The Blackwell Deception – Dave Gilbert
Adventure Gamers: ZZZZzzzzzzzz… Wha? Oh, sorry. Dozed off while waiting for Blackwell Deception. It’s been a while since Convergence, hasn’t it?
Dave Gilbert: Hah. I suppose it has! After Convergence, we started working on Puzzle Bots as well as another game for PlayFirst. The PlayFirst game got cancelled in the end, but both projects kept us pretty busy for a long time. Then, after Puzzle Bots wrapped up, I was all set to work on Blackwell Deception when Gemini Rue fell into my lap. Since that game was closer to being complete, we decided it would be better to put all our resources into getting that finished first. So it’s taken a while for Deception to get here, but the wait’s almost over.
AG: So tell us about the shift from indie developer to publisher. What’s that experience been like?
Dave: It’s been a ride! From the beginning, it always bothered me that I only had the resources to release around one game a year, so taking on other developers’ projects seemed like a natural next step. It also frees me up considerably. Normally when I work, I feel a constant pressure to get a game out the door as fast as possible in order to bring in money, so I have always held myself back from creating something really big or epic. But since we have all these other games in the fire, it’s not as big a worry anymore. We can now take some risks that we couldn’t take before. It’s very liberating.
AG: Have you been taking a pretty hands-on role as publisher, or are you mainly leaving development in the hands of their creators and focusing on bringing them to market?
Dave: For the most part it is the developer’s show, but it depends on the game. We were heavily involved with Puzzle Bots from the beginning – we funded it and programmed the whole thing. With Gemini Rue, there was much less work on our end. It was basically handed to us almost finished and we helped add some finishing touches (like the voice acting, QA, and character portraits) and dealt with all the marketing and sales.
For future projects, we’d like to strike a medium between the two. Waiting around for a nearly-complete game to fall into our laps is not a good business model, but funding and programming someone else’s game from scratch is just too much of a risk (and leaves us unable to work on our own projects). So what I’ve been doing is looking around for in-the-works projects that show a lot of promise and asking the developer if they would be interested in having Wadjet Eye involved. Some have said yes, some have said no, some are still thinking about it.
AG: Are there more publishing projects in the works?
Dave: Yep! I’ve got two contracts signed with two different developers, and I’m in talks with two others. We’re hoping to get one of the signed games out by GDC next year, so keep an eye out for that.
AG: Have you been able to make a career of this, or do you still rely on “real” jobs to help pay the bills?
Dave: This has been my fulltime career since 2006, so game development has been my “real” job for quite a while. It hasn’t always been easy, and I am terrified to look at my credit score, but I can’t think of anything else more fulfilling. My wife has joined me full-time now as well, so I’m no longer working by myself.
AG: Well, we’re glad you haven’t stopped developing games yourself. A lot of people are anxiously awaiting a new Blackwell installment. What’s in store for Rosa and Joey this time around?
Dave: Well, the gist of the game is a conspiracy surrounding storefront psychics, and the people they come in contact with. You get a lot of those psychics here in New York (they are EVERYWHERE) and I thought it would be an interesting mystery to wrap a Blackwell story around. Like all Blackwell games, there are ghosts that you need to help move on, and Deception has more than ever. Eight in total (including Joey).
Fans will also be glad to know that the game is significantly larger than its predecessors. I’ve always tried to increase the length and scope of these games with each installment, and this is no exception. The file size is easily double what the last game was (sorry, dial-up users) and it’s taking the average tester about 8 to 10 hours to finish the game on their first playthrough. So I am hoping to give players a bigger experience than previous Blackwell games.
AG: The last installment introduced characters that clearly factor heavily into both Joey’s past and Rosa’s future. Any insights you can share along those lines? Will these plotlines be explored heavily in Deception, or will you keep teasing us for a while?
Dave: Yep, they’ll be explored to a degree. One of the first characters you meet is from Rosa’s past, and some stories about Joey’s life will come up. Some questions will be answered, but some will still remain. It wouldn’t be Blackwell otherwise. 🙂
AG: On a more personal note, do you believe in ghosts?
Dave: It’s terrifying to believe that we’re just gone when we die, which is probably why people like stories about ghosts so much. I’ve always been interested in stories where people confront the choices they’ve made, and that’s a big chunk of what Blackwell is about, really. Helping people confront their choices.
AG: Your games so far have slanted heavily in favour of story over puzzles. Has that been a conscious effort to keep the games accessible, or is that just a matter of focusing on doing what you do (or like) best?
Dave: It’s always been a hard balance to strike. You want to tell a good story, but the very nature of the medium (no pun intended) forces you to throw up roadblocks that stop the player cold. Also, I will often come up with a great idea for a scene, only to put it into the game and realize it’s horrible. Sometimes to make a scene work you have to set things up in a very specific way, and you have to force the player into a situation that they wouldn’t intuitively be in on their own. So you take control out of the player’s hands, and it becomes a movie that you click through, with maybe a dialog choice menu or two to add the illusion of interactivity. I used to do this a lot (a massive chunk of Blackwell Legacy, for example!), so I know full well the temptation of falling into that trap.
One of the side benefits of working on Gemini Rue was that I had the time to work on Deception’s design a lot more. It’s the first game where I re-designed and re-coded entire sections based on tester feedback. If I wasn’t happy with one aspect of it, or the testers really hated something, I was able to chuck it and try something else. A year ago I never would have considered doing that, since I was always aware of the clock ticking and my bank account draining. As a result, I think I’ve managed to strike a good balance between story and puzzles this time. *crosses fingers*
AG: Do you have a defined number of Blackwell episodes already in mind, or are you letting the series evolve naturally and see how far it takes you?
Dave: I’ve always had a good idea of how the Blackwell story was going to progress. There are a bunch of story “beats” that I want to hit, and I know I can stretch or shrink the number of games depending on how things go. Originally, I planned on making around ten games, and I vaguely remember my naïve 2006-self thinking I could get a new Blackwell game out every four months. Oh ho ho. You’re funny, 2006-self.
When I made Convergence, I realized very quickly that that lofty goal would never happen, so I sped things up a bit. The introduction of Madeline, for example, was supposed to have an entire game dedicated to it. There will probably be two more Blackwell games after this one, for a total of six. I don’t want to keep the fans waiting forever for me to finish the story, and I don’t want to get totally sick of it before I get there.
AG: Presumably the pixel art style of Blackwell was necessitated at least in part by budget, but going retro also has a definite nostalgic appeal. If you had the money, would you invest heavily in an artistic overhaul for future episodes, or do you prefer the old-school look in its own right (at least for this series)?
Dave: Being a part of the AGS community for so long, I’m so used to pixel adventure games that I think of it as totally normal. But that said, I would love to invest in an artistic overhaul if I had the money. Although, if my experience with Emerald City Confidential is anything to go by, having a budget means that the cost of everything just skyrockets, and you find yourself cutting back on features and assets in order to stay under budget. So… I guess it depends on how much money you’re talking about.
AG: Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask the question everyone wants to know: does Joey have feet?
Dave: Sure he does. They are buried six feet underground with the rest of him.
AG: Argh! Walked right into that one (ahem). Thanks for taking time to answer our questions, Dave. Let’s do it again in less then two years’ time for the next episode, all right?
Dave: I’ll do my best! I plan on making a non-Blackwell game next, just to try something different, but I’ll always come back to Blackwell in the end. Thank you all for your patience!
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