El Dorado is niet alleen een film die binnenkort in de bios te zien zal zijn. Het is ook een game dat door dezelfde makers als van Broken Sword wordt gemaakt.

Hieronder een uitgebreide FAQ / Q&AQ: How has the evolution of the adventure games market over the years affected the way you approached In Cold Blood and The Road to El Dorado? Do you think the adventure genre lost its identity and a umed the characteristics of RPGs and action games?

The Point-and-click adventure game is not a commercially viable genre on PC / Console. This is because the genre does not allow the forms of gameplay that are demanded by the main market. As technology has driven forward, new gameplay opportunities have been discovered that are only po ible because of the new technology. By giving the player direct control and generating the characters in 3D, exciting gameplay opportunities are made available that were not po ible with the Point-and-click interface.

Q) The graphical style of the game matches the cartoon precisely. How did you achieve such a high quality?

Our Broken Sword games created a hand-drawn cartoon look. For El Dorado We wanted to recreate this sort of style in the pre-rendered 3D backgrounds. DreamWorks were able to provide us with high resolution images of many of the backgrounds from the cartoon. We were able to cut out parts of their backgrounds and use them directly as textures on our backgrounds. Our artists were then able to create textures of the same style for foreground objects. This has given a consistent look in which it is very difficult to tell where the original artwork blends with modelled artowork. It has been a great challenge, but also very exciting to originate a game with such a strong art style.

Q: How much final approval does DreamWorks SKG have over the game?

DreamWorks are keen to ensure that we remain true to the spirit of the movie. Generally their input has been very helpful and positive.

Q: How did you approach the development of the 3D engine?

We wanted to create an engine that could deliver an exciting and unique look to our games. Our emphasis was on creating atmosphere through shadows and lighting. This suits El Dorado very well because it allows us to create a look that complements the cartoon look of the movie.

This was achieved through ray traced soft skinning. Ray tracing is the technique of firing a ray from each polygon and determining whether it is being affected by a light source and, if so, the intensity and angle of contact. This leads to each polygon being accurately lit – and in doing so giving form to the character. This has the benefit of making the characters feel as thought they really belong in the scene because they are lit accurately by the same lights that light the background.

This technique is made po ible through soft skinning the characters. Soft skinning is a technique whereby the 'skin' is dynamically applied to the model. It allows much more animation to be held in memory and for lighting effects to be applied.

Generally we are proud of what we have achieved. Certainly the technology is pretty unique.

Q) So did you think that the movie industry and video-games market are converging?

This project demonstrates aspects of how the film and games industries are converging. The movie provided the reference for us in terms of a story outline, character reference, animation, art style etc. All of this reference was used directly to create a game that, in our opinion, conveys the look-and-feel of the movie. For next generation consoles, the same art a ets will be common to all the entertainment mediums over which the property is to be exploited. This will allow us to create games in which the gameplay looks every bit as good as the cartoon that goes on release at the cinema!

Q) Is the rumour true that Revolution have got thing about including monkeys in games?

Any similarity between the monkeys in any Revolution games with any other monkeys, whether real or fictitious, is wholly coincidental. And those vicious rumours about the Revolution team's encounter with a troop of rather attractive female baboons is wholly untrue.

Q: What is your The Road to El Dorado team currently doing, and what's left to do?

The game is almost at beta – so the puzzles and speech have been finalised, and the art and animation is being completed. The main task for the next month is to play test the game, ensure that the difficultly level is right, that the puzzles are intuitive.

Q: Where do you see Revolution Software's impact in the industry today?

In Europe we are the only major developer creating narrative based computer games. While our main competition used to come from America, it is now the Japanese that are our major competitors. It is too early to say what impact 'In Cold Blood' will have in terms of long term popularity, but we are very proud by the way that people still love the 'Broken Sword' series. We still get large numbers of emails asking, pleading and demanding that we write a third 'Broken Sword' game.

Q: Do you think your internationally acclaimed Broken Sword series might return in 3D just like LucasArts' Monkey Island series?'Broken Sword 3' will be a 3D game – but it won't look like the latest Monkey Island game. It is much more likely to look like 'El Dorado' - a cla ical cartoon look applied to a 3D environment.

Met de graphics en gameplay zal het wel goed zitten. Nu hopen we enkel nog dat het spel meer is dan een simpele conversie van de film.