In this episode, Soren interviews veteran game developer Charles Cecil, co-founder of Revolution Software and best known for his work on Beneath a Steel Sky and the Broken Sword series. They discuss why he made a game about the Knights Templar, how digital distribution changed the publisher-developer relationship forever, and what made the goat puzzle unfair. This interview was started on April 14, 2025.
Games discussed: King’s Quest series, Broken Sword series, Beneath a Steel Sky, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Lure of the Temptress, In Cold Blood, Gabriel Knight series, The Da Vinci Code, Darwinia, CLANG, Broken Age, Heavy Rain, Monkey Island series
https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/charles-cecil-part-2
The cost-per-task angle is underrated — most comparisons stop at raw benchmark scores. In practice the context window and retry behavior move the real monthly bill more than headline price. I have been benchmarking that across models before locking in a stack.
Really useful read. The bit about timing and resource management is what most guides skip. I’ve started logging codes and odds per patch so I stop grinding the wrong build each season.