Interview BakeSale: Tenacious Stu

Tonight with us, a perhaps less known forumite, yet a very active one. Tenacious Stu, ladies and gentlemen.
His game, Entrapment , also previewed in the AdventureX, happens to be part of this bake sale.

An early prototype of Entrapment

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1) Why and how did you join the AGS Bake Sale ?

I've been a member of the Adventure Game Studio forums since 2007. Although I don’t really post much, I check them often. I had been preparing Entrapment for release, when the AGS Bake Sale was announced. I think it was originally around 12 games by 12 prominent AGS members (The Bakers Dozen), but as soon as it was announced a lot of AGS game-makers wanted to get involved, myself included. I though about holding back from offering Entrapment for fears of the Bake Sale becoming overwhelmed with games, but I was encouraged to include it and I’m glad I did. The original plan was to raise money for new servers for the forums as they unfortunately experience a little downtime, but when the plan changed to give the money raised to charity, I was all the more keen to be involved. I was given the opportunity to have a game bundled with the games of people that I deeply respect and admire and that have been a real inspiration to me as an adventure game maker. I simply couldn’t miss this chance to be involved.

2) Talk a bit about your game (what is it about, how you came up with it).

The idea for Entrapment came to me in 2010 when I had to come up with and make a game for my final project at University when I was studying Computer Game Design. I wanted to create a short game, which took place in a confined environment. I chose to set it in a hotel room and the aim of the game was to escape. It was the story that I spent most of my time thinking about. I’m a big fan of Crime/Thriller/Drama films and you can see a lot from some of my favourite films in the game. Sin City, Fight Club a Saw are just some of the films that inspired the story for this game.

The story centers on Sam Drake who one day received a letter in the mail. All the letter says is “I will frame you for murder”. At first he thinks nothing of it, just some kids playing a prank. But, shortly afterwards he wakes up in a daze, in a strange motel, with memory-loss from the night before. He looks around and is shaken to see the corpse of a young female on the floor of the room.

Luckily, he leaves the motel and escapes the police and hopes that the killer will leave him alone after his failed attempt. However, it happens again and again, in different hotels, with different girls until this time it won’t be so easy to escape.

Play as Sam Drake as he attempts to escape the Hotel Dent and find out who is trying to frame him for these murders. The gameplay is point and click with a few puzzles and complex narrative. It will fill 40 minutes of your life with thrilling adventure. One of the best things about the game is the music. It’s a chilling sound track by composer Brian Carnrike and I’m extremely pleased with his work.

The game looks a little better now

3) Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got yourself into game making in the first place.

I’m 22 and from a town called Hull in Yorkshire, England.

My first console was a Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which my parents boughr from my Brother-In-Law. All he had was ‘boring’ sports games, so I went to the game shop and bought Super Mario All Stars with my pocket money. After I booted up the game and started playing Super Mario Bros I instantly fell in love with computer games and thought to myself “This is it, this is what I want to do with my life”. A little sad, I know, but it’s ture.

Since then I’ve been designing games, from little daft drawings as a kid, to detailed Game Design Documents as I got older. When I was around 17 I discovered Adventure Game Studio and I spent a few months creating a game called. ‘The Advnetures of Turquoise Macdonanld’, the game was even worse than the title. I had a gap from AGS after that and got back into it when I went back to University and began playing games made with the AGS for research. I played the Chzo Mythos by Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw which is a fantastic series and anything bu Ben “304” Chandler is brilliant (Go and play his Bake Sale game, Falling Skywards) and after playing a few shorter games made with AGS, I realized that an adventure game didn’t have to have an epic length tobe enjoyable, which is when I decided to make Entrapment.