11 February 2010
Bumblebee (forum post), 667DarkAve (forum post), Geofortean (Twitter)
Is there any reward in following the episodes from 1 to 6, such as running gags or earlier events referenced later in the story? Did you write the whole series and then break it down into smaller episodes or did you write one episode and then move onto the next? How many drafts did the script go through before you knew you'd nailed it?
Perhaps the quickest (yet oddly long and involved) way to answer that line of questioning is to go over how the whole writing process came together on Toad.
In The Beginning
When I began plotting out the story, the starting point was the Game Design Document Paul Woodbridge had put together some months before my involvement was finalised. Included with this mini-Bible of Blue Toad was a very short story outline. It was two pages long, some 900 words in length, and had lots of big paragraph breaks. Paul generously suggested throwing the whole lot out and starting again. However, the Art guys had already done some character work based on it, and had even built part of Little Riddle. Despite Paul’s desire to ditch, there was a strong beginning in his story sketch. Lastly, though not critically, there was little time to spare – I got the GDD in March of 2009 and needed to have all six episodes done and dusted by September at the latest.
There followed a month of kicking the developing story back and forward between Paul and myself. This was an intense and involved process, with feedback coming in from Paul and a few other key individuals at Relentless. It’s worth noting that I’m based in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, so much of the process was e-mail and telephone based. By April, Paul and I had something we could move on with in a 12 page, 6000 word story outline – version 2.5, trivia fans, created on April 1st! However, it was agreed by all (thank goodness) that the April document was not set in stone. It’s utterly key to a project like Toad that details can shift and change as the story, characters and the game mechanics evolve. I don’t like fire-and-forget writing in games, and working with Paul and the guys at Relentless was a dream come true in that regard – all very organic and yummy.
Toad Grows
With a six episode arc now sorted, complete with some linking gags and suchlike, writing the episodes themselves began. The gameplay itself was still evolving at this stage alongside the script. Initially, the Investigators themselves spoke, with interjections from the Narrator. It all ended up terribly long-winded and unwieldy, not to mention the fact that each puzzle required four versions of the dialogue – one for each Investigator, depending on which one a particular Player was using. After further development time, and a couple more drafts of the first quarter of Episode One, the format that you are more familiar with was decided upon.
In general, each dialogue sequence was to last no longer than 45 seconds to a minute, save for key exposition. Characters didn’t have hands; hats, glasses and the like couldn’t be swapped in mid-scene; scenery wasn’t interactive, and so on. It might seem that the tight time and budget limits would make things problematic. To be honest, it was great to work with a client who had worked most everything out from the beginning. The parameters were set.
Processed Toad
Writing the Episodes themselves began with the agreed story outline from the April document. Each of these was a couple of pages and about 1000 words long. After about a week or so of kicking them about, a detailed episode outline was agreed, normally running to eight pages and some 3000 words. A first draft script took around another week. Looking back over my records, each script went through four or five drafts before being declared ‘final’. A script ran to around 30 pages and about 6000 words, and was usually full of comments aimed at the Art guys and at Tom, the Voice Master.
Again, the ‘final’ script was anything but. What looks good on paper, and sounds good when you’re running through it out loud, always sounds different when gone over in a rehearsal, and then again at the recording itself. Fortunately, Tom was delighted to explore the lines where possible, and the results were invariably on the money. His work informed the way the characters grew as the episodes were being written. It was Tom who decided the Town Hall Clerk was from Morningside in Edinburgh, for example. A spontaneous thought during the very first read-through saw the Jeweller become a Southern Belle. Other characters, the Vicar and Butcher for example, grew from the images that the Art guys created. Like I said, all very organic and delicious.
Of course, focus group testing, puzzle changes, gameplay tweaks, and moments of forehead-slapping revelation meant that things changed all the time. The opening of Episode One was revisited quite late in the process, for example, and some character and plot development required rewrites of earlier episodes and rerecording of certain dialogue. One constant was that the process was one of respectful and creative collaboration. It doesn’t get any better than that!
Victoria Haigh (Facebook)
I have written my own murder mystery parties and wondered how you came up with the story? Was it as the entire thing then split it up into episodes or did you come up with the episodes and tie them all together? Where did the inspiration come from for the characters and will there be more stories after the original 6?
Weirdly, I used to write horror-themed murder mystery weekend LARPs (must get back to that sometime). It was one of the things on my CV that piqued Paul’s interest back when I was auditioning for the project.
In answer to the latter bits of the question, a lot of the characters kind of suggested themselves from the list of Whodunnit? stereotypes, the television murder mystery standards, and the likes of the Goon Show, Python, Little Britain, and Real Life™.
Playing the all six episodes together will reward you (I hope). Though each episode is a stand-alone mystery, there is a story arc that ties everything together, with some surprises along the way. I’m particularly looking forward to/dreading the response to Episode 4. Oh, and the last episode. I know it’s an obvious thing to say, but your last question will be answered then.
George (forum post)
Which character did you most enjoy writing for?
There’s a couple you haven’t met yet at time of writing (with just the first two episodes out). The Baker, who comes along later, is a great foil for the Butcher. The two of them have an argument that was massively over-scripted as I was having so much fun with it. There’s a Chef who made me smile a lot. I also like the Constable and the Hotel Manager. The Colonel has a fab song that I hope gets posted as a downloadable on the site somewhere. However, my real favourite was Inspector Bragg. I’m very fond of him. He was another character that was as much down to Voice Master Tom as he was to anything I wrote to begin with. By the end, I was writing lines full of dropped and added ‘h’s just to challenge Tom.
Denisb (Twitter)
Why are there so few real clues pointing to the culprit in the BTMF? Wouldn't adding more clues improve the feeling of a mystery?
In the individual episodes, that’s a matter of time and format restrictions. However, there’s still the six episode story arc mystery to consider. That unfurls differently. By the end, I hope folks will replay all six episodes to better enjoy the greater mystery story, as well as each individual episode.
That’s it! I hope the Toad continues to entertain. Feel free to drop comments, questions and abuse for me to the Forums as you see fit. Oh, and watch out for further character bios turning up in the Behind The Scenes section of the site.
Bye for now!
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