But this use of reflection in more fantastical
works indicates another interesting area of research: immersion. We know that fans of sci-fi and fantasy series’ know their stuff and are on the lookout for the small details they know and love, so whenever we work on something in this genre we’re keen to get an understanding of everything and dive as deep into the lore as we can to create a setting and story that feels as authentic as possible. When it came to Brewmaster, we knew we had a
challenge ahead. The craft brewing industry is massive – bigger than any of us realised when we started this project. As such, we had a relatively short period of time (the game was developed over three years) to learn, digest and understand a never-ending area of expertise, built upon thousands of years of brewing knowledge.
EXPANDING YOUR HORIZONS The famous phrase ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ really hits home when researching for your game. Once you start diving into your subject matter, there’s no end of rabbit holes to fall down… so you might as well embrace them! For the longest time, I’d assumed ‘beer culture’ was
a singular thing – people (often men), drinking lager in a pub. This assumption would have led us to create a very different game, with a different demographic which would have been more focussed on the results of drinking the beer rather than the magic of crafting it. Instead, we discovered that beer culture is as varied and nuanced as the beers themselves and deepened our understanding through research: attending beer festivals where high-end beer buffs were on the hunt for the new and outrageous, met with local makers who were out championing their region or community, listened to lectures and poured over reference material. It even encouraged us to put on our big coats and head down to our local pub to re-affirm how these spaces act as a communal location for anyone and everyone and are vital to the communities they serve. Another result of this process was going back to
school; myself and the team decided we’d go on the Certified Beer Server course and exam from Cicerone – the awarding body of beer qualifications (who knew!). Every single thing we thought we knew about beer was turned on its head and totally subverted our expectations, but above all it brought us together as a team and gave us a universal language to speak with one another. While referring to ‘how dark’ a beer is might seem
fine to everyday consumers, the further into this journey we got the more we realised that people really
February 2023 MCV/DEVELOP | 33
know their stuff and there was no chance we were going to be able to fake it. We had to not only talk the talk but walk the walk. Perhaps most humbling of all was the realisation
that, try as we might, we were never going to make everyone happy by offering the same gameplay experience to all. Beer styles overlap, there are different methods by region for creating beer and there are lots of areas which are always up for debate within the brewing community. Realising this allowed us to make a change to how you perform a taste test in the game – players can input the style they were aiming for, rather than have Brewmaster make the choice for you. A decision which has been praised by our players.
TEAM BUILDING Whilst many of our assumptions around beer and drinking culture were proven wrong, we did discover that something remained true: sitting in a pub on a Thursday evening is a wholly unifying experience.
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