Speaking with One of Lucy Dreaming’s Creators
Emma and Tom Hardwidge are the creative team behind Tall Story Games. Recently the couple released Lucy Dreaming, a clever point-and-click adventure title that partially takes place in Lucy’s dreams. Lucy Dreaming is about a young girl fighting her nightmares through lucid dreams. Players explore her hometown while she’s awake. When Lucy sleeps, however, players journey to increasingly bizarre dream worlds.
The title, which has been receiving rave reviews since release, was funded in just one week via Kickstarter. I was lucky enough to interview Tome Hardwidge about developing Lucy Dreaming and launching Tall Story Games.
How did you come up with the idea for Lucy Dreaming?
Tom Hardwidge: When we first started looking into ideas for a full-length game, our son was five years old. We were spending a lot of time reading children’s books. I loved how he would sometimes experience really vivid dreams, which appeared to be combinations of different books we had read him the night before. And that was where the idea for Lucy Dreaming’s dream control mechanic originated from.
Tom Hardwidge: Obviously, I’d have loved to make a pirate adventure game myself, too. But I knew it would always be compared to the likes of Monkey Island and Nelly Cootalot, and I wanted to avoid that kind of pressure. Dreams are a flexible platform to work within creatively and gave us the opportunity to create original environments without being wedded to a specific aesthetic or theme. We could create multiple themes within a single game, which would keep the artwork, characters and gameplay fresh throughout without it being too jarring for players.
To combat her nightmares, Lucy learns to have lucid dreams. Is this something you have an interest in?
Tom Hardwidge: I think everyone has probably wondered what it would be like to be able to control your dreams at some point in their life. But, although I studied psychology for three years, it’s not something that I have ever taken more than a passing interest in, and have never tried to achieve lucid dreams myself. Based on some of the unpredictable situations that my brain has conjured for Lucy, I fear what might happen to me if I tried it myself!
Lucy Dreaming has been receiving raving reviews. How does it feel to see your creation being so well received?
Tom Hardwidge: It’s very surreal, but an absolute delight! When I decided I wanted to create a full-length adventure game, the primary motivation was to create something people had fun playing. That may sound obvious, I mean, it’s a game, after all. But every title has a different origin story, whether it’s a cash cow developed to make money, or a creative vision from a profound storyteller, they all carry with them the dreams of their creators. My dream was solely that the game was enjoyable. As a result, all of the reviews and feedback from satisfied players is the best result I could ever dream of.
The game takes place in both Lucy’s dreams and reality. Did this pose any challenges during development?
Tom Hardwidge: The development of the whole game has been a pretty steep learning curve as I have no previous industry experience at all. But there are a couple of puzzles which balance many different elements from multiple dream worlds and reality. Programming them did melt my brain somewhat, and were where most of the logic loopholes were discovered during testing. But they are also some of the most rewarding puzzles to solve during the game, so they were definitely worth the extra headaches.
As a husband-and-wife team, do you feel you face any unique challenges?
Tom Hardwidge: Myself and Emma have run our own marketing business together from home for the past twelve years. We’ve always loved working together and there is rarely any friction between us. There have been some huge advantages for us on this project, though. Emma has not only taken on the role of Studio Director, she also provides the voice for Lucy in the game. This wasn’t the original plan. But, after so much positive feedback on her voiceover in the original demo, it turned out to be the best decision for the game. Not only is it more convenient, flexible and cheap, Emma’s experience working alongside me and her thorough understanding of Lucy’s character put her in a unique position to provide the perfect characterization.
What prompted you to start Tall Story Games?
Tom Hardwidge: Again, this was Emma’s doing. I was quite happy to bumble along and plow all of my spare time into what was, at the time, a hobby more akin to a midlife crisis than a commercial project. Emme recognized the potential in what I was creating and galvanized us both into making it a more professional effort. This led us down the path to crowdfunding through Kickstarter and applying for additional support from the UK Games Fund to get the studio off the ground. I wasn’t keen on the extra pressure at first, but ultimately it has forced me to approach the game with more professionalism and given us both the confidence that it could, just possibly, achieve a degree of success.
Tom Hardwidge: A studio’s first game will always be one of the hardest, from marketing and community building to all the technical aspects associated with releasing a game on multiple platforms. We have also self-published so, although we don’t have any additional overheads to pay for post-release, we also have to handle all of the marketing and PR ourselves, and that’s honestly been twenty times harder than actually producing the game.
What lessons have you learned since releasing your first title, Where’s My Cloak?
Tom Hardwidge: I’m better off using a game engine! When I created Where’s My Cloak? Back in 2019, I had never heard of “indie devs” or “game engines” and, as a result, attempted to program my own point & click adventure game from scratch in three months, in Javascript, CSS and HTML. I went back and replayed it recently. Considering that I had literally no idea what I was doing when I built it, it’s actually a reasonably playable game. That said, after discovering Visionaire Studio (the game engine I used for Lucy Dreaming and Hair of the Dog), I would never go back to programming an adventure game from scratch again. I much prefer to spend my time focusing on the design, writing and artwork, and let a professional engine do all the heavy lifting.
Of the four games you’ve released thus far, which is your personal favorite?
Tom Hardwidge: I do love Lucy Dreaming, but I’m also at a point where I’m a bit sick of looking at it right now. So, I think my favorite is probably Hair of the Dog. Looking back now, after completing the development of a full-length adventure game, I do wonder how on earth I managed to produce it from scratch in just twelve days. It’s only a short game, but I still managed to cram in a lot of detail and bad jokes. I’m just as proud of it as I am of Lucy Dreaming.
Tall Story Games seems to focus on point-and-click adventures. What do you find appealing about the genre?
Tom Hardwidge: Point-and-click adventures were my favourite games growing up, so they will always have a special place in my heart. I have always enjoyed the combination of a well-written narrative, humour (usually) and puzzles which require astute observation and lateral thinking. When the right balance has been struck, the result is just perfect for me.
Tom Hardwidge: During the 1990s, I don’t think I ever read a book or watched a film without thinking, “This would make a great point & click game”. Some of my happiest moments were playing the classic Sierra and LucasArts titles thirty years ago. Now I am in a position where I can add my own games to the ever-growing adventure game genre I have always respected and adored. There is no greater pleasure for me than watching a child play Lucy Dreaming as their first ever point & click adventure and see them experience the same “light bulb” moments that I did as a child playing the likes of Monkey Island and King’s Quest.
What advice would you give those hoping to break into indie game development?
Tom Hardwidge: Talk to other developers. The greatest resource that I have found during my two-year journey into indie dev has been the incredible community. The welcoming support I have experienced from almost every adventure game developer I have met along the way has given me all of the advice and perspective I needed to go from a complete standing start to releasing my first game. Whether I needed technical help, advice about marketing within the games industry, a sounding board for ideas or just someone to moan to about Steam’s UI, I found that other indie developers are often prepared to give up a huge portion of their energy and time to helping others. I try to pay it forward myself as much as I can, too.
What are some of your favorite point-and-click adventure games?
Tom Hardwidge: I’ve not had much of a chance to play many modern point-and-click adventures recently. But in addition to the whole LucasArts back catalog from the early nineties, I loved Return to Monkey Island, which released a month before Lucy Dreaming and also Lost in Play, which I played through with my eight-year-old son and was an absolute joy. The UI was beautifully smooth and it was like diving head-first into a Saturday morning cartoon. We both loved it and it was great to play it together as a family.
Can you tell me anything about your next project?
Tom Hardwidge: At the moment, we’re still focusing on Lucy Dreaming. We want to try and get a Switch port working early next year and we still have a lot of work to do to keep the momentum going now that it’s out in the wild. That said, we do have the spark of another idea which we would like to start working on next year. I’m not going to say any more at this point, but I think it will be a lot of fun!
Tom Hardwidge: Tall Story Games is playing it close to the vest with its next game title. However, one can speculate its probably another epic point-and-click title. Lucy Dreaming is available now on the App Store and the Google Play Store. To learn more, check out Hardcore iOS’s review of the game. And if interviews with indie game devs are you’re jam check our interview with solo dev, Angel Dorantes.
