IGM Interviews: Kye Elliott-Moyle (Vincent The Vampire)

It was a peaceful Tuesday morning when I sat down and had a very intriguing chat with Kye Elliot Moyle, the lead developer for Vincent the Vampire , an upcoming point-and-click adventure with a dark, comical twist.

an upcoming point-and-click adventure with a dark, comical twist. Naturally, things didn’t stay peaceful for long. Amidst the sounds of bats screeching in the background, we discussed the intricacies of vampiric folklore, the basics of making your own game, and the revival of the point-and-click genre.

Vincent the Vampire is the story of an office clerk named Vincent who works on a bizarre and decrepit island, mostly populated by vampires, werewolves, and cyborgs. Upon realizing one day that his job is fairly pointless, he promptly resigns and decides to go exploring the island for a nice holiday instead. What he wasn’t expecting was that he would get brutally murdered, and inexplicably awaken the very next day as a member of the undead. Now that Vincent has been reluctantly dragged into a subculture of darkness, he finds himself facing a war that nobody else but him can be bothered to stop.

IGM: Tell me a bit about yourself and the team.

Kye Elliot Moyle: I’m Kye, the lead game person for Intuit by Design, and the lead developer for Vincent the Vampire -which you could say is my brainchild. I’ve been in game development for two years mostly making mobile games, but I always felt the need to make something bigger. There are about six core people in the team. I quickly realized that we needed art talent to bring the game to life, so we’re lucky to have Anthea Wrightand Emerson Wardon the team. We also have a really amazing musician-Andrew Assels, who is doing all the music.

IGM: How long has Vincent the Vampire been in development for?

Kye: That’s a tricky question, because the actual story has been in development for ten years. It was originally just a short story, but the game itself has been in development for one year.

IGM: Why did you opt for a vampire-theme?

Kye: I grew up watching lots of Angel and Buffy. And I’ve always loved films like the Underworld series, Interview with a Vampire, and vampire lore in general. I thought it would lend itself well to a point-and-click adventure, as vampires tend to be verbose. Also I decided to name the vampire ‘Vincent’ for alliterative purposes.

IGM: What will the gameplay be like in Vincent the Vampire ?

Kye: Well it’s a linear storyline, but there are multiple ways to achieve your goals. The reason why that’s so important in a point-and-click game is that our logic might not be the same as the player’s logic, and they could be stuck for weeks on the same puzzle because of that. They might think, ‘I never would have thought of that’. So what we’ve done with Vincent the Vampire is to approach the puzzle from this different perspective-allowing multiple solutions to each puzzle-which we think will be a good way to improve game flow. Also the puzzles will change or scale-up on the next playthrough, meaning it’s not exactly the same experience should players decide to replay the game in the future. Not only that, but this will give extra playtime to the more hardcore puzzle gamers out there, or something to sink their teeth into.

IGM: You mention on your Kickstarter page that players can take control of some NPC (Non-playable characters) in the game. How will that work?

Kye: When you play an adventure game, the consequences of your actions aren’t really ever dealt with. For example, you might break into someone’s house, and steal the stuff, but what happens after that? I think it would be really interesting to see what happens in the background like that. Say you find a bloody body, we want the player to ask a) how it got there, and b) what happened.

IGM: Will there be voice-acting in the game?

Kye: Yes, voice acting adds a certain story cinematic and it would be weird not to have one in a modern point-and-click game.  I feel it would lose its personality without it.

IGM: What can you tell us about Vincent’s special powers?

Kye: Vincent can talk to plants in the game, which is just a passive thing as plants don’t have much to say in return-there’s actually a monk reincarnated as a pot-plant in the game. Then there’s transmogrification, which won’t come up until later in the game, but this basically means Vincent’s ability to turn into a bat. As a bat, you can get to places through flying as apposed to just walking. We’re also considering ‘mist’ as a special ability, where Vincent will disappear and become transparent, and be able to seep through the cracks in walls and doors.

IGM: In addition to Vincent the Vampire , players can also expect a video-tutorial series explaining how to make a point-and-click adventure without need for any coding experience. What inspired you to put together such a series?

Kye: Well the majority of game engines don’t actually require you to code, and it’s a real pity that more people aren’t doing this (making their own point-and-click adventures). We at Intuit by Design love the game so much, and we just want more games like this to play, so we decided that making a tutorial series would be good for everyone else out there; not only for giving them tips along the way, but to help make the point-and-click genre even more widespread than it already is. For example, there’s Visionaire, which was used to make , or Adventure Creator , which is a toolkit for Unity.

IGM: What advice would you give to those interested in making their own game?

Kye: Just do it. Grab unity, get the tool kit and start building an awesome adventure game; your skills will definitely start improving over time. Also if you go and read Ron Gilbert’s blog, grumpygamer.com, he posts a lot of articles and his thoughts about the development of point-and-click adventure games.

IGM: What platforms will Vincent the Vampire be available for? Does it have an expected release time?

Kye: Yes, we’re in our funding period right now, but the planned release date is 2015. Initially we’re looking at PC, Mac, and Linux, but if we can scale it down enough, we’d also like to try and get it on mobile devices and tablets too.

A massive thank you goes out to Kye for lending his time and enlightening us on all things Vincent the Vampire. You can back the game on Kickstartertoday to make Vincent happy, and make the game a reality. For those who are interested, you can purchase Adventure Creator from here.