Charles Cecil
Charles Cecil | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Occupation | Game designer |
Charles Cecil has been a key figure in the interactive entertainment industry for 25 years. He is currently operating as MD Managing Director for UK based company Revolution Software which has released such critical and commercial hits as Beneath a Steel Sky and the Broken Sword series. Charles is on the advisory panel of the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, and Develop Conference and regularly talks at events and to mainstream press about creative and commercial aspects of the video games industry. He is also a co-founded and remains a Director of Game Republic, an alliance of game developers, and is a Board member of Screen Yorkshire, a regional agency that supports film, television and interactive entertainment in Yorkshire. In 2006 Charles was awarded the status of ‘industry legend’ by Develop, Europe’s leading development magazine.
Early career
Charles was educated at Bedales School in Hampshire, England. In 1980 he studied mechanical engineering at Manchester University and was sponsored by Ford. During this time he met student Richard Turner who invited Charles to write some text adventure games for his new computer game company Artic Computing to subsidise himself at university. The first game Charles worked on was Inca Curse (published in 1981) then Espionage Island (published in 1981) and Ship of Doom (published in 1982) each were highly successful on the Sinclair ZX81, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad formats. Charles was invited to join Artic Computing as a Director.
After completing his degree in 1985 Charles decided to continue his career in video games and established Paragon Programming a gaming development company working with major British publlisher US Gold. In 1987 Charles left development and moved into publishing as 'Software Development Manager' for US Gold. One year later Charles was approached by Activision and was offered the position of manager of their European development studio.
In 1990 Charles returned to development by setting up Revolution Software.
Revolution Software
Revolution Software was set up in 1990 by Charles and two co-founders, Tony Warriner and David Sykes. The company was based in the city of Hull but today is located in the city of York. The three wanted to release innovative adventure games so they began drawing up concepts for a new engine which they ended up calling the Virtual Theatre engine which enabled the gameworld to be more active and dynamic than previously possible.
Revolution Software quickly established itself as Europe's leading adventure game developer with a string of successful titles, all of which have been critically and commercially successful. Clients included Sony Computer Entertainment, Disney, DreamWorks, Virgin Interactive, Sierra Entertainment (Vivendi), UbiSoft and THQ.
Their first two titles, Lure of the Temptress (published in 1992) and Beneath a Steel Sky (published in 1994) went straight to number one in the GALLUP charts in the UK and topped the charts across most of Europe. Revolution's next title, Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars (published in 1996) and its sequel Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror (published in 1997) both, in turn, received numerous awards such as best adventure game of the year as well as the best adventure game to date.
Sales of Broken Sword 1 and 2 have made over $100 million USD and have sold over one million units each. Charles' next game In Cold Blood published by Sony Computer Entertainment was a different genre and focused on telling stories through action based gameplay and was met with mixed reviews. The Road to El Dorado based on the Disney film was released in late 2000. In 2002 Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars was also published on the Game Boy Advance and in 2005 the game was also published for the Palm Pilot and Pocket PC.
The third game in the Broken Sword series, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, was released in November 2003 for PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. The game was nominated for 3 BAFTA awards and Best Writing at the Game Developer Conference in 2004.
Broken Sword : The Angel of Death released on PC in September 2006. Charles was a consultant for The Collective's 2006 title The Da Vinci Code.
Games credited
Charles Cecil has been involved with the following games during his career:[1]
| Game Name | Format | Year | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inca Curse | DOS | 1981 | Designer |
| Espionage Island | DOS | 1981 | Designer |
| Ship of Doom | DOS | 1982 | Designer |
| Lure of the Temptress | DOS / Amiga / Atari ST | 1992 | Director |
| Beneath a Steel Sky | DOS / Amiga / Amiga CD32 | 1994 | Director |
| Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars | DOS / Windows / PlayStation | 1996 | Director |
| Toonstruck | DOS / Windows | 1996 | Special Thanks |
| Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror | Windows / PlayStation | 1997 | Director / Story & Design |
| In Cold Blood | Windows / PlayStation | 2000 | Director |
| Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado | Windows / Game Boy Color / PlayStation 2 | 2000 | |
| Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars | Game Boy Advance | 2002 | |
| Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon | Windows XP / PlayStation 2 / Xbox | 2003 | Director / Section Design |
| Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars | Palm OS | 2005 | |
| Broken Sword: The Angel of Death | Windows XP | 2006 | Director / Story Writer |
| The Da Vinci Code (video game) | PlayStation 2 | 2006 | Story & Design |
Game design
Charles believes that game design involves a different creative process as compared to traditional writing. As a writer of a linear story, "all they do is to write the script," he said. In game design, the writer should think about the gameplay and background story first before developing any of the characters. However, the constraints of an interactive medium is no excuse for a poorly constructed story, "the big thing is that we have a different medium. We have to accept that we have not only huge advantages in the interactive medium but also big constraints. And these constraints often lead to some really shitty stories. And that’s why so many games have bad stories."[2]
Charles is also very serious when doing this research to develop games that have strong ties to historic locales and myths, "I take the historical research and research of our locations very seriously and will generally visit the locations to undertake recces. Of course this is almost always a pleasure – the games aim to feature locations that are exciting and interesting."[3]. In fact, he chose the name Broken Sword because it is a symbol of peace. He also said that it might have been a fate of history that he chose this name, "I live in the city of York in England and a few years ago a statue of Constantine the Great was erected next to the cathedral to commemorate his coronation in the city in 306AD. The statue depicts Constantine sitting atop a broken sword; it seemed a fun coincidence, or perhaps it is down to fate."
Quotes
- "The point and click adventure game is dead, long live the adventure game!".
Trivia
- Charles has always had a particular interest in the narrative techniques of interactive entertainment and how the medium will develop with advancing technology so in 2003 to come to terms with modern story telling methods, he enrolled himself in an open University course in York about creating films using modern cinematic techniques, but shortly afterwards pulled out due to time constraints, most likely due to the release of Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon.
References
- ^ "Mobygames.com - Charles Cecil Developer BIO". Moby Games. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
- ^ G-Wie-Gorilla) (2006). "SInterview with Charles Cecil about Adventures and Broken Sword 4".
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|1=,|2=,|3=,|4=,|5=,|6=,|7=,|8=,|9=, and|10=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ "Charles Cecil interview". adventureclassicgaming.com. 2006.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help)