The so-called film and game linkage, in the future, has long been played by unscrupulous film and television companies and game developers, and has become a pure means of making money.

But in 1999, it was a very novel business approach.

After all, when the business concept of IP has not yet become popular, and the business mode of pan-IP entertainment has not yet emerged, the connection between game development businesses and film and television companies is still not so close.

Even well-known movies such as "Star Wars" have several video games of their own, but everyone is not so skilled at bundling the release time of the movie and the release time of the game, spending a penny to do two promotions, and squeezing the value of the movie IP to the greatest extent.

This gave Charlotte the opportunity to be the first to eat crabs.

However, the network speed and hardware conditions of this era are still relatively poor in support of the famous money machine - online games, but it is already possible to make stand-alone games like "Red Alert 2" and "Warcraft 3" that can be connected to the Internet.

Of course, based on the story of Sherlock Holmes, Charlotte wanted Ghost Party Studios to produce a more action game with a lot of puzzle elements.

- In a way, it's a bit like Tomb Raider.

Among them, the decryption component is naturally because this is a game with Sherlock Holmes as the main character, and there is no detective puzzle element in it, are you kidding?

As for the action element, it's to attract more players.

After all, simple puzzle games are still relatively niche. If you want to increase the audience of the game and generate more revenue, you still need to introduce more popular elements.

- This is the suggestion of the newly formed game studio director Steen.

This veteran fritter in the game industry who has worked at EA for ten years told Charlotte as soon as he was dug up,

"Over the years, I have done many game types such as strategy, puzzle solving, action, sports, RPG, etc., although there is no platinum level, but I still know how to play the various routines in regular games - I can't guarantee that the game will make a lot of money, but I can guarantee that I won't lose money......"

Although this sounds very pragmatic, with the confident tone of the other party, it can produce a feeling of self-sacrifice.

This surprised Charlotte.

Considering that although she had played a lot of games before crossing over, she was an amateur after all about how to make games, Charlotte decided to use the other party's experience.

And from the current point of view, the results are not bad -

At the very least, Stenn was quick to unite the people poached from EA and form a functioning game studio.

Now, they've taken over the post-testing and optimization of The Amazing Quidditch from EA.

At the same time, after several explanations by Charlotte, they also understood Charlotte's previous plan to develop the subsequent version of the game according to the season system, and organize the game league, and were ready to implement it.

- It can be said that Charlotte's game "Magical Quidditch", which he prepared in order to gain the ability to fly, no longer has to worry about it himself.

Of course, this ability to accept and adapt quickly is also related to the fact that these people who were poached were originally the developers of the game "Amazing Quidditch" on the EA side.

However, Stern's development suggestions for the crossover game of "Sherlock Holmes" really impressed Charlotte -

The other side didn't just propose the addition of an action element.

Considering the professional characteristics of the detective profession that often tracks and investigates, he also plans to introduce the gameplay of stealth games such as "Metal Gear Solid", so that the act of tracking and investigating will also become a gameplay in the game.

This allows the game to form a puzzle-in-in-action-puzzle gameplay loop, which makes a bit of sense to Charlotte, who played the masterpiece of puzzle games like the "Dishonored" series before the time travel.

However, Charlotte didn't completely leave S&T and the newly formed game studio free to play -

On the one hand, he made a lot of suggestions based on his understanding of future game discovery trends, and on the other hand, he also strongly urged the game to introduce online gameplay.

It's just that, unlike those pure action or strategy and RPG games, games with heavy puzzle elements are often not easy to introduce multiplayer interactive gameplay.

Therefore, Charlotte decided to introduce asymmetrical multiplayer interactive gameplay based on the games she had played before crossing over.

- To put it simply, it's a bit like Close Your Eyes When It's Dark, Three Kingdoms Kill, or Werewolf Kill, and it's a bit like games like "The Fifth Personality".

In this game, there will be a special creation of a copy of the case.

When multiple players participate, they can play the roles of detective (Sherlock Holmes), detective assistant (Watson), police officer (Lestrade), criminal, instigator (Moriarty), and other people involved in the case.

Depending on the player's role, there will be different factions and missions to complete, some to find the criminals, while others to defend them.

- It's going to be fun for a group of people to play.

Of course, if there is only one story line of the dungeon, then the person who plays it will definitely be boring after playing it once, so in the plot of the dungeon, there also needs to be a randomly changing plot city component-

To put it simply, it is not certain who the offender is.

It can be said that each copy is a complex story that can be participated by multiple people, has multiple endings, and everyone's actions can also affect the ending......

"That's a really nice design!"

Stein also liked Charlotte's suggestion for how to play.

Although this meant that the developers had to deal with very complex work and some technical difficulties, he readily agreed to the plan.

Even, on this basis, he added a more perverted gameplay-

In a relatively small probability, the player playing the detective will also be a criminal.

- When everyone looks for the criminal for a long time, and then finds out that the criminal is the same person as the detective, it must be very sour.

Of course, this can only be said to be a personal episode of bad taste on Steen.

However, after the introduction of this kind of multiplayer gameplay, the design of this multi-storyline dungeon plot has become a key point.

Fortunately, Ghost Party Studios has no shortage of screenwriters.

With the cooperation of the film crew and the game studio, it is no problem to design a variety of storylines that are similar to the plot of the movie, but specious.

This is also the reason why Charlotte asked the game studio to join at the very beginning of the preparation of "Sherlock Holmes" -

The preparatory work of both parties, from the story script to the original art design, and even some scene special effects, can be shared.

——Working together in the early stage, and gradually separating in the middle and later stages, can maximize the use of manpower and resources, and achieve the effect of mutual communication.

And Charlotte is also looking forward to the expression of moviegoers when they go to play the game after watching the movie, and then find out that there are more criminals and mysteries hidden deeper......