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Swery details what influenced the creation of The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
Swery has made a bunch of games that very obviously have been influenced by some movies and TV shows over the years, but The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories is very different. It's a type of game Swery hasn't ever worked on before, but that doesn't mean there aren't another set of aspects influencing the game. In an interview with Venturbeat, Swery touches on some of those influences.
When I was growing up, I was very inspired by games like Prince of Persia and the game that you mentioned, Out of This World, Another World. Those were great. But after a while, those games kind of died down. They weren’t very popular. But nowadays you see great games again like Limbo, Inside, and Ori, things like that. I thought this was a good opportunity for me to jump on that wagon.
I’ve always wanted to make a side-scrolling game, so this was a great opportunity. Now that I’ve decided on making a side-scrolling game, I wanted to make it unique — something only I could do.
In a side-scrolling game you have a stage, you have objects, you have enemies, and you have characters, but I wanted to take it a step further. My idea was to add that fifth element in the character themselves, where they would be part of the game mechanics.
I mentioned earlier about using that character and the immortality aspect. You don’t see a lot of immortal characters in games because you need a game over. You need the characters to be somewhat mortal. Combining the immortality of the main character and the aspect of using that character as part of the gimmick — when we combined those things, this is what came out of it.