Law & Order is one of the most successful franchises in the history of television. Not only does the original series maintain impressive ratings, the recent spinoffs have also fared well with viewers. Of these, Law & Order: Criminal Intent is the most successful. Starring Detective Bobby Goren, whose persona is more quirky armchair detective than Joe Friday, the show has a distinctive style all its own. So it's no surprise that Legacy Interactive, the developer of three games based on the original show, set their sights on Detective Goren for their newest game. However, his unique mannerisms and interrogation technique presented an unusual challenge to Legacy. How would they take the subtle dialogue and internalized thoughts of this character and translate them into an interactive format?

To get it right, Craig Brannon, the game's Producer, hired Elizabeth M. Cosin, one of the show's original writers, to develop the script for this game. For an inside look into the merger of TV world and game development, Adventure Gamers decided to go to the source and talk with Elizabeth and Craig. We think you'll enjoy the discussion and their take on the eccentric Detective Goren.



LM: Thank you both for taking the time to talk with us today. Could you introduce yourselves and tell us a little about your background and what got you into game development?

CB: Hi, my name is Craig Brannon, the Producer on the game. Originally I got my doctorate in Educational Psychology, but I was always interested in educational technology. I was even a computer teacher at a few elementary schools. I was fascinated by how kids are so motivated to use computers, which got me really interested in educational software. Ariella Lehrer, who is Legacy's President, was developing those kinds of applications at the time and I thought that was really cool, so I worked with her for a while developing educational software. As you know, that industry kind of fell to the wayside, so I began dabbling in other educational and Internet related things. Which led to entertainment applications and my work on three different Law & Order games.


EC: I'm Elizabeth M. Cosin, and I wrote the script for Criminal Intent. I had been a sports writer and an investigative reporter, then I moved out to California. I grew disenchanted with the business, so I worked on a novel and got it published. It was the first thing I had written and thought the business was easy, so I quit my job. I got an agent, sold the book — got a two-book deal. Later, I was about to get kicked out of my apartment and the next day I was working for a big CBS show and have been working in television ever since. I had always been a big fan of Law & Order and the producer had developed his own show about a lawyer in upstate NY. He hired me; that show never got off the ground, so they did another one, which became Criminal Intent. Then all of a sudden, I am writing for Law & Order. I did that, but I didn't enjoy it that much. It's not the kind of writing I want to do. So I moved on a little, worked for another show. Then I got a phone call a year later from Craig, because Rene Balcer, the show creator, recommended me to write the script for the game. Now, I love games and play them all the time, so I thought this would be fun and in many ways it has been.

LM: What are a few of your favorite games?

EC: My favorite games are first person shooters. I really fell for Syphon Filter and Half-Life. I don't know if I would call myself a sophisticated game player, because I am not that good at it. The games I really enjoy are the ones that make you think your way out of situations, instead of just going into a room and blowing everything away. I don't want to get too deeply into whether women are different or as violent as men are. I think that women are definitely violent, though I think we prefer to try and figure things out. I have two versions of Grand Theft Auto and on one hand I find it exhilarating and on the other I find it horrifying. I really believe that until video games show the consequences of actions, within the context of the fun you are trying to have, I think that they are going to be a problem. So that's the reason I wanted to do this game, besides the fact that the money was good!

LM: Writing for a game would seem to be very different from writing for a movie or TV shows, which isn't interactive. Was switching to game writing challenging?

EC: It really wasn't a challenge because of the way we made this game. In some ways, the game is truer to the show's intent than the show is. I was there the first season when we created the characters and decided what we wanted the show to be about. Now, I haven't played this game yet. But we worked hard to keep everything within the sensibilities of the show.

The thing is, every time you ask a question in this game, when you are interviewing a suspect or talking to someone, you have the opportunity to decide how to logically approach that person. Which is exactly the way Goren does it on the show, and what the fans expect. I think we also came up with a story that is definitely unusual and very complicated. I am both pleased and horrified that Craig was open to such a difficult premise. Criminal Intent is very different from the other Law & Order shows and I think this is a very different kind of game.

CB: Elizabeth knew the dialogues and the different ways that Goren approaches things. All of that was definitely helpful. Especially since we ended up writing so much dialogue for this game. We try to have the writer play up their strengths and give them as much free rein as possible. We wanted a writer who could write a game script very similar to what they would do for the show. You know, dummy up a story, create motivations and all that kind of stuff. It is only later in the process, where you have to write a lot of one liners and stuff you would never see in a show, since it is not interactive, that it gets weird for a show writer.

EC: I came up with a story that is very complicated and it was hard to get it right. I am sure that with as many problems as I had with it, Craig had more. So it was very gratifying to work with him. I don't know if I ever told you this, Craig, but I honestly expected, more than once, for you to say, "Shut up." Believe me, there were many times where I was trying to do something very different than what had been done in other mysteries. It was not easy.

LM: How is the dialogue system set up in the game?

CB: The system we came up with for interviewing and interrogating was built purely for the specifics of this game. We really wanted to address the psychological approach, which is the heart of the show and this game. Much of the story progresses through interviewing and interrogating. Of course there is the extra stuff, like collecting evidence, but its core is interviewing people. So we wanted to reflect that in the game by allowing the player to choose. In conversations, you don't choose the topic, you choose the "mode" of questioning, whether it might be more forceful, confrontational, empathetic, flattering or straightforward. The player chooses a specific emotional subset each time they select a topic to talk about. Then we give the player feedback on how well they did.

EC: One of the things that Goren does is say something like, "I had a brother who had the same problem." He does this to see if the person will open up more to him. That part of the puzzling was more fun in this game. It definitely was more fun to write. Which was good because it's a huge script.

CB: I think the script is close to 500 pages long, with 3,000 lines of dialogue. The hardest part is that over half of these lines are Goren's. We had to record his lines in two separate sessions because there were so many. Another problem with all those lines is that you can get into a rut with asking the same type of questions. But Elizabeth was very good about having fresh approaches to these modes of questioning. We never ended up with the "same old, same old" with each interview.



LM: Did you use any outside experts to help with the game story ?

EC: Craig hired a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Heather Krell, to help with the game. She came up with this whole psychological profile of every character in the game. We talked about motivations a lot. Ironically, when we did the show, we relied on a famous forensic psychiatrist. It turns out she studied under him at Quantico. So she knew a lot about his work and is also highly respected in this field. So we mirrored a lot of the things we built into the show. I also spoke with Rene Balcer, the show's creator, and sent him material. He approved the story.

LM: That sounds very good for the game. You have three initial cases in the game; can they be played in any order or simultaneously?

CB: You get three cases initially, and you can pursue them in any order and at the same time, working back and forth between them if you choose. Once you solve those three, then you are presented with a fourth case.

EC: It's cool, though. You complete the three cases and think you've done your work. Then boom — this new case opens and you have to figure out how this case relates or not to your earlier investigations. Once you get into that fourth case, you get all these cool references to the show and Goren himself. This new case becomes a very personal experience for Goren. Anyone who has ever watched the show… at this point, everything that they know about the character will help them. They will have a little head start over a non-viewer of what is going on and what to do.

LM: What can you say about the basic game story?

EC: Each case starts with a murder. On the surface it seems to have a simple explanation. And that explanation leads to a specific suspect. Uncovering them leads to a much more complicated scenario. You end up going down a whole new path than you expected from what you saw and learned in the beginning. It's like peeling back the layers with each new interview or piece of evidence.

CB: The three murders have completely different motivations and how they are done. Then after they are solved, you find out with the fourth case that there is a much bigger story going on, and things may be related in ways you didn't see before.

EC: We used the criminal profiling to connect things. We also wanted it to parallel real life events or cases. I am not saying these murders actually happened this way in real life, but I wanted them to be based on real life premises for criminal behavior and motivations. It is based on real science. If you know the show and a little about criminal profiling, you will have a bit of an advantage on solving these cases. But even if you don't, you can use these tools, learn how they work, and still figure the whole thing out.