Cooperation with Wizarbox

[axelkothe]

Hi Steve,

whose idea was it, you and Wizarbox working together on so blonde? And who had the original idea and design for the game?

[Steve Ince]

I was recommended to Wizarbox, who contacted me and asked if I was interested in working on a humorous adventure. Of course, I jumped at the chance and expected to have to pay for the privilege. However, I was pleasantly surprised that they were able to pay me in something other than peanuts.

I went over to Paris to meet with them and discuss the project. The initial concept was theirs and they had a few backgrounds already drawn up as well as concept work for the main characters. They didn't have a fully-fledged story, however, so that's where I came in and we thrashed out the bare bones of it in a couple of days. I then spent some time back home fleshing it out and working with the Wizarbox team through e-mails and such to ensure that I was staying with their vision.

The original story we came up with was much shallower than the one we ended up with and I'm really pleased that we took the time to create the richness that I'm sure the players will enjoy.

[Becky]

I'm curious -- at what point do you decide to add depth to a plot that way? After you've lived with the characters for awhile, do they take on a life of their own and demand more to do? And does this slow up the development process?

[Steve Ince]

I created a high-level story document to start with and then developed a mnuch more detailed one after that wa approved. It was during this process that the richness was added. It didn't affect the development process because in a sense it was part of that process. But there were subtleties that I added much later that I did in a way that didn't screw up the schedule.