Daniel Thomas talks about upcoming game The Journey of Iesir
The Journey is Iesir is an upcoming point’n'click adventure being developed in Adventure Game Studio (AGS) by a team of artists and programmers scattered around the globe. Though its hand-drawn style is reminiscent of titles like the Curse of Monkey Island, its story is unique, and centers around a would-be viking named Daniel Trondhjemsfjord. IGM talked to project manager and artist, Daniel Thomas, about the game’s influences and style, and what kinds of adventures players can expect to have with Mr. Trondhjemsfjord.
IGM: Where did the initial idea for the Journey of Iesir come from?
Daniel Thomas: The whole project started with me really wanting to work on an adventure game, I had a passion for drawing backgrounds at the time. I posted in gamedev.net forums seeking a writer to collaborate with; some days later I got a email from Marcus Gaigg and he would start working on the script.
I haven’t asked Marcus, but I think his inspiration for the characters and start of the game was just what I mentioned above. The characters Mikael and Jack are looking for freelance work and have come in contact with a Viking called Daniel.
IGM: Can you give a little introduction to the main story of the Journey of Iesir?
DT: The summary from Marcus (better than I would ever be able to tell it):
The Journey of Iesir takes place in a land reminiscent of the medieval ages, yet has a story that integrates ideas as old as the legendary Vikings, and as modern as the hippie movement in the 1970’s. This story details the journey of a charismatic Viking named Daniel Trondhjemsfjord, who has a burning desire to return to his Viking heritage and join the ranks of this legendary yet clandestine group. Michael and Jack, two wanderers and freelancers, join him on his quest. What begins as a simple job turns out to be much more than any of them has bargained for.
Amidst the serious plot, this journey is filled with tongue in cheek humor, satirizing the different changes, social, personal development, philosophies, stereotypes, which accompany the different social elements that make up the story line. Different groups of people, from hippies, to gangsta bosses, superstitions, the rich class, Japanese demons, to archetypal knights in shining armor, are poked fun at.
IGM: Can you describe what you mean by the “living environments” you’ve created? What kinds of changes did you introduce to make this possible, and how will this be different from other AGS-style games?
DT: As an artist, I try to put focus on environment effects. I don’t think it’s totally unique – with our fading light beams, dust particles, glowing stuff, etc – But it’s a nice touch to try and make the backgrounds come alive and be less static. We’re quick with suggesting any effects to the environment as soon as we see one and our coder, Ryan, has coded functions for AGS that allows us easily to add the effects and adjust them to fit any background.
IGM: What can the player expect in terms of your approach to puzzles and interaction in the game (ie, is the game more puzzle- or dialogue-driven)?
DT: Logic! Everything should make sense in the frame of the game world. If there is something that we don’t think is understood by the player we make sure that it’s explained so he can make the logical connection to solve a puzzle. Since it’s a fantasy world there are always things we don’t know, such as how that world works, so it requires some explanation for the player.
IGM: Have you worked on other games before this one?
DT: Adventure games, but nothing finished, sadly. I have been involved in Picaroon, Mapoco Mountain and another called ‘Pennyless’. In all of those I was contributing as a background artist.
These have been my free-time projects, but I have been working as a freelancer on a couple of other games, but mostly smaller projects like iPhone games.
My largest and latest gig was a HOG [hidden object game] game that should be released anytime now.
IGM: What are the biggest influences behind the Journey of Iesir’s story, art, and gameplay style?
DT: No doubt the LucasArts adventure games. We often refer back to Curse of Monkey island when discussing features and game design with the team. But we absolutely take influences from all adventure games we have played, both new and old. For the writing of dialog I think the biggest influence would be a mix of Discworld and the Monkey Island games. But I’m sure Dave, our writer, has more influences when he’s writing the dialog.
IGM: When will chapter 1 be released and how many chapters do you plan to release?
DT: Right now we’re working on our free-time to finish a pitch-demo. As it’s a free-time project, it’s impossible to say when it might be done. If we would be able to work on this project full-time, I wouldn’t think it would take many months to finish Chapter 1.
IGM: Who else is working on the project at this moment?
DT: Our current team is: Ryan Timothy, our programmer; Nikolas Sideris is taking care of all audio; Dave Seaman writes our dialog and script and is working on puzzles; Simon Eltz, our new animator, works on the character animations; and me, artist and project manager.
And we had some people come and go while in production:
Marcus Gaigg, the first and original writer, had to leave due to lack of time.
Daniel Muller helped out a little with character design, then disappeared.
Geoff “strange visitor” Hawthorne helped out with script and puzzles but had to leave because of too little time.
IGM: Where is your team currently based? How has your location affected the game’s development, in terms of logistics, but also in terms of theme, story, characters?
DT: We’re in Sweden, England, Canada, Greece and Switzerland. Remote production does of course always take a little longer as we communicate through a forum. And the different timezones makes it harder for any real-time communication. But we try, and so far it’s working I think.
I think as I’m from Sweden I try to see if there are any fun Viking stereotypes or myths to make fun of.
IGM: Do you have a “day job”?
DT: I’m working as a freelance artist (http://danielthomas-artportfolio.blogspot.com/) and training Kung-fu. So that, with my free-time projects, take up most of my week.
IGM: What are your main influences as an artist and animator?
DT: My first main influence was Bill Tiller (artist behind Monkey Island 3, Vampyre story etc.) which basically was the reason for me wanting to start doing background art for adventure games.
To mention a few others: John Kricfalusi, Rembrandt, Frazetta .. and more or less any background artist I can find. I’m no animator, but the nine old men working on the Disney movies are awesome, both as animators and what they did for animation.
IGM: How did you become an artist (eg, through school or self-taught?)
DT: Depends on how you define self-taught, I never had any teacher in person. But by books and videos I tried to learn as much as possible. I did go to a games and entertainment school as a 3D artist though, but I don’t do any 3D anymore and try to focus on my 2D art instead.
IGM: How did you decide to develop in AGS, rather than for example, Wintermute or Visionaire Studio?
DT: I had some experience with AGS before, but hadn’t really decided which engine to use until our coder Ryan joined – who worked in AGS.
IGM: Has the influence of the AGS community affected the game’s development?
DT: We listen to comments – if we hear something we at least consider it. But one must realize that people will always have different opinions, so no matter what you do you can’t please everybody.
The most important thing I think is to make a game that you would enjoy playing yourself.
You can follow the progress of The Journey of Iesir on the team’s forum thread at Big Blue Cup:
http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=41440.0
