Our problem was that in Hull there were dedicated lines and what happened is people realised that they were fixed cost for as long as you wanted, so they grabbed those lines and then never let them go, which meant that it was really difficult to get a line. It inevitably wouldn’t work, and you could spend an hour trying to get it working, and then it would drop out. Back in those days if you wanted to send something digitally you’d go onto a telephone line and a 56k modem and you’d have to phone the other person and give them all the settings. I’m sure it did, but it wasn’t prevalent. Yeah, well obviously the ability to send things through the internet and the internet didn’t really exist back in those days. What was it like working with Dave again, because I’m imagining the collaboration in 2020 compared to 1994 is completely different? Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons provided art direction for Beyond a Steel Sky. because he’d helped us with some of the drawings for Broken Sword, he created the comics books for Broken Sword 1 and 2… So we’d kinda just kept in touch and done things. So after the success of Broken Sword 5 – and thank you for all your support on that, it was absolutely fantastic – I got back in touch with Dave. So the reason that we didn’t write any adventure games for quite some time – and particularly a sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky – was really a commercial one rather than a creative one. In fact, even Broken Sword 2 was really touch-and-go as to whether Virgin were prepared to support it – commission the game – and they almost didn’t to be quite honest with you. But the real problem was that from the ’90s, after Broken Sword 1, publishers had decided that the adventure was dead. If you actually go back to 1995, Dave Gibbons sent me a fax – a copy of a fax that he sent in 1995 – with game ideas. So we didn’t have the opportunity – it was quite clear we wouldn’t have the opportunity – to write an adventure game. Well in 2004 we had an idea… we had a design actually for an RTS, because it felt that adventures – well, it didn’t feel, it was absolutely the fact – that adventures were not being commissioned by publishers, nor were they being stocked by retailers. When did Revolution decide – you mentioned that it had been discussed before I think I traced it back to as early as 2004 that you had mentioned it – to fully commit and move forward with it? For the Kickstarter of course we put it as one of the stretch goals, which in hindsight was a pretty naïve and silly thing to do, but we certainly did. We kind of teased by securing, I think, a website of BASS 2 and various other thing. You’re right and actually before then as well. I do remember a sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky being teased as far back as the Broken Sword 5 Kickstarter campaign in 2012… Congratulations on the release of Beyond a Steel Sky I actually finished it last night (I stayed up quite late) and I thought the ending in particular – without giving away any spoilers – was wonderful, so congratulations to you and the team. Well thank you! I’ll just jump straight in. We’re very lucky we have a wonderful group of people in our community and it’s a pleasure to talk to you and everybody else frankly. Thank you for your general support of us. I’ve actually been really looking forward to talk to you for a number of years, so thank you for giving me the time! Alternatively, a full transcript is available below (with minor edits for readability). Press the ‘Play’ button above to listen to the recorded interview. Just some of the topics discussed during our hour-long conversation include: creating a successful follow-up to a cult classic video game over 25 years later collaborating with Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons the extraordinary life and music of composer Barrington Pheloung the benefits of being on Apple Arcade artificial intelligence and human happiness and Revolution Software’s future plans for Broken Sword 6. Following the recent release of Beyond a Steel Sky – the sequel to 1994’s Beneath a Steel Sky – on Apple Arcade and Steam, Alternative Magazine Online is proud to present an exclusive online interview with Revolution Software co-founder Charles Cecil.
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