And after all those games, you did something rather different with Safecracker.

Safecracker was a game DreamCatcher asked us to do. We've mostly made adventure games so far, but Safecracker was what we call a "puzzle game", focusing mostly on puzzles rather than exploration and story. We wanted to clearly distinguish between these two types of games, by using two different logos, as they're not aimed at exactly the same audience. Safecracker was well received, so we're likely to make another puzzle game in the future.

Throughout the discussion, you've frequently referred to how your games were received. Is feedback really important to you?

We're really interested in getting feedback (through an on-going survey on our website, reviews, etc.), and we act upon it. We know, for instance, that we made a mistake at the beginning of VOYAGE, where you had to adjust the atmosphere inside the space capsule within a limited time. It's not that we'll not use timed sequences or skill-based challenges again in the future — we'll keep having a few when the story and pacing demand it — but that particular instance didn't work out well, because we didn't make what had to be done clear enough, and some people got killed repeatedly and gave up. So that's the sort of mistake we try not to make anymore.

We know that not all our puzzles are perfectly innovative, even though we always strive to make good ones. But with our tight development schedule, we just sometimes don't manage to come up with anything better at a given time — especially for puzzles that don't easily lend themselves to tweaking and the only other choice we have is leaving them out.

Well, I'll add some feedback of my own. As a fan of the old Sierra games, I find it slightly frustrating that there's a score, but with no idea what maximum score to aim for. Why is that?

That's a design choice. We know the maximum scores it's possible to reach in our games, but we've always refused to reveal them. A silly reason is that it allows us to cover our own backs, since we've found out afterwards that there are bugs in Return to Mysterious Island and VOYAGE that make it possible to raise your score as much as you want. A better reason is that we've had a blast watching people competing in forums to get the highest score, and exchanging tips. We love seeing our games generate this sort of interest, and it probably wouldn't happen if we gave away the maximum score.

Another reason is that, for Return to Mysterious Island, we had considered holding a score-based contest (which eventually didn't happen). Actually, we had envisioned two contests. One was about getting the highest score, and the other about finishing the game with the lowest possible score; when you think about it, that can make for a rather original and interesting way of playing.

There are also people who've asked us to give the maximum score as a way of monitoring how far they are in the game. We've taken note of the idea, but we're not certain that the score is the best way to track progress, especially in a non-linear game, where it's possible to get many points for just picking up items while not having done much of the game.

But whether, and how, this gets implemented will depend on what fits well with the style of a given game. Having a score was well-adapted to Return to Mysterious Island or VOYAGE, but we felt it was unnecessary in Destination: Treasure Island, so there's none there.




I know you can't tell much about your future projects, but are there a couple of tidbits you'd be willing to share?

Here's one: we're going to open a store on our website (hopefully by the end of the month), where people will be able to buy both boxed and downloadable versions of our games. For the moment, we have Nobilis's agreement for The Secrets of Da Vinci and Destination: Treasure Island. Discussions are still ongoing with DreamCatcher concerning our other games.

And you're still set on node-based games?

For the moment we've only done those, but we've now extended our tools to be able to use a third-person perspective. As a matter of fact, we've done work on a third-person game; we have a technical prototype ready, as well as a story. But third-person games are slightly more expensive to make, and we're still looking for a publisher willing to take the risk to invest in that project. We'd really like to make that game, to be able to show that we can be trusted to do something different, and so we might consider funding it ourselves, but that would mean having to develop it little by little over a longer period of time.

We're not especially interested in using real-time 3D. Our audience, adventure game players, are not obsessed with technology, being more concerned with the quality of the story and the visual appeal of the graphics. Still, we might go for real-time 3D one day, but then that would probably be with a different audience in mind. And provided we have the necessary funding.

And so, once again, we return to that question of budget...

We know that adventure games don't sell as well as other genres, and publishers are less inclined to take risks. Especially since sales have rather decreased compared to what they were half a decade ago — probably not because there are fewer players, but because there are far more adventure games on the market now and also more platforms.

So we have to work with limited budgets (even more limited than some other adventure studios), and can't use real-time 3D or, say, make our games much longer. But we try to make the most of what we have, and to offer better value-for-money than many other games with higher budgets and price tags. What matters is that we can look our customers in the eye; they know we haven't cheated them.

I'd like to thank Benoît and the entire Kheops Studio team for the great day I spent with them. With their ongoing commitment to excellence and ambitious plans for the future, there's much to look forward to as they continue to establish themselves as one of the most prominent developers in the genre today.