How would you feel if you were in charge of a movie, determining what happens next while being taken on one hell of a ride? Well, now your chance is here thanks to an amazing new Kickstarter project for Contradiction by the talented Tim Follin.
If you’re wondering why Contradiction has us so excited, it’s because it puts you in control of a murder-mystery film. You play Inspector Jenks, a police detective assigned to the case of a drowned student, and make notes of the objects you find, suspicious things you see, events you witness and information you hear. You’ll also meet several characters who you can question and after telling you what they know, their replies are noted too. But Contradiction is full of liars – and liars always slip up and contradict themselves, of course.
Being a game for the iPad and Android tablets, Tim Follin notes on his Kickstarter page: “This isn’t L.A. Noire and isn’t aimed at hardcore gamers – this is a low-budget iPad game aimed at the casual gamer, even those who don’t play games but do love a good mystery and the atmosphere of a crime drama.” Not being aimed at hardcores isn’t a bad thing because it will give us all a chance to experience something new and go on a journey into the unknown. Thank you to Tim for answering our questions below about his concept.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and what made you decide to start making Contradiction?
“I got into games through writing music on my ZX Spectrum, when I was still at school. My brother Mike was already at a small local software company writing Spectrum games and because I’d been tinkering with machine code and writing little sound and music programs, he asked me if I’d do something for his latest game. I ended up writing music for all the Spectrum games they produced. I then left school and started music college, but towards the end of the first year I was offered a job working for Software Creations, where Mike had started work. So I dropped out of college and took the job! I then spent the next six years in full-time employment at a couple of companies, before going freelance. Then around eight or nine years ago, following another passion of mine, I made a couple of short films and won a competition, which led to my current occupation: lighting, shooting and doing post production for TV commercials. Contradiction was a game idea I’d worked on about fifteen years ago, which sprang out of another idea for an audio-only adventure game. But technology at the time was so limited I couldn’t make it work, so I lost interest in it. Then about a year ago I found the old documents and discovered that I had a solid core of a game idea there, which I suddenly realised could now easily be made for a tablet. So I taught myself Javascript and set about making it, while at the same time writing the story, which was adapted from a short film script I had.”
Players take on the role of Inspector Jenks, a police detective assigned to the case of a student found drowned in a lake one morning. Are you able to share any other details about the storyline?
“The story is all about a ‘life skills’ training course called Atlas, who say they can give students a huge advantage in the world of business by teaching them the skills they claim are needed to be successful. But as you investigate them, you discover that they’re essentially a bunch of crooks, who have been connected to previous student deaths as well as causing other students severe psychological damage. They teach students that the whole idea of morality has been ‘programmed’ into them by the state and that they must be ‘de-programmed’ if they want to be liberated. Most of the characters you meet are either running Atlas or are under its spell, but all are trying to hide what’s going on. So there’s this huge web of lies and deceptions. The story is based on Ayn Rand, a self-proclaimed Russian philosopher who emigrated to the US in the 1920s. She believed that morality and altruism are lies and that selfishness is a virtue. She even praised serial killers for being morally ‘liberated’. She was essentially a swivel-eyed lunatic, but lots of very powerful politicians and businessmen in the US still think she was a genius.”
At the heart of Contradiction is interviewing characters and trying to spot the lies they tell. The initial comparison we made was to 2011′s L.A. Noire but the game is made entirely using live-action video. Why did you decide to go this route and what benefits does the video content have over graphic?
“The inspiration for this is primarily film and TV drama rather than the current crop of Xbox and PlayStation games. It really comes from quite a different route than something like L.A. Noire, which, because it’s graphics based, allows for a very physical sort of game play and thrill. Contradiction is a different thing and I’m aiming it at a different audience, more people who fancy sitting and whiling their time away with their iPad, basically. So while there won’t be that level of action going on, using live action video introduces a much more human element, which I think allows for a more emotionally engaging level of gameplay. It does of course depend on very good actors giving very good performances. You should be able to read subtext and see their emotional responses as they answer questions, as well as watching how they respond when you catch them out. But the other main point is that shooting live-action means the whole game can be made for a tiny fraction of the cost of something like L.A. Noire, though it’s also a smaller game, in the sense that there’s a clear ending and it has a finite lifespan. However, because of the production cost, it can be sold at a much lower cost too, as well as allowing for lots of different stories to be made quite quickly – this could be the first in a string of games.”
You’ve said that the title will have the characterisation, plot and atmosphere of a TV crime drama or movie. What made you decide to make an interactive movie rather than a show or film?
“Good point! It was actually while I was writing up an idea for a short film that I realised that it’d be more fun in the format of the game idea I’d previously been working on. I could suddenly see that the same scenes I’d had in mind for the film would work within the game. The film idea was set during one long evening in which all these weird and disturbing events took place, with a big conspiracy at the heart of it. I realised that making the film as a game instead would make it far more involving for the viewer. It altered quite a bit, but it’s essentially the same plot. That was the main inspiration for making the game and to be honest I just thought why not, there’s no harm in giving it a go!”
Jenks is on a mission.
While video does have a lot of benefits, past FMV games have experienced a number of challenges – for example, the difficulty in covering all possible outcomes of an action and smoothly transitioning between videos. What do you think Contradiction will do differently?
“Well firstly, on a technical level smooth transitions are made possible by the current technology, plus shooting things in the right way so that they cut together seamlessly. It draws on standard film making techniques, such as knowing how to shoot scenes so that they cut together properly. It’s all very fast-paced too. If you were watching someone play it, it’d look like you were watching a TV drama.
“Secondly, the main difference is that Contradiction doesn’t use a branching or multiple-option system – you don’t arrive at option ‘junctions’ where you choose from a list, all of which have to be filmed. In Contradiction you just get a certain set of ‘tools’ that you can use whenever and wherever you want to – it’s then up to you to make things happen. Nothing happens until you make it happen. It also means you can knock at someone’s door, get invited in and then immediately leave again if you want to. In that way it’s actually less restricted than some graphical games! Also you can’t choose the ‘wrong’ option or go down the wrong path. You can’t ‘fail’ and you never have to restart. You just push the game forward by solving all the puzzles and contradictions within each ‘chapter’. The game is divided into chapters which correspond to hours – when you’ve completed all the puzzles for each chapter, time clicks on an hour and the environment fills with new events, locations and characters for you to discover, giving you new information and new objects. New characters arrive home, shops open and close, it gets late, people get drunk and start fights, you get attacked, new places become available – each chapter introduces lots of new events.”
Another challenge is finding good actors who are able to effectively convey when a character is lying without giving too much away at the same time! Auditions are due to begin as soon as the project is financed; what kind of people are you looking for?
“Oh I have a few tricks up my sleeve as regards how to guide actors! When people genuinely lie, there’s usually very little to give them away; it’s their expressions when answering other, emotionally-related questions that’s the real giveaway! It’ll be more about listening to what they say and what others say and thinking about whether it makes sense or not, much like a real cross-examination. I’m also looking for confident and charismatic actors for this. You’ll be seeing a lot of them, so they have to be both entertaining and appealing. There’s quite a lot of humour in it too, especially with some of the characters. Ryan Rand, the leader of Atlas, is a very colourful figure, someone who enjoys gently mocking Jenks just to entertain himself. Also Rebecca, the wife of Paul, the other Atlas leader, is a blunt, no-nonsense woman who has a sly wit. I’m hoping to find some larger-than-life actors to take on these roles. It is after all a piece of entertainment!”
A full FAQ on how Contradiction is controlled is available on the Kickstarter page, but would you be able to give us an overview?
“You get a simple set of tools that you can use whenever and wherever you want. You can move around locations, investigate them, collect things, use things, make notes and ask characters what they know about any of your notes. Notes are made automatically of any interesting objects you’ve found, events you’ve seen, places you’ve discovered or information someone’s given you. When you ask a character about a note, they give you a unique reply, which is shown as a list of short statements (which appear every time you click that note). So, for instance, after asking the question ‘What do you know about Kate Vine?’, the character’s replies would appear as a list of statements such as ‘Last saw Kate on Friday at 8pm’ and ‘Knew Kate from college’, etc. Then all you have to do is spot contradictions between statements. But they won’t be immediately obvious – if one reply is ‘Was in bed ill all Friday night’ and another is ‘Went to Sam’s party’, you’d only realise those two statements contradicted each other when you found out that Sam’s party was on Friday night. And you only find this out by talking to other characters or working it out from other information you pick up. When you pair those together, Jenks asks the character to explain themselves and confess which statement was a lie. The character could then just confess the lie straight out, but more often than not, they’ll tell you another lie instead. That’s the basic game.”
This dude looks scary…
The campaign is going well so far, you can count us among your backers! What challenges have you faced going down this route and were you prepared for them when starting out?
“Thank you very much for your support!! I’d say the main challenge I’ve found so far is trying to convey the vision for the concept. I think because it doesn’t really fit into any of the existing categories or compare that well to any other games, people are finding it hard to visualise and tend to compare it to other games anyway. I completely understand that but it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation – I can’t convey the idea properly without just making it, but I can’t make it without conveying the idea! I wasn’t really prepared for that, no!”
Is there any advice you’d give to someone who’s thinking of starting an indie project?
“I’m not sure I’m in any position to offer advice yet! But my experience so far suggests that making your project as clear as possible is vital, also try to cover as many ‘wrong’ angles as possible – ie make sure people don’t get the wrong idea. That’s the problem I’ve come across. Other than that I’d say just make something, at least start making it, rather than sitting around wondering whether you should do it or not. Life’s far too short. Just do it. Sounds like the Nike campaign…”
Can you tell us which component of Contradiction you’re currently working on? How are you feeling about its upcoming release?
“The problem I think might turn out to be the most major one is on the technical side – it’s written in HTML for portability at the moment, but with the new iOS 7 update I’ve already encountered several things suddenly going wrong with it, so I’m going to have to sort those out pretty urgently. Apple have dropped the ball a bit with that one.”
Do you need any additional actors? Craig and Phil made a great L.A. Noire spin-off… ok, it was actually pretty bad.
“I’m very impressed with your acting skills!! And yes we do need extras and some bit-parts, I’ll be in touch with your agents!”
Thank you again to Tim for answering our questions. Contradiction has until 06 January 2014 to reach £10,000 so go to Kickstarter right now to back this unique campaign. Show your support and you’ll not only get a fantastic murder-mystery movie, you’ll also get a completely unique gaming experience; it may be the very first in a brand new genre of gaming. To me that makes Contradiction a very important project so it’s vital we get it made.
