Broken Sword Creator Talks About How the iPhone Resurrected Adventure Gaming

[Maura]

This week Apple’s flagship Regent Street retail store in London hosted an evening in celebration of the Broken Sword adventure gaming series, and in particular the launch of the second and final part of Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse, which will be released to the App Store any day now.

The store was packed with fans, some of who had also backed the game on Kickstarter, as well as some of the game’s voice actors, including Emma Tate, who plays Nico, and Toby Longworth, who plays Hobbs and the moody Parisian waiter. Composer Barrington Pheloung also talked about his involvement in the series, which began with the first game.

Revolution Software founder and CEO Charles Cecil was the master of ceremonies for the evening, starting with a brief potted history of Revolution , which was formed back in 1990 and achieved immediate success with PC and Amiga games such as Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky (also resurrected on iOS), before launching the Broken Sword series in 1996, which went on to be played by over 10 million players and make more than $100 million at retail.

After taking us through Revolution's early days, and the near-death of the point-and-click adventure gaming market when the big beast consoles appeared, Cecil talked about how Apple, and the advent of the iPhone in particular, was single-handedly responsible for resurrecting adventure gaming for a whole new audience.

“The most amazing thing happened in 2007 with the release of the first iPhone. It sounds a bit sycophantic to stand here and say how brilliant Apple are, but they really are brilliant, and the iPhone was extraordinary... Suddenly you went from a situation where you had a limited number that you would sell in shops, to effectively an infinite number of apps, and we're up to about a million at the moment."

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Cecil went on to say that releasing games in this way also brings the developer much closer to a game's fanbase.

"It removes the barriers, and it means that we can then communicate directly with our audience like we are here, and sell directly, and get direct feedback. It's really wonderful, and it's kind of like the early '80s when we were doing that again, and it was something that I really missed."

Another benefit of releasing iOS games, according to Cecil, is the way in which Apple affords a smaller company such as Revolution the same sort of consideration as it does the larger publishers.

"From a developer like Revolution's perspective, the extraordinary thing is that we would work directly with Apple...with the guys in iTunes and developer relations, and we felt like we were, and we have been, very much on a level playing field with the large publishers. Ultimately, what Apple cared about was the quality of the games, rather than how big the publisher was."

Click here to download Broken Sword 5 - Episode 1 for £4.99: iTunes