Immersed in the World of CSI
TelltaleGames
Former Telltale Staff
-by Greg Land
In our rapid-fire 20-minute meeting with Anthony Zuiker, the infectious and passionate creator of the CSI franchise, one sentence pierced my forehead, swirled around in my brain, and lodged itself the back of my skull. He said: "This game should make people want to play with the lights off, and draw them to edge of their seats."
Those words summed up our goals better than any of us ever had. Isn't that exactly what we all want from a new CSI game? The feeling of total immersion in that world? The feeling of working alongside the master Investigator, Gil Grissom? The feeling of "being" a CSI?
As a designer, much of my job is to work with the team to translate great ideas into specific objectives for us. Draw them to the edge of their seats?" Sure! No problem! (Translation: "Oh, crud!") What exactly does that phrase mean to a programmer? To an artist? To all of us? How do we make that happen?
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Yes, yes. Those sound like things we can do... indeed, they were things we spent a lot of time doing. So, for this first CSI blog, I thought I'd highlight some of the specific things the Telltale team focused on to draw players deeper into the world of CSI.
First and foremost, it was important to us to make the characters look and feel more like they do on the show. We were fortunate to have the real actors record voice-over again, and we wanted their visual presentation to do them justice. We began by reworking the character models from the ground up.
 Grissom in-game (left) and his TV counterpart (right). |
To make our models look like the actors, we created textures using official press photos of the cast from the season five. Then, midway through production, season six started and we upgraded everyone to match their new looks. But that wasn't the end of it. In fact, at one point the producers of the show planned to send us last-minute pictures of Eric Szmanda's hair, since he (playing Greg Sanders) had been growing it out. While the keen eye will notice that our models were actually made with "fewer" polys (to keep performance high in our real-time engine) we think fans will be thrilled with the new likenesses. Grissom, Greg, Catherine, and the rest truly look like the characters we know and love.
In addition to making the characters look more authentic, we felt they needed more of a physical life in the game. To this end, we dramatically improved their movements and gestures. Using both traditional animation and motion-capture, our physical performances go far beyond the "idle" acting of the past. In fact, we choreographed specific movements for almost every voice line, just like an actor would. By grounding the vocal performances in realistically moving bodies, we made the characters more convincing and therefore more welcoming to the player.
To further capture the essence of the CSI characters, we decided to add more conversations showing the CSI working together - as a team. Teamwork is a key trait in each of the CSI personalities. So at last, players and their CSI partners will now find themselves crossing paths with Grissom and Catherine in the lab, mulling over the details of the case, searching together for new ideas - just like we'd expect if we were working with them in real-life.
The changes above paved the way for one of our most significant advancements: we
decided to move the cameras much closer to the characters. This allows players to work face-to-face with their favorite CSI team members, making the experience feel more personal. The previous games almost exclusively used medium shots (from the waist-up), literally keeping the player at arm's length. We decided to take a more cinematic approach. We studied the camerawork and director's notes in several CSI episodes - in particular the shows at the beginning of new seasons. (We learned these get extra attention because they are used to re-establish visual benchmarks for the series.) With an arsenal of new techniques, we "directed" our game with those TV-like camera cuts. We varied our scenes with close-ups, medium shots, camera motion, and other camera conventions to tell the stories. Notice how questioning suspects comes to life, both in the field and in the interrogation room - when the heat is on!
Next: the movies. We wanted to make the crime reconstruction flashbacks look and feel more like the show. The artists deftly captured the visual style, and the sound designers scored each sequence individually. The result is truly engrossing. Moreover, all of our our pre-rendered movies and show clips are now projected full-screen. (Previous games kept the movies in a window over the game's interface.) These upgrades to the style and presentation of the movies help to draw us more deeply into the events of the crime.
 Yes, that's Greg, the designer - dead in the CSI morgue. Talk about immersion! |
Because collecting evidence is such a large part of the game, we wanted the player to feel like they were using the real forensic equipment that we see in the show. So, our tools are no longer the 40x50 pixel 2-D icons from the previous games. They are realistic 3-D tools. Each has its own feeling of weight and movement. They were created directly from the real-world gear given to us by our Technical Advisor, Daniel Holstein. (Fun note: Daniel is the real-life forensic entomologist that Grissom's character is based on.)
A few other changes deserve at least a brief mention. Thanks to Telltale's 3D engine, the player's ability to navigate the beautifully detailed 3D environments is now much more fluid and natural. We also consulted with a professional cinematographer to make our lighting and camera-movement feel like the show. And the music and sound-effects were brilliantly scored from the richly toned CSI source material by our friends at Bay Area Sound. Note - my favorite way to play the game is with the subtitles turned OFF, the headphones ON, and the volume CRANKED. If you want an immersive experience - this is the way to go!
With the game just days from release, it remains to be seen if our goals of immersion have truly succeeded - players will be the real judges of that. However, the Telltale team immersed themselves in improving the game franchise for nearly a year, and we're certain that fans of both Telltale and CSI have some fun surprises waiting for them...
Visit the CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder product page!