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Interview: Crush Executive Producer Paul Mottram
Written by Modojo Staff on Monday, July 9, 2007
...Continued From Page 1 Mo: Besides the puzzle concept itself, Crush stands out in a couple of ways - it's (appropriately) dream-like visuals, and it's surprisingly robust storyline. How were both design decisions arrived at? The game taking place in the protagonist's mind is an inspired decision, but not an obvious one.
PM: The mechanic came first and we then made a conscious decision to try to avoid looking like all the other games on the shelves.
We tried to avoid cliched games themes and to look elsewhere for inspiration; Tim Burton and Mike Mignola helped inspire the art style. Escher and other surrealist artists helped inspire the level design.
For Danny we wanted a main character that was not anything special, just a normal person in an impossible situation. He is more like us, hence, in his early 30's, miserable, sarcastic and slightly overweight :)
Since the crush is physically impossible in real-life, we thought it would be better to place the game somewhere with no physical limitations and this was where the Crush machine and psychiatric angle came from.
Mo: How long did the puzzle gameplay exist before the storyline was added? Were any alternative premises ever considered, or was a release with *no* storyline ever considered?
PM: The gameplay existed for about 6 months before we managed to decide on the story. We did consider just making an abstract puzzler but we think the plot and characters add a lot to the game and provide much more personality. It also allowed us to produce a brilliant soundtrack and some great concept art.
The story evolved over time and our initial pitch was a lot more morbid involving Danny dying in the first scene and the game taking place in flashbacks as he died. Luckily, we decided against that and tried to inject more humour. Once we had created the two main character personalities there was no looking back.
Mo: What is the role of story in puzzle game development? Is it too often under-used?
PM: In some genres, the story can be the most important aspect of the game e.g. RPG's, for puzzle games the focus has to be on the core puzzle mechanic. This is what the player will see for 95% of the time. If you get that wrong, they will not bother hanging around to see what happens in the story.
Once you have the mechanic right, a decent story can only help the games appeal as long as you do not have to spend too long in between puzzles.
Mo: Will this game be headed to platforms, or is it a PSP exclusive?
For now, it is a PSP exclusive but we would love to see it reach a bigger audience and there are several platforms that would suit it perfectly.
Mo: What about the idea of a sequel with downloadable levels and extra content? Could that happen someday? We'd love to see a PC or XBLA port, perhaps with a level editor...
PM: All the levels were created using an in game editor on the PSP, which we unfortunately couldn't ship as we were not able to do the additional work required polish it enough as an editor that would run on commercial PSP's. It would be great to see user generated content and this is something we have been seriously thinking about for the future.
The same goes for downloadable content, it would work perfectly with the Crush level structure and I am sure that fans of the game would be eager to see more levels.
posted July 10, 2007