Review Fix Exclusive: Phil Ings Talks ‘Supreme League of Patriots’

Review Fix chats with Phil Ings, Creative Director at No Bull Intentions who discusses the upcoming PC adventure game “Supreme League of Patriots,” which is currently set for a Jan. 29 release. Powered by a love of adventure games and American sitcom television Ings discusses the creative inspirations for the game and how he’d like gamers to be affected by it

Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this game?

Phil Ings: The seed that eventually sprouted into Patriots was the question “What would a patriotic superhero *really* be like?” We’ve had patriotic superheroes in comics and in the movies, but they don’t seem to have much in common with real life patriots. Whenever I hear about real life “patriots”, they’re always raving about how immigrants are defiling their country and women need to learn their place. So, with Patriots, I tried to answer the question of what a real-life patriotic superhero would be like. Comedy has a rich history of antiheroes, whether it’s Seinfeld’s George Costanza or South Park’s Cartman. An adventure game seemed like a natural fit for the humour, and I’m a huge adventure game fan, so it all just slotted together really nicely.

Review Fix: What was the development process like?

Ings: When I first started work on the game, I was working full time as a contract programmer for a mobile games company. I was writing the script in my spare time, and I had two freelancers producing concept art and character models. When the character art was complete, I had to decide whether to commit to the game fully or to put it on the backburner. I was really happy with the script and the character models were awesome, so I committed to it. I brought in more freelancers to do animation, music and voice acting – all the things I couldn’t do. When you’re working with a remote team, there’s a lot of management involved, but I was lucky to find some really dedicated and talented people to work with me. I concentrated on writing, design and programming. A year later, I had to give up the day job entirely so that I could focus on getting Patriots finished. At the time of writing, it’s been over two years since I had a single day off. It’s been a monumental effort to get it all done, but I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved – which makes it all worthwhile.

Review Fix: What games did you play as a kid?

Ings: My first computer was a Commodore 16 when I was about nine. I bought a few of the Scott Adams text adventures, like Spiderman and Hulk. They were incredibly frustrating, and the text parser was really limited, but I kept going back to them until I completed them. Then my friend bought Spellbound on the Spectrum, which was probably the first true graphic adventure I’d played. I loved that and both of its sequels, Knight Tyme and Stormbringer. I went to a games fair in London in 1990, and one of the stands was selling Monkey Island for the Amiga. The train ride home was hell because I couldn’t wait to start playing it. It had the most sensational soundtrack, a great story, puzzles that actually gelled with the story, and it was really funny too. From that point on, I played every point-and-click adventure I could get my hands on. All of the LucasArts and Sierra Online stuff, of course, but also more obscure titles like Shadow of the Comet and DreamWeb.

Review Fix: Did any of them play a key role in this one?

Ings: Day of The Tentacle is probably my favourite adventure game of all time. It wasn’t a conscious influence when writing the game, but looking back, I definitely think it affected my notion of how an adventure game should look. The aesthetic in DOTT is all sharp corners and crazy angles, and it helps set the tone of the game. Patriots does a similar thing. I think pretty much every game Ron Gilbert ever made influenced my notion of how puzzles should work in adventure games. Ron is really strict on puzzles being contextual and that must have rubbed off on me playing his games. Any time that puzzles are separate from the story, it pulls me out of the world and I don’t like that as player or a designer.

Review Fix: What is your favorite gameplay element in this game?

Ings: I’m really happy with Mel – Kyle’s sarcastic British sidekick who goes everywhere with him. He serves as the player’s window into the game world. Kyle (in Episode 1) and The Purple Patriot (in Episode 2) are the main playable characters, but Mel is the voice of sanity and reason. At the same time, he’s also that snarky guy in the corner who has some sarcastic jibe to make at every turn. Mel is also the focal point of the help system though. The help system has two different elements: advice and reminders. If reminders are enabled, Mel will give you a vocal nudge in the right direction when you’re inactive for a period of time. If advice is enabled, you can ask Mel for detailed help with specific problems and puzzles. Of course, if you like your adventure games challenging, you can disable both help tiers and just leave Mel as the guy with a sarcastic comment for any occasion.

Review Fix: Why should someone try this game out?

Ings: Patriot blends a lot of different types of humour. By the nature of the game, the satirical elements are inevitably the ones that people notice first, but there’s a lot more to it than that. When you make a game, you have a genuine multimedia experience: sight, sound, interaction, etc. I felt it was important to embrace all of that, and ensure that the comedy worked on all those levels. So you have sight gags, slapstick, sound gags, wordplay, satire, parody, surreal humour, everything. If you like to laugh, this game has something for you.

Review Fix: What makes each episode special?

Ings: The first issue is all about Kyle. He’s an aspiring actor who wants to win the superhero reality TV show “America’s Got Superpowers.” This is your chance to get to know the real Kyle, before an accident leaves him locked into his Purple Patriot alter-ego. Kyle’s actually a pretty nice guy, which is going to be a massive contrast when you meet The Purple Patriot. In the second issue, The Purple Patriot alter-ego has almost completely taken over, but he’s still struggling to come to terms with his own beliefs. He wants to be New York’s favourite superhero, but he’s being battered by all this bureaucracy that stands between him and official superhero status. He finds himself having to do some pretty unpalatable, and not very heroic, things in order to achieve his goals. It’s really dark. In the third and final issue of season one, The Purple Patriot really gets to spread his wings. There’s a siege at a Manhattan bank, and he’s determined to make a name for himself by resolving the crisis. All of his pent-up rage can finally be released with some outrageous (and violent!) takedowns. Of course, this is The Purple Patriot – America’s most incompetent superhero – so it’s not long before things get far, far worse. Pretty soon he’s facing a biological missile attack on the entire Eastern seaboard.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Ings: Once the launch on PC, Mac and Linux is complete, my next task is to begin work on porting Patriots to other platforms. iPad and Android are already on the list, and I’m hoping to add a few more platforms very soon. Hopefully I’ll be able to announce more on that shortly. All of that will keep me pretty busy, but I will definitely be making time to do a lot more writing. I have a couple of game stories rolling around in my head, waiting for me to commit them to paper. One is a fairly dark crime adventure, with a branching storyline that is affected by your choices and investigation skills. The other is a much more upbeat comedy/adventure with a sci-fi setting. I’ll probably work on both of them and focus on whichever one develops best.