To be perfectly honest, people really weren’t excited when we announced the preproduction of the “Inspector Plustard” game. So this article is more of an obligatory insight, rather than an explanatory piece of information.
Growing up with games, I’ve always loved them. I always wanted to make a game of my own. Sadly, I really suck at drawing, programming and, you guessed it, 3D design. That being said, I do have ideas regarding gameplay elements that would be new, unique and cool!
I teamed up with my bro, Mihai, to make a nice little adventure game based on our Inspector Plustard series. Why? Because we had a story, we had ideas and we were ready to deliver. However, the lack of interest kind of toned down the experience for us. Once we hit some programming block, we just stopped.
You see, feedback is important to us. Whenever we ask a question (along the lines of “what do you think?”) we’re not simply throwing it out there. We are genuinely interested in reactions, in words on the screen, words that belong to someone who has likes/dislikes/interests and so on. Lacking that, we saw no real reason to go on.
The story would follow a bunch of crimes that took place in various locations. The interesting bit was that that killer left several traces behind, but none of them condemning. There were no struggles, there were no signs of discomfort, it was like the victims wanted to die.
While the premise sounded awkward, Mihai and I crafted a very nice reason for it and the finale would’ve been a very cool one. Plustard’s enemy, in this game, had a view upon life that was different from what a usual person believes… yet somehow, it both justified his crimes while making him look like a madman. A rational madman, how does that sound? 🙂
Gameplay wise, you’d have your classic investigation tools, along with a new mechanic that would’ve turned all those old Sherlock Holmes games pale. The mechanic worked nicely and it just made you want to go further and investigate, learning more about the story and, most important, your surroundings.
We even prepared a 1st person VS 3rd person choice of gameplay, but unfortunately we couldn’t find anyone to help us model the characters in 3D. So, there you have it. That was the last nail in the coffin of this project.
Will we make another Plustard game in the future? Possibly. We talked about it. We have a better story in draft form and with much more interesting ideas. If only we could find someone to model Plustard, Johnny and the rest of the cast in 3D. 😛