we looked at the mythical stories, we found them so rich and colourful that the ‘Four Branches’ just had ‘adventure game material’ written all over them.
3. Can you give us a quick outline of the story?
The Mabinogion legends tell of the exploits of ancient Britons in a time of magic and mystery and they are at least 900 years old. Across four tales at the core of these, known as the ‘Four Branches’, the life story is told of a nobleman named Pryderi (pronounced ‘Pruh – derry’). Legend has it that for pretty much the whole of his life, Pryderi had a running battle with the mad sorcerer Llwyd Cil Coed (‘HL – ooid – Kill – Koyd’), which got pretty brutal at times. There came something of a showdown in which Llwyd was humiliated. The pair arrived at a truce, and Llwyd was made to swear to take no revenge during their lifetimes. Our story extrapolates from there that Llwyd stuck exactly to his word – and so instead now takes his revenge on Pryderi in the Afterlife.
With the arrival of teenage Rhiannon and her family at a run-down Welsh farmstead called ‘Ty Pryderi’ or ‘the house of Pryderi’, the ancient battle re-emerges as a haunting that pretty much drives Rhiannon insane, due in no small part to her parents neither witnessing the ghostly events nor believing her. The family leaves Ty Pryderi to give Rhiannon a break and asks the player to look after the house. But this Rhiannon was more important than she knew and the haunting does not cease. As you explore Ty Pryderi, its grounds and outbuildings, you will discover the stories of others who have come up against Llwyd, with tragic results. You determine to end the supernatural possession of Ty Pryderi once and for all. A millennium of magic holds the estate in its grip. Unravelling the layers of Llwyd’s spells will not be straightforward and you will use both magic and technology to achieve it. You will have some assistance from Rhiannon’s mentor – the mythologist and historian Jon Southworth – but he too has his own story, which you will reveal.
4. In terms of gameplay is Rhiannon more suitable for the beginner or is it targeted to a more seasoned player ? Can you let us know what sort of puzzles to expect and describe the tools/ inventory at the players disposal
‘Rhiannon’ has been played successfully by people who have never before attempted an adventure game – and yet romped through it with a satisfying rhythm – and also by seasoned players who have needed a walkthrough just to work the voicemail machine – and all points in between. We did not target it at any level of gaming adept in particular, but if there is a skill that you will need, it is to let go of your assumptions. For example, that music puzzle is not actually a music puzzle – you can solve it by your knowledge of music, if that’s your forte, but you don’t need to know a note of music to get past it. There is a sign on one of the walls in the house – “The Symbol’s The Thing” – which is one of the biggest clues in the game. Think laterally. There are clues everywhere. Watch for the hints left by Pryderi and the other ghosts.
There are a couple of principles at play. At around two hundred interactive objects, the inventory is pretty big. The arena is also large, with several buildings and some distance between them, with plenty to do on the way. And although each chapter opens up new areas, you can still visit areas you have been to before. So you will see objects in Chapter One that you might not need until Chapter Four. If you could pick up every item in an inventory that size on first sight, it would get so big you might not be able to manage it – so our rule is that you cannot take an object to inventory until you have encountered where you might make use of it. Which means you must pay attention to the clues. You can’t just run round picking things up at random and hoping something will happen, because it probably won’t.
‘Rhiannon’ is played alone in the first person. Rhiannon’s family, the Sullivans have left, as have the builders they engaged in the renovation of Ty Pryderi. There are messages on the Voicemail, Emails on a computer and hand-written notes around the house. You will use all manner of tools from an MP3 player and a cigarette lighter to objects that could only exist on a supernatural plane. There are no characters to meet and no conversations to have. We do not impose a personality on you – when you arrive at Ty Pryderi, you will play yourself – it is your skills and application that will defeat Llwyd.
With a limited exception, the play is entirely non-violent and you cannot ‘die’. You need your intellect, not your reflexes for the challenges in ‘Rhiannon’. You will be haunted, but not all of the ghosts have malicious intent, and you will get to know their separate characters, understand the past they lived in and their role in the mystical battle for Ty Pryderi.
We’ve tried to keep the puzzles as tightly tied to the plot as possible, which is why I’ve got to be careful when describing them, so as not to issue spoilers. There is a large dependence on the inventory for puzzles. There are no minigames, and we’ve tried hard to avoid the kind of puzzle where the outcome of an action bears no relation to the action itself. We’ve also tried to make it so that if you are doing a puzzle, you know why you’re doing it – so you don’t end up doing a puzzle simply because it’s there.
The game is divided into a series of chapters and close to the beginning of each one, you will be invited to avail yourself of information to suggest to you what is expected of you in that chapter. Sometimes this is subtle or hidden behind a puzzle – and sometimes it’s just lying on the doormat when you come downstairs. There are always clues. Just don’t miss any hotspots – if you find yourself somewhere new, explore it well. Within the chapters, play is pretty much non-linear. Find out what you need to do and then do it, in pretty much any order.
5. After the success of Barrow Hill, The Lost Crown and with the release of Rhiannon, demonstrates the wealth of story telling material in the UK especially the Celtic nations. Did you have to do much research and have you any ideas as to your next venture ?
We feel that a lot of research went into ‘Rhiannon’. There was the Ogam script, an ancient language that became part of a chapter. We had to learn a bit about Kirlian photography and how that might be used in a homeopathic context, by merging it with some tangential work done by a Japanese scientist. The Mabinogion had to be read and synopsised. We had to invent companies to provide services to the Sullivans. We spent a lot of time getting to know about the use of archetypes in magick spells. Pyrotechnics figure here, as does the audible electromagnetic spectrum, even a little bit about how they used to manufacture illegal drugs in the 1960’s.
And we can’t forget that we did a lot of research into what players prefer. That influenced the music, the sound effects and most importantly, the player interface. For example, we found that a significant number of players feel nauseous when they play games with a 360-degree swivel – so we deliberately avoided that and went strictly point-and-click. You can still turn round in a circle, in most scenes, because what you’re looking for may be behind you – but by clicking to do so rather than swivelling.
We’ve already started our next project, but I can’t say much about it. But did you know that Wales was four hundred years ahead of the rest of the world in its acceptance of witches, and that witchcraft is still commonplace in parts of Wales?
6. From beginning to end how long did the project take ?
When we look back on it now, we see it as not one project, but two. The first was to create Arberth Studios, sort out our roles, work out what was possible, build our skillsets, design a way of working. The second was to build a game of commercial quality. From concept to product has been two years and three months or thereabouts. That’s why we suspect we could probably do it faster next time because the company’s methods are now already in place.
7. If you had to do it all again would you change anything ?
Good question, and one we’re already having to answer as we start our next project. There’s nothing we’d change in ‘Rhiannon’ – we’re very satisfied that ‘Rhiannon’ is at the point where a change might not necessarily be an improvement. It also represents where we were as developers at the time of writing.
But we would certainly change how we go about some things in future. First, we’d design from the outset with a consideration of localization into languages other than English. Also, Richard has begun to develop his own style as a graphic designer, so that would come more to the fore.
It’s too early to say what we’d do differently in terms of gameplay. We’ll probably stick to the model of first person working alone because it’s better for sustaining the game atmosphere. There’s reason behind that. We’ve all played games where the environment looks real, the objects look real, the ambience is immersing and the plot is gripping – and then suddenly you meet up with an animated character that looks wooden and robotic and so completely out of place against the slickness of the background – and you can almost feel the balloon of suspended disbelief bursting. Equally disappointing are games where you play in the third person and you end up by design with unnatural movement, or perhaps a grating voice or accent – or even worse, with an obnoxious or cliché personality. We want Arberth games to be places where the player can use his or her own personality and character to react to the scene and story in their own way and not have a personality imposed upon them.
8. Finally I tend to get annoyed when British games get released in the foreign territories first (even though I know it’s what the market dictates). Is there any support or do you think there could be more done for British developers ?
The main reason we got a US deal before a European one was because one of the US gaming Websites spotted our early publicity and told an American publisher, Got Game Entertainment, about us. The realities of the American market then accelerated our development, so we ended up temporarily too busy to look for European representation.
We had always wanted to go with Lighthouse Interactive in Europe because they have a history of publishing adventure games and other developers suggested we approach them. When we got round to it, of course we still had to prove the quality of the product, but joining the Lighthouse portfolio wasn’t really that difficult and both publishers have eagerly provided us with willing and capable resources to help make the game a success. Since then we’ve been contacted by other publishers in the US, Europe, Russia and elsewhere, interested in handling this and future Arberth titles, so the channels are there for developers. That said, the fact remains that it was the Americans who approached us first. We had to go looking for European representation, and we found it in the Netherlands – and we had no dealings at all with any British publishers.
I’ve worked in international distribution in other industries and in some respects I think I can see this from the publisher/distributor’s point of view. The US market is so big on its own, that there is room for market sectoring – publishers can specialize in game genres. In Europe, that is not quite the case, as it’s made up of lots of relatively small markets with different languages – so some less mainstream game genres will be less attractive to publishers because they may not generate enough sales to justify country-by-country localization.
However there is perhaps something that could be done and that is to shift industry attention away from the game product and more towards the target market. The adventure genre is a prime candidate for this. A lot of people believe erroneously that computer games are only what they see advertised on the telly – guns, bombs, racing, playing tennis on a Wii. They have mostly never heard of adventure games. For us, there lies the truly massive opportunity that the publishers – not the developers – have missed. What this industry needs is to improve the mass understanding of what interactive entertainment is really about and get it out of this niche and into the mainstream. The message they should be giving to the potential player, is that you don’t have to just watch somebody in a movie solving a mystery – with adventure games you can actually play the leading role in the movie yourself – and get ten times the entertainment out of it as well.
And this is the publishers’ opportunity precisely because it is market development, not product development. If the publishers can create the market, the developers and products will come – in fact they’re probably already there, but some are unable to find representation at present because the publishers can’t afford the cost and risk burdens of taking them on. Perhaps this industry should be educating the silver surfers, the empty-nesters, the millions fed up with repetitive telly and perhaps even parents with teenage kids – that there is an alternative and highly developed form of engaging entertainment and that potential enjoiners already probably already own the machine they need to avail themselves of it. Perhaps time for the industry to form an ‘International Interactive Adventure Publishers Association’ and fund a marketing campaign?
thank you very much for your time Noel and we look forward to the UK release
