How Puzzle Quest Saved Infinite Interactive
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Steve Fawkner began by introducing Puzzle Quest as a project that Infinite Interactive had to start to get themselves out of trouble after a significant period of poor decisions and low-selling games.
The project had to fulfill several criteria: it had to be possible to execute with a small studio and it had to be possible to pull off in a short time with a reasonable number of staff. They examined trends in PC gaming and decided to look at where the industry was heading.
They concluded that games were simultaneously heading in a more casual direction as evidenced by the success of PopCap-style titles, and still held a strong beachhead with more traditional core RPG-style titles such as Elder Scrolls Oblivion IV. They decided to aim for something in the middle. This choice seemed to fit the core competency of the studio: delivery of a focused project with a core mechanic of fun, easy to learn game play.
When they looked at the staff they had at their disposal, they found that most of them were designers. No artists, no graphics programmers, just a few designers with some basic programming skills. This lead to executing a game that was pretty heavily design-focused.
They decided to apply their usual approach of iterative design, following the four word mantra: "Clear Goal, Loose Plan." So they knew where they were aiming, but weren't quite sure how they were going to get there. Their faith was that if they began development, in the process of iteration the game would become clearer and clearer as they went along.
