Sony is taking casual gaming very seriously. At this year's E3, amid the PS3 fanfare and hardcore tech demos, the company also made time to show off Buzz, a multiplayer music quiz game, which utilises a bespoke controller to make the content accessible to whoever gathers around the TV of an evening. There are eight different rounds to take part in, each requiring players to quickly buzz in with answers. Often it's all about identifying a short blast of music and the tunes are varied enough to ensure everyone stands a chance from '60s rockers to McFly-loving pop kids.
Clearly, the success of EyeToy and SingStar goes someway to explaining why the project has been commissioned, but if anything, Buzz moves even further away from Sony Computer Entertainment's core audience of young zeitgeist-savvy gamers. Buzz is, I feel, a direct assault on Saturday evening TV. With its daft host, throwaway one-liners and emphasis on family competition, it appropriates the ingredients of traditional weekend entertainment, but adds in interactivity and a bit of vitality. While TV execs are pulling their hair out trying to re-capture those giant Saturday night viewing figures with banal star vehicles and barrel-scraping talent contests, Sony could be about to pull the rug right out from beneath their twitchy feet.
This is how it's going to work. Videogaming has had a modest place in the family entertainment schedule for twenty years, but titles like SingStar and Buzz, aided by a succession of TV disasters, are subtly shifting the balance, drawing interactivity out of the ghetto and into the primetime. The National Lottery has killed off the big money quiz show, and let's be honest, the fragile conceit of eventual pop stardom touted by the likes of X Factor, Pop Idol et al has been shattered by a dozen one hit wonders and instant failures. All that these programmes can now offer is a parade of vulnerable show-offs to laugh at, and every household has one of those - just like every household has a cynical, sneery Simon Cowell lurking in the corner. Sony, it seems, wants to release them.
I think this is a noble pursuit. So to find out more about Buzz, I recently spoke to David Amor, creative director at Relentless, the game's developer. Here's what he said…
So how did Buzz come about? Sony were looking to repeat the 'social gaming' success of EyeToy and SingStar and suggested the idea of a quiz show to us. They were already in contact with a company who supplied music clips and questions, and asked us what treatment we would give such a game. We suggested setting the game in a TV show, which people would be familiar with, and suggested they included gameshow style buzzers in the box. That was about a year ago.
And once you had the format sorted, where did you look for inspiration? We watched a bunch of quiz shows from the golden age of gameshows such as Jeopardy and The Price is Right. In fact, while we were waiting for audio we ripped the audio tracks from those shows to use as placeholders. Last Christmas there seemed to be a lot of DVD based quiz games and we took a look at the more popular ones. What struck us was their pedestrian nature and the fact that you needed pen and paper to keep score, both of which are easily avoided on a console.
At the risk of appearing sycophantic, the products we've been inspired by most are EyeToy and SingStar. Both prove that a simple game mechanic well delivered can be as engaging as any Metal Gear Solid or Gran Turismo. You Don't Know Jack was also influential; we ended up using the same company to do the commentary.
Who came up with the buzzer-style controller? The design of the peripheral has been well handled by Sony. We suggested the classic gameshow big red buzzer and over many prototypes they've developed it into something more like a PlayStation peripheral. It's been an interesting process to observe and be involved in.
How does it all actually work, then? It varies between the eight rounds, but all of them use very simple TV game show-style gameplay. Sometimes you answer a multiple-choice question, other times you buzz in when you see the right answer. During development we tried all sorts of sophisticated gameplay, but we found that if you couldn't describe what you do in a sentence then your gran probably wouldn't get it.
There are 1,000 music clips and 5,000 questions in the game, and four players can take part, each with their own buzzer. Question categories include 'name the artist', 'movie trivia', 'name the album' etc, but in truth this isn't a game to establish who knows the most about music. If the same person won the game each time then it wouldn't be much fun for the others. We try and set up the gameplay to level the playing field. Also, there are no difficulty levels, but we let players select the era of music to answer questions on.
How has the game evolved since your initial ideas? Our first art style we presented was best described as 'golden age of gameshow' meets 'crazy kitsch'. The hostess was a talking cactus the music clips came from a singing clam. Sony, quite correctly, suggested a more mainstream look. That said, I think the host of the game, Buzz, carries some DNA from that original art style.
Clearly the idea of a quiz game isn't new, but it's the controller that really separates Buzz from other trivia titles. How important do you think it's going to be in the success of the game? I think that the videogame industry takes a controller for granted, but a lot of people look at it with fear. A standard controller has 13 buttons and three directional inputs, which correctly or incorrectly, is intimidating for non- gamers. Our buzzers have a big red buzzer and four coloured selection buttons which is not dissimilar to a simple TV remote. That seems about the right level of complexity, but we would have made the game work with just one button if we could.
Any plans for an online multiplayer version? Always on connectivity is something that makes all sorts of ideas possible. We'd love to do online tournaments and some kind of functionality that let you play along with a real TV show, but the truth is that for the casual gamer always-on connectivity is some way off.
