Hello all, now that The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes is out and I have returned to a somewhat semblance of sanity, I am here to blog once more.

To achieve an even greater sense of closure with this project I would like to let you in on a phenomenal new level of game development that I have experienced with this project. I like to call it Interactive Game Development.

Until now my closest experience to truly interactive game development was found only in the patches of MMORPGs. What I mean by this is that the user, or player, could give feedback to the developer that might be considered and actually implemented later in the game through a downloadable patch to the game. I always loved MMORPGs for this feature because it kept the game from being trapped by certain design flaws, especially ones that couldn’t really be predicted until the game was actually out and being played. But, this was a feature that only existed for those live online games and could not be accomplished for retail stand-alone, single-player games, until now.

During the Beta phase of Sherlock we were able to do a public Beta test in which hundreds of people could play-test the game and give us direct feedback on it. The amazing thing is we were able to listen and actually implement a lot a changes and features into the game at a relatively late time in the development cycle. Part of the power of this is that it was a PC based game which makes the implementation and turn-around time of fixes fairly instantaneous in game development terms. Another aspect that helps is that the game is first distributed as an online downloadable game, which means we can still test and make fixes if necessary up to the last minute since we don’t need to worry (as much) about manufacturing times (and the monetary implication of possible delays or hiccups). The result was that we could listen and try to incorporate the reactions and suggestions of the players as much as possible. And we did.

I am so happy with the results of this, as I think it has made the game extremely more customizable to the player expanding its potential in gameplay experience tremendously. And it didn’t stop once the game was released! In a specific example we were contacted by a customer who experienced an unusual (and rare) problem with the game the day after it was released. She told us of her issue and within a day or two we were able to pinpoint the issue, fix it, and update the version on our website. She could then reinstall the game (using the purchase code she had already received) and her problem would go away. This was a truly unique experience for me that I can only say would be possible (so far) with downloadable content. This is why I have dubbed it Interactive Game Development.

Now you may be saying "but patches for games are nothing new" but from my point of view patches in the past have still taken time to develop and distribute. This incident was reported, fixed and distributed in 2 days time, with no further investment or hassle to the customer, outside a download of a couple minutes, which is pretty amazing in my book. Now I have another reason why I love the Internet. It really is a wonderful place…

See you later! (Virtually speaking),

Jon