The award-winning designer Brenda Romero has a piece of advice for developers wishing to make great games: "Look at whatever company you want to work for and see what their Metacritic rating is." If the Metacritic score is 85 or higher, "go join that team."
It's the "best piece of advice", she admits, she herself never took, which is arguably the reason why she's managed to rack up such a ridiculously diverse list of credits over the years.
During a fireside chat at Dark & Doomy, an event hosted by the organisation Game Republic in Wakefield, England, last week, Romero, for instance, regaled the audience with the story of her time working as a lead designer on Playboy: The Mansion, one of the more unusual games from her list of credits.
Playboy: The Mansion, just in case you're not among those who call themselves a proud collector, is a Sims-esque simulation game released in 2005 (for PC, PS2, and Xbox), which former game journalist Kieron Gillen once referred to as a "Hugh-Hefner-'em-up," and is an odd relic of a time when every company with a somewhat recognisable brand felt like it should have its own video game. The mandate for Cyberlore Studios' developers, therefore, was to take this somewhat racy brand, associated with things like adult entertainment, clubs, and magazines, and design an experience that would not only be fun and playable but also suitable for store shelves.
What they came up with was a magazine-publishing simulator in which players would need to organise cover shoots, dress the models, and produce enough content to fill a magazine each month, while also decorating their mansion with luxury goods.
"If games are about wish fulfillment, and you're like, 'I want to be Hugh Hefner,' What do you want to do as Hugh Hefner?" Romero asked the audience. "I already know the answer. But because of the time and the [fact that] it was on consoles, our only choice was like, 'I want to run a magazine empire.' So that's what the game is; it's really a magazine publishing simulation."
"I remember I was visiting with some friends in Memphis," she said, "And I remember I happened to be outside of this place that had like all these [magazines] like Hustler and Penthouse, and I saw this guy come out the door, and he had magazines in a brown paper bag. I remember being like, 'That's what I want somebody to feel like coming out of a store with Playboy,' but we couldn't do it. We literally couldn't."
Because the game also had to be certified by various platform holders for console, Playboy: The Mansion ended up being much tamer than the license implied. Players were able to develop relationships with NPCs in the world, and there was a fair amount of scantily clad characters in the game, but Hefner would notably be physically unable to remove his underwear during intercourse, leading sex to hold about as much appeal as "clipping your toenails" in the words of one IGN reviewer.
As somewhat of a workaround for this, its developer, Cyberlore Studios, later released an NSFW expansion called Private Party exclusively for PC, allowing players to view their characters' pixelated junk. This expansion, however, would be rated "Adults only" instead of the original game's "M for mature." Brenda, meanwhile, would only be credited with "additional design", while another designer, Jeb Havens, would serve as its lead designer.
Reflecting on the Playboy project now, Romero states she likely wouldn't work on a similar project today, on account of the magazine's complicated legacy and what she knows now, but is grateful to have "learned a lot" from the experience and credits it with inspiring the research that was eventually published in her book, Sex in Video Games.
"I learned a lot of good things that Hugh Hefner did," said Romero. "Like the fact that you could send birth control from, say, New York State to Pennsylvania, and that birth control became available for women nationwide was largely down to Hugh Hefner. He [also] broke the colour barrier in all kinds of different ways."
"But then, there's another part, which is like using the female figure as ornamentation. So I look back on that, and if I had the choice to do it again, I wouldn't. But I learned a lot making it, which is part of game development, and I also got some really good stories out of it."
For example, she revealed some of the strange rules placed on the team involving the portrayal of the Playboy bunnies and why Hugh Hefner's character proved a pain to test.
"Playboy Bunnies could never take their shoes off," said Romero. "Ever. And so they would jump in the pool fully clothed with their shoes on. Also, Hugh Hefner, because he's super cool, could never run or go fast; Hugh had to shuffle. But the thing is, because the shuffling was slow, in testing, we would actually tape down the controller to speed him up. It was so funny. I feel like I made an adventure game starring Hugh Hefner."
For better or worse, Playboy: The Mansion never received a sequel, following the release of Private Party, with recent Playboy games typically being developed for mobile platforms and being mostly unrelated.
Do you happen to own a copy of Playboy: The Mansion? Would you tell us even if you did? Let us know in the comments, or forever hold your peace!