The Cole's

[k0SH]

1) What have you done between your time at Sierra and Hero-U?

2) Are you playing games nowadays? If yes, which one(s) did you like?

3) When working together do you always have the same opinion or are you arguing a lot? If, who wins?

[Lori Cole]

In the time between Quest for Glory and the beginning of Hero-U, Corey and I ran an online "Correspondence School for Heroes" which was a combination of free-form role-playing and real life heroism. The School for Heroes was set in Silmaria and took place not long after the events of QG5.

The School for Heroes was a virtual game, but we wanted to make a real game.

Hero-U is built on that foundation and some of the events that occurred in the course of the Correspondence School. The instructors and the Headmaster moved the school to Sardonia after the correspondence and boarding school was closed down due to villainy.

In addition to the writing for the school, I took up photography and direction of the local artist association.

[neon]

There's a new kind of Live Game coming up here in Europe, it's actually a live version of room escape games, but in real. A group of people are locked up in a room and have to solve puzzles to escape in a given time. Is there anything similar happing in the US currently and did you try that?

[Corey Cole]

1) What have you done between your time at Sierra and Hero-U?

2) Are you playing games nowadays? If yes, which one(s) did you like?

3) When working together dou you always have the same opinion or are you arguing a lot? If, who wins?

1. We developed Shannara for Legend Entertainment. I worked on an online bridge game as part of the Passport2 project - we completed that, but the publisher closed the site to focus on educational games. I developed an online poker game called JetsetPoker that ran for several years, but closed because of changing government rules. (The UIGEA, Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act, made it impossible for players to fund their accounts.)

I also spent a short time at 2K Sports working on multiplayer tournament versions of NBA 2K.

Lori wrote an unpublished fantasy novel with Mishell Baker. They started the How to Be a Hero web site to promote the book, and Lori and I later changed that to http://www.theschoolforheroes.com. This site let people role-play heroes in their daily lives. I think some of my blogs on the site are still worth reading - http://www.theschoolforheroes.com/questlog.

2. I played World of Warcraft and Star Wars: the Old Republic for several years. I had to quit when we started work on Hero-U because those games take too much time.

3. We argue a lot - we prefer to call it "spirited discussion". Lori usually wins. But my arguments influence her, and she often incorporates them into the final design. We think that "working an idea back and forth" results in stronger designs.

[Lori Cole]

The only game I play now is the occasional World of Warcraft, managing my garrisons for a couple of hours after work. I've been playing WoW for ten years, with a brief hiatus when I played "Star Wars, the Old Republic."

When Corey and I have arguments about the game, the winner is usually the person who is in charge of that particular aspect of game design. Thus, I win with story elements, art, and characters, Corey wins with interface design and programming issues.

We argue frequently because we both have strong ideas of what makes a game better. This give and take of ideas allows us to refine the game. Of course, the team members add a great deal to game play. Each member brings new ideas and better ways to do things. The game will be better for this synergy of all the team members.