Author Marjorie M. Liu and her friend, game designer Melissa Heidrich, recently joined forces to create Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, a new game based on Liu’s novel Tiger Eye, the first book in her popular Dirk & Steele series. The two women believe that there’s a common ground between readers of romance and casual gamers, and hope that Tiger Eye will be only the beginning of a series of games for what they’ve dubbed the “romance casual” genre.
Can you tell me a little bit about Tiger Eye?
Marjorie: Tiger Eye is set in contemporary Beijing, China, and follows a young psychic woman, Dela, who discovers a magic riddle box in the local dirt market. When she opens it, a cursed warrior appears, a shape-shifter who has been forced for two thousand years to act as a slave to every owner of the box. Fortunately for the hero, Hari, the heroine, has a good heart and the two of them set out to free him from his curse. It’s a romance, but also an adventure.
How did you two first come together for the game?
Melissa: Shortly before our 10 year high school reunion, I learned that Marjorie had published her first romance novel, Tiger Eye. I was really impressed and immediately ordered a copy – it was a fantastic read. When the reunion came around the two of us had a great time catching up, and she sort of stayed in the back of my mind for a while. As a video game producer, I thought there was an untapped market out there for “romance casual” games (since the demographics for casual gamers and romance reader very closely match). Later, when my entire team fell victim to the massive game industry layoffs, I decided it was the perfect time to contact Marjorie and see if she was interested in forming a little start-up that was committed to making games based off her books. I was thrilled when she said yes!
Marjorie: And I was thrilled to be asked! It did come out of the blue, but I knew Melissa, and there’s a lot to be said for working with someone you already know and respect.
What sort of preparation went into creating the game?
Melissa: First, every member of the development team read Tiger Eye at least once to get a feel for the world Marjorie had created (our senior designer has actually read the book four times now!). We started mapping out the scenes as they took place in the book and figuring out how to translate various events into game form – for instance, every time Dela psychically reads metal, the player plays a “psi” mini-game. Our concept artists created a list of all the characters that would appear in the game and began conceptualizing their looks and sending sketches to Marjorie for feedback. And our layout artist began sketching out the principal locations depicted in the game (such as the dirt market and the hotel room), which also went to Marjorie for refinement. Meanwhile, our designer was creating a long and detailed “design document” that contained blueprints for every single puzzle and activity in the game. Those blueprints would eventually go to the artists to create as visual assets, and then to the programmers to finally integrate into the game.
Marjorie: The PassionFruit team was kind enough to let me write the script for the game, though I could never have done it without Mari, their senior designer. She basically gave me the blueprint for what scenes would be integrated into the game, showed me the structure, held my hand, and from there I wrote the script. I’d only written scripts, previously, for comic books, but the format was similar.
Does the game tell a different story from the novel? Does it expand it in some way?
Melissa: The game’s story will follow the novel fairly closely, but as game designers we needed to add detours in the plot here and there to make the game challenging to players. For instance, in the book, Dela hails a cab from the marketplace. In the game, as she leaves to hail the cab, a thief grabs her purse, so the player needs to obtain money before progressing in the game.
Marjorie: The differences are so minor, I hardly count them as important. For me, it’s about staying true to the characters and the PassionFruit team has done that, consistently. In fact, I do think this game expands on the novel, in the sense that hearing the characters, seeing them, being immersed visually in that world…that’s something that will, hopefully, allow my readers – and game players who have never heard of the book – to experience the novel in new, fun, ways.
How does the game work?
Melissa: The game is a “casual” game (that is, a game that’s user-friendly and easily accessible to both new and veteran players) consisting of “I-Spy” type hidden object scenes mixed with minigames and puzzles. After players beat a given number of puzzles in the game, they’re rewarded with beautiful voice-acted cut scenes that depict the story of Tiger Eye.
Do you see these sorts of collaborations as part of a bigger trend? Will we be seeing more of them?
Melissa: Yes to both questions – assuming the first game does reasonably well on the market, we plan to develop the rest of the Dirk & Steele series into games!
Marjorie: I definitely think this is part of a bigger trend that will see more novels transformed into interactive entertainment.
Where can we find the game?
Melissa: You’ll be able to download the game from passionfruitgames.com in mid-April of this year!
Marjorie: And I’ll be blogging more about the game prior to its release, at www.marjoriemliu.com.
