In our regular PC/Mac titles, the Hidden Object experience is very casual and relaxed. It’s launching as a Facebook exclusive and it was designed specifically for the way people play Facebook games.

Question 4: Will Hidden Agenda be exclusive to Facebook? If so, why was this venue chosen over the more traditional PC/Mac release? Then to add a layer of depth, we created a hidden agenda for every character in the game – something that each character is hiding but the player can discover. When you see a lion, you immediately assume he’s forceful and aggressive and at the top of the food chain. We’ve found that players have an immediate rapport with the characters without requiring a lot of description or dialogue. We leave it to the player’s imaginations as to whether the characters are actually animals, or if this is a metaphor for their human personalities. Incidentally, we weren’t entirely consistent on that division. When the head of a family is an apex predator, you know you should really watch yourself around him. This wasn’t intentional, but it shows the kind of message you can get across about a character just by trading on what different animals represent. We were working with the idea of two competing families and – as it worked out – all the members of the progress-driven family wound up being carnivores and all the members of the traditional family were herbivores. Question 3: Continuing from the previous question, is there symbolism behind the chosen characters and the roles that they play?

Characters immediately became more sinister, or silly, or endearing. As soon as he did this, everything seemed different. His idea was to make everyone animals but treat them as regular characters – no corny animal names or gags. This was suggested by Nelson, our Lead Artist on the project. What drove the theme of animal characters? Question 2: According to the initial screenshot release, animals were depicted as the community population.

About a year ago, we built a small team around Rick Davidson, the Game Director, and started experimenting with what worked best. My role in the game was to build a team to take everything we learned creating successful HOG franchises like Mystery PI and Vacation Quest and bring this sort of fun to Facebook. I’m Kurt Busch, the Executive Producer for Hidden Object games at PopCap and the General Manager of the Vancouver studio. Question 1: I would first like to begin by asking, “Who are you, and what is your role in the creation of Hidden Agenda?” And I have acquired much needed information from the stealthy hands of Hidden Object Executive Producer, Kurt Busch. PopCap has recently launched the beta for their Facebook title, Hidden Agenda. “An interview conducted with PopCap Games”

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