Once Upon A Time

You Can't Kill Batman

"With fresh brands from fresh companies," says, Forbeck, "you sometimes feel like you've been given a map that says 'There Be Monsters Here' and been told to start exploring."

The key to getting it right, according to Despain, is the characters, "even if you don't know or understand them when you first start out. When the characters are born in your own brain you almost instantly know them intimately, but when they're someone else's creation you have to get to know them like you're making new friends. It takes a lot longer."

It can also be more work, not less. Chandler says he feels obligated to explore all the content available for a given world when taking on a franchise gig. "This gives me a feel for the 'mythology' of the series," he says, "and helps to contextualize the dev team's vision for this new installment. I also research all of the story and design documents pertaining to the franchise. This can add up to a hell of a lot of work."

What's critical is knowing where the boundaries are, as established by the creators of the world; knowing where they are and avoiding them.

"The characters are predefined, and you can't have them do anything that contradicts the past or drastically changes the future," says Orkin. "You can't kill off Batman or have him decide to have a sex change operation."

Despain knows that feeling all too well from her experience working on the BRATZ game, where she was expected to take entire episodes of the television series and translate them, more or less intact, to game form. "However, in every other case," she says, "I've been given a wide range for creating plots and even new characters or elements of the universe I'm playing in.

"I think it comes down to how clearly the IP owners have already envisioned the end product. Sometimes they know exactly what they want and just need someone else to make it real. Other times they just know they want something cool and hire people they trust to create something on their own."