One of the most well-received aspects of the game is how it portrays diverse groups, putting LGTBQ+ characters front and centre of the narrative, with the gang even making a visit to a drag club as part of their adventures.
“This was the first opportunity I’d had working in the industry where I would get to set what was going to happen in a lot of ways,” says Fear. A lot of games I’ve worked on in the past have been with publishers. And I felt, in a lot of instances, unable to pitch a gay character for certain reasons. I just didn’t want to upset the boat in a lot of ways. “I suddenly realised that this was my chance to do what I want, and so I immediately knew that I would have a prominent gay character in it. That was always a big thing. I think some of the other stuff happened by accident, like the idea of setting a case in the drag club. But just in terms of the tone, it’s a very camp game. “I remember once speaking to my boss, and I was like, ‘I think I’m really gonna make this quite, quite gay. Like, quite camp.’ And he just turned to me and asked, ‘what do you think you’ve been doing for the last year?!’ It was just… oh yeah. You’re right!. “So yeah, it really was a mix. It was some degree of wanting to do something, some degree of chance... And then there was the team we had, which was very LGBTQ+, and had a lot of women on it too. We just kept on egging each other on, without recognising it. It is definitely a product of its team as well.”
LGBTQ+ IN GAMES While LGTBQ+ representation in games is slowly improving, it’s still refreshing to run into a title, released by a major British studio, that takes the effort to put diversity at the core of the game’s experience. “I definitely think [LGBTQ+ representation] is getting
better,” says Fear. “The indie scene is doing a really great job in that. The AAA scene is…. not doing a great job. Yeah, there are exceptions, The Last of Us Part II and stuff like that, But the thing with indies, and this is very much what I experienced with this project, is that you get to set your parameters. But when you’re working with a publisher, it’s an entirely different thing. There’s so many more people in the decision making process that can have, even well meaning, trepidation towards that. “I wouldn’t say that things are better until AAA is also generally better, because that’s where you’re dealing with ‘oh, are we going to be able to sell this game in China?’ Or ‘are we going to be able to sell it in Russia?’ Whereas, with indie you can just follow what you want to do. There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.
“There are a lot of good people really trying, and I think we’ll get there, but it’s definitely a work in progress.” While there’s work to be done, there’s no doubt that Fear and the rest of the Murder by Numbers team more than achieved their ambitions with the game – to create a comforting experience in times of need. Good thing too, considering when it was released. “The thing that’s meant the most to me, and something we never could have foreseen during development, was that we came out about two weeks before the pandemic hit. We started getting messages from people saying that Murder by Numbers made them feel calm, and helped them to get through this really weird time.
“That to me was like, the most amazing feedback I could ever get, that it helped people. Because I wanted something that was comforting. I wanted an experience that felt a bit like, and this sounds really lame to say, but it’s a bit like a hug in game form. So to hear that it was doing that, in circumstances that we never could have predicted, was just wonderful.” Releasing at the outbreak of the pandemic puts the game in an interesting place. It released at the perfect time to provide comfort when it was most needed. But now Mediatonic, and the world at large, has changed drastically since March 2020. In a post Fall Guys, post Epic Games world, does Fear still feel able to pitch niche new ideas like Murder by Numbers? “So obviously, things have changed a lot. In many ways, the pandemic, Fall Guys, being acquired by Epic... But Mediatonic has always been a company that is made up of people who are driven by people who have those kinds of ideas. That’s not changed at all. So I’m pretty confident that you will see new weird things out of Mediatonic in the future. If I didn’t have that confidence, I wouldn’t still be here.”
Below: The game’s camp, comic tone will be familiar to any Phoenix Wright fans
January 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 49
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