For the first of our Developer Spotlight series, we sat down with Robert Gordon, the founder of The Article 19 Group. FRVR recently signed a number of Gordon’s brilliant, daily browser games – including Merge Fruits, Daily Word Search and, our focus today, Daily Room Escape.

Below, we explore what makes a hit escape room game, before asking Gordon’s view on the state of the industry and future of web-based gaming. The good news? He sees bright days ahead.

A Career Built on the Browser: From Shockwave to HTML5

FRVR: Tell us about your background and what was ‘the game’ that inspired you to kick off your own career in game development?

Gordon: I started my studio, The Article 19 Group Inc., 30 years ago in Montreal, Canada as an Educational Technology consulting company that specialized in the design and development of interactive multimedia. As the designated production lead, I started to dabble in creating simple Web-based games – driven in part by the newly released Shockwave player from Macromedia which allowed playback of rich media directly in the browser.

At that time, Macromedia had spun out its media-showcase platform as an entity called Shockwave.com which featured, amongst a lot of other content, a daily jigsaw puzzle game. I loved jigsaw puzzles – so I worked on building my own implementation of a jigsaw engine and posted it in a quiet corner of the portfolio section of our corporate web site. Fast forward a couple of years…Shockwave was in need of a new jigsaw supplier, found me, and changed the course of both the company and my professional life.

FRVR: What other games have you worked on?

Gordon: I’ve built hundreds of games. Most of them fall into the classic casual puzzle categories…spot the difference, hidden object, jigsaw, match 3, word search, trivia, etc as well as a variety of action and physics-based puzzles. In addition to Article 19’s game catalog I’ve made dozens of games for third party clients and partners including Disney, Nintendo, and Viacom.

In 2006 we launched the Carrie the Caregiver franchise – a set of time-management games with a touching story that was distributed in the browser, as downloads, and in a variety of retail outlets including Walmart and Target. More recently, we have continued to expand our catalog with a set of merge, word, and trivia games and are looking to port some of our older Flash games to HTML5.

The Ingredients Behind a Hit Escape room Game

FRVR: The Daily Room Escape game, now on FRVR, has been around for some time – what makes a successful escape room game? And how to balance a challenge without making it too hard and inaccessible for those new to the genre?

Gordon: It’s always hard to say what makes a game successful. I suspect what has helped Daily Room Escape to find an audience is that it features very intuitive controls, a simple 2D interface, and some basic and achievable puzzle-types that don’t require specialized knowledge or dexterity.

The kinds of games I have made have always tended to be on the easy side, and my goals for Daily Room Escape were in line with that philosophy. Players should be able to make immediate progress, experience little to no confusion about how to solve puzzles, and have an outlet if more help is required (we feature ad-supported hints and unlocks to support players who are stuck or need a nudge).

FRVR: So, what’s the best escape room game in your opinion and why?

Gordon: My process is to try many different titles for a short period of time each in order to get a sense for how they approach a game of this type. I keep track of features I like and those that I don’t – but ultimately my goal is to do my own thing. I have finished very few room escape games (including the live-action one), and as such, don’t really have a favourite.

FRVR: What’s the production process of making a new puzzle? What’s your view of the role of AI in games development?

Gordon: In Daily Room Escape all of the puzzles are generated algorithmically by the game. It’s capable of creating an infinite number of new random and deterministic puzzles. The way we have it set up, everyone who plays the game will see the same puzzle on a particular date. Regarding AI – it’s obviously already a big part of the game development process for many studios – and that role will surely grow over time.

At Article 19 we have used AI to help automate a few in-house processes that don’t require a great deal of creativity, but we have not yet given over any of the major design or production activities to an AI. The reasons for this are not all that profound – I simply enjoy doing the work. The future is bright for web-based gaming

A Look to the Future

FRVR: What’s the biggest challenge facing the games industry right now in your opinion?

I have traditionally flown well under the radar and have kept a healthy distance from the mainstream games industry. I’ve carved out a niche corner where I have a high degree of control over both design and production choices, and have benefitted from great support from my publishing and distribution partners.

I am aware of the waves of layoffs that have been hitting the industry over the last few years and have been grateful to have been able to continue to operate in spite of that trend. Beyond that, I don’t have a sophisticated take on the state of the industry as a whole – but do feel hopeful about the resurgence of Web-based gaming and the browser as a viable platform for games in the future.