Rosewater

When Francisco González has discovered adventure games with the NES version of King’s Quest V, he has immediately liked the emphasis this game puts on the exploration of its universe. Subsequently, he has extended his experiences in this genre notably to games developed and published by LucasArts, by Sierra and by Revolution Software. The Gabriel Knight and Broken Sword series have particularly made a deep impression on him: more precisely, he enjoys their way of spreading supernatural elements in our world. This dichotomy then tends to ponctuate the games created by Francisco González, whether the locations in which the scenario takes place really exist or are inspired by our world. This duality shows through his first project, Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator: this series contains eight adventure games which have been developed between 2004 and 2012, after he has discovered Adventure Game Studio (or AGS; a freeware which allows to create adventure games) in 2001. Creating these freewares allowed him to acquire experience in programming and in graphics designing thanks to AGS detailed documentation, and also to learn to complete the games on which he is working before publishing them. He has previously tried other adventure games creation sofwares, but AGS is the only one who allows him to fully realise his ideas. In 2013, he decided to make a living from video games creation under the company name Grundislav Games, and nowadays, he continues to use AGS. His first commercial game was A Golden Wake, which has been published in 2014 by Wadjet Eye Games, and which narrates the ascent then downfall of a real estate agent in Miami during the 1920’s. Francisco González thinks that the lack of success of this game is due to the fact that it mainly focuses on historical background rather than on characters and scenario. However, exploring this era mattered to him, because it fascinates him and he comes from Miami. In 2016, Wadjet Eye Games has also published Shardlight: Francisco González has developed this game along with Ben Chandler, who has designed the background arts and characters sprites of several games developed or published by Wadjet Eye Games. Shardlight takes place in a post-apocalyptic universe: a young woman is searching for a remedy to cure a mortal illness, and will overthrow a corrupted government.

The investigation game Lamplight City is the third commercial game created by Francisco González: it has been published in 2018 by Application Systems Heidelberg. The development of the scenario is influenced by your commitment in the different investigations and by your capability to resolve each of them. Therefore, each of your actions may open or close leads: the investigations can then be completed in different manners, and you can even fail to resolve them. The scenario of Lamplight City takes place in the port town which gave its name to the game: this city is located in the fictive land of New Bretagne and is notably inspired by the New Orleans. The world in which the scenario takes place is an alternative 19th century: the American Revolutionary War has not occurred, while the British settlements located in North America, which are here called Commonwealth of Vespuccia[1], have not become free from the kingdom of Great Britain. The technologies used in this alternative world are inspired by Steampunk, while scientists has discovered a mysterious energy named aethericity and are studying its potential. Due to the considerable time he has invested in the creation of this universe which echoes ours, Francisco González wanted to reuse it and to develop it in another game. He has then dropped the rainy atmosphere, the narrow streets and the victorian aesthetics of Lamplight City, in order to concentrate on the vast arid plains of North America during the Wild West, a geographical background suitable for adventures and treasure hunting. Francisco González then began in january 2019 the development of his most ambitious game, Rosewater, which has been published on march 27, 2025, by Application Systems Heidelberg. He has created several elements of the game, namely graphics, animations, writing and programming. His partner, Jess Haskins, has worked on Lamplight City as script editor, and her role on Rosewater has been extended to the writing of dialogues and of events you can experiment during the second act. The musics, the illustrations of the cards used in one of the events of the second chapter, and the drawings which illustrate the story related by Nadine in one of her personal events have been made by other artists. The main character of Rosewater, Harley Leger, contributes to reinforce the link between the two games: besides coming from New Bretagne, she is the sister of Bill Leger, a character who dies at the beginning of Lamplight City, and whose voice is haunting the protagonist throughout the scenario. Lastly, as if to emphasise that these games both share the same universe, Rosewater and Lamplight City belong to the same series named World of Vespuccia on Steam. However, you can play Rosewater and enjoy its scenario without having played Lamplight City beforehand.

Harley Leger, a former boxer who is searching to become a writer, goes in the remote town of Rosewater in order to apply to a job advertisement for a local newspaper. Whereas she is experimenting various incidents as soon as she went out of the railway station, her first writing mission entails to write an eulogistic article about the showman Jake Ackerman, who is currently performing at Rosewater. When she finally meets Jake, the latter is being attacked by one of his colleagues, and he is impressed by Harley’s pugilist talents. He then decides to hire her for the expedition he intends to accomplish. He is searching for the fortune of the doctor Bennett Clark, a researcher who has mysteriously disappeared after he has fallen into disfavour because of accident which has occurred in Lamplight City. Harley sees this adventure as an opportunity to write an ambitious article, and she then accepts Jake’s offer. Besides Harley and Jake, four other members will quickly join their team: Danny Luo, Jake’s assistant; Filomeno “Phil” Marquez, a revolutionary who comes from New Spain; Nadine Redbird, a Native American who is knowledgeable about medicine; Lola Johnson, a taciturn and solitary woman who owns the vehicle in which the protagonists will travel during the second act.

Harley’s journey starts in Rosewater, a town located in the middle of an arid region which evokes the Wild West era, and ends in El Presidio, a large city located in the north-west of Western Vespuccia. As Harley and her allies get closer to their destination, the sparse-vegetation and occasionnally mountain-bordered arid plains are progressively replaced by wooded and verdurous lands. Even though El Presidio is a lot more broader than Rosewater, the restricted number of places that the protagonists can visit is justified: they arrive during the night, and they do not have time to wait for the next day to complete their objective. The diversity of skies overhanging the different visited places contributes to evoke the considerable length of the journey. Shades of yellow, orange and red, which suggest early morning or the end of the afternoon, are towering above the areas surrounding Rosewater, when Harley is investigating the location of the treasure she and her allies are searching. The events related in the second act are taking place during the daytime, under an evenly and cloudless light-blue sky, an overcast weather or a crepuscular sky. In the evening, before going to sleep in their tents, the protagonists are gathering around a campfire to eat and talk under a nocturnal sky, whose purple hues bring out its countless stars. Harley’s and her allies’ adventures are supported by a soundtrack composed by Mark Benis, and its tracks are used in a similar way as those of Broken Sword. While ambiance themes are continuously played in some places, several of them are immersed in a silence which brings out their environmental sound effects. Occasionally, a music is discreetly played to highlight the actions necessary to progress in the game, the discovery of an important item, or the resolution of a puzzle.

Harley’s allies are each characterised by their respective background, their hobbies or their profession, their way of speaking and their behaviour. Moreover, they stand out from numerous other video games protagonists by their ages: while the younger one is in his early twenties, four of them are in their forties, starting with Harley herself, who is 45 years old. Their respective identity also shows through their gesture, which is supported by accurate and credible animations. To obtain this result, Francisco González used the method of rotoscoping: he filmed himself or other persons while they were performing the actions he wanted to include in his game, and he then traced over each record frame by frame in order to attribute these actions to the characters. This process allows to get more lifelike and believable actions, and notably to make more fluid the animations realised during the cutscenes, in order to amplify the tension which emanates from these scenes. Lastly, each line of dialogue also shows the care provided to the characters, who are dubbed by renowned voice actors. Francisco González signed an agreement with the Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). This trade union defends the rights of the actors and actresses working in cultural domains (cinema, video games, music, etc.), advertising, television and radio. This decision allowed his game to get at a reduced price for indie-developers the performances of members of this trade union, in exchange for respecting the conditions protecting the actors’ and actresses’ rights. Because of the limited budget he initially owned to develop Rosewater, Francisco González thought that he could not reach an agreement with the SAG-AFTRA. According to his estimate, the creation of Rosewater would cost twice the sum required to develop Lamplight City. However, remote work has spread out since the Covid pandemic in 2020, including in the voice acting domain, and studio rental was then unnecessary. At the same time, his publisher accepted to increase the budget allocated to voice acting. Rosewater then got voice acting for each line of dialogue from actors and actresses of the SAG-AFTRA.

The considerable care which the main characters has received is justified by the numerous dialogues and events. Thus, your opinion about Rosewater will mainly depend on your attachment to its characters. Indeed, if each protagonist comes from different Vespuccian ethnic groups, and that the latter can participate to events echoing historical events, these stories only serve as background to develop the worldbuilding of Vespuccia, because the scenario does not focus on them. The fact that the narration concentrates on Harley and her allies shows through the game structure and the distribution of its three acts. The first act takes place in Rosewater and its vicinity: Harley’s first writing mission is to interview Jake, before the latter asks her to participate in his expedition. While this chapter can lead to only one outcome, namely Harley accepts to participate in Jake’s expedition, the game grants some leeways to complete this objective, because several puzzles allow at least two solutions. According to Francisco González, this flexibility is permitted by Harley’s career change: since she decided to abandon the boxing domain in order to become a writer, she presents a versatile profile. The second act is the longer chapter of Rosewater: it narrates Harley’s and her allies’ journey to El Presidio, as their expedition is constantly halted by several events. The game then constantly alternates between three types of phases: conversations between Harley and her allies in the vehicle while they are traveling; events occurring during the daytime; the gathering of the protagonists around a campfire at nightfall, this last phase being an opportunity for them to learn to know each other. The second phase, namely events daily halting the journey, can be divided in three categories: fixed passages which systematically occur during each game; events randomly determined in each game and called “Vignettes”; scenes involving Harley and one of her allies: they each possess two different scenes, knowing that the one you will see is determined by Harley’s relation score with the concerned character. After you have beaten Rosewater at least once, you unlock the New Game +, which allows you to choose the Vignettes that will occur during the second act, and thus to see the ones you have not seen during your precedent game. Lastly, the structure of the third act is similar to the structure of the first act: it is more linear because there is no random events, while the objective allows only one outcome, but it enables several ways of reaching that outcome, knowing that the available options will be determined by the actions realised during the second act.

Throughout the game, Rosewater implicitly estimates Harley’s level of relationship with each of her allies. These scores are based on the answers you choose during the dialogues, the characters to whom you talk in the vehicle during the journey interludes, or the character with whom you agree when several of them express their opinion or suggest a solution to a problem. Playing in New Game + allows you to check at any time Harley’s relationship scores with her five allies. You can then decide to let yourself be carried again by your choices, or to search to optimise your game by trying to reach the least negative outcomes with each characters. Since the narration focuses on the protagonists and that the game design estimates their relationships, it is not surprising that the scenes which echo historical events are pushed in the background. Indeed, besides the fact that Rosewater avoids numerous commonplaces inherent to the western genre, its characters’ objective is neither to prevent a war to occur, nor to spark a revolt, nor to get involved in whatever other ambitious project implying to save one or several individuals or a land. Their objective is simply to find a treasure whose existence is only alleged. If it could seem surprising that characters who are supposed to be involved in the above-mentioned background events have instead decided to join Jake’s expedition, each one of them presents a reason for wanting his or her own share of the wealth promised by their quest, whether his or her motivation is purely personal or directly linked to the said events. Furthermore, the fact that Harley and her allies share a more modest objective than many other video games protagonists contributes to make these characters human and endearing. However, while at first sight, Jake’s true objective seems unclear because of his evasiveness, in reality, it turns out to be more ambitious than a simple treasure hunting, but it will be revealed later on. If these choices may disconcert, they are actually consistent with the intimate aspect of the narration, the central place the characters occupy in the scenario, and the predominance of the second act. Indeed, by making these choices, Rosewater seems to get us to understand that the journey is as important as the destination, because it strengthens the bonds between the members who have joined. In order to continue to deconstruct set phrases, Rosewater also seems to consider that the end does not necessarily justify the means, because each action or inaction leads to consequences, whose impact and significance we can not estimate.

Given that its narration focuses on the relationships between Harley and her allies and on the road trip aspect of their journey resulting from this choice, Rosewater attaches importance to features inherent to adventure games. These features allow to know more about the universe and the characters, but tend to be unnecessary in terms of game design and scenario: examining each element with which the protagonist can interact in order to get a description; exhausting all of the topics of conversation with each character of the game. In Rosewater, these actions allow for example to avoid getting swindled by an opportunistic impostor, to help an individual to take an important decision, or to adopt a dog whose previous owners were seeing as an additional mouth to feed. Before he has discovered the adventure game genre by having played King’s Quest V, Francisco González has played the Dragon Quest series: he has particularly enjoyed the emphasis on exploration, the possibility to talk to secondary characters and the resolution of quests. These features show through the different events occurring during the second act, because Harley is exposed to additional objectives which can be uncorrelated from the scenario, and which allow her to visit Vespuccia. Harley writes down in her diary each decision she has taken and the actions she has made throughout her journey. This detail allows to keep track of her expedition, and potentially to compare the events you have seen with those seen by a friend or a relative who also plays the game. The considerable attention to detail that has been provided to Rosewater shows through other elements which are more or less understated. Keepsakes from the different excursions are progressively exposed in the vehicle in which the protagonists are travelling. Harley’s allies can pay attention to her answers or her behaviour in order to find inconsistencies in her remarks or to ask her about her habits (for example, if she systematically refuses to drink alcohol). Lastly, during the epilogue, while Harley is writing her article, she looks back on the adventure she has lived by summarising it: besides being enjoyable to listen to, this summary can be satisfying if each of the events the protagonists have been exposed to has been concluded by a favourable outcome.

While the narration attaches importance to the protagonists, sadly, the allies rarely help Harley directly to resolve the problems to which their group is exposed, even when said problems are directly concerning them (during the relational events involving Harley and one of her allies). Instead, they tend to limit themselves to talk to local secondary characters or to remain motionless in a corner of the screen. This lack of responsiveness is even more disappointing because besides the fact that each ally presents a speciality (for example, Nadine possesses medical knowledges), some of them can occasionally resolve some puzzles if Harley asks them to. For example, in the first act, if you are not able to aim, you can leave the shooting contest to Danny, and the latter will automatically win. This possibility to entrust a task that you are not capable of completing is a smartly incorporated accessibility option. On the whole, Rosewater puzzles can be divided into three categories: they can rest upon the few items you can pick up, they can require to make choices during the dialogues, or they can necessitate to pay attention to background elements (such as posters), knowing that several of them accept several solutions. Moreover, like other modern adventure games, Rosewater puzzles are supported by the narration and the scenario: therefore, their resolution mainly rests on logic, while their scope of action comes down to a restricted number of locations. This leads to puzzles that are easier than those of numerous adventure games which were released at the end of the 20th century, but that are also more adapted to universes which are inspired by our world. Indeed, Francisco González also enjoys this facet of the adventure game genre, but all the same, he does not want to sum it up to the madcap aspect to which it is often associated. He hopes that in the future, this genre will be more used to narrate more serious stories and interesting thematics. He also thinks that the absurd difficulty of the puzzles could have been responsible of the stagnation of the genre. Therefore, he affirms that adventure games need to evolve in order to persist, notably by focusing on the scenario and on the characters, and by assuming a more modern game design. Consequently, he tends to be annoyed when he reads or heards that his games would be tributes to adventure games from the end of the 20th century. If these games undeniably have contributed to shape his video games tastes and have inspired the creation of his own games, his objective is not to produce nostalgia for Lucas Arts, Sierra or Revolution Software 2D adventure games. The 2D graphics are due to the limited resources and capabilities he possesses to create his games. He wants his games to be appreciated for what they are, namely for their distinctive features and for the experiences they promise, rather than because they are compared to games which are reminiscent of good past memories for numerous adventure games fans.

Francisco González thinks that discovering the world in which the game takes place is one of the main strong points of the adventure game genre, but that this aspect must be supported by the narration in order to be consistent. Rosewater answers to this thought by temporarily pushing the scenario into the background during the second act, to allow the narration to focus on the protagonists’ journey and on the different events they are exposed to. Thus, the second act is the longest one, knowing that about ten hours are needed to beat the game. Whether they are Harley’s allies or individuals met during the journey, the characters occupy a central place in the narration. The different events which are occurring during the journey allow to explore different regions of Western Vespuccia, and to develop the relationships between the six protagonists. This leads to a game whose intimate dimension takes it away from the ambitious objectives the video games protagonists tend to possess, and whose game design encourages replayability, in order to see events you have missed during your first game or to change the outcome of some scenes.

Footnote

[1] Please not that the word “Vespuccia” is inspired by Amerigo Vespucci’s family name. He was a Florentine trader, navigator and explorer, and his first name has been used to name the North America and South America continents.

Bibliography

• Rubrique “About” of Grundislav Games official website: https://www.grundislav.games/About.html
• 19/06/2025. “Inside the Minds of Indie Devs — Interviewing Francisco González, the developer behind Rosewater and Lamplight City”: https://www.gtogg.com/News/en/Inside_the_Minds_of_Indie_Devs_Interviewing_Francisco_Gonzalez_the_developer_behind_Rosewater_and_Lamplight_City/
• 27/03/2025. “Saddling Up: Interview with Rosewater dev Francisco González”: https://www.nicegamehints.com/a/interview-francisco-gonzalez
• 12/08/2024. “How a Tiny Indie Game Managed to Recruit a Star-Studded Cast Featuring the Voices of Arthur Morgan and More”: https://www.ign.com/articles/how-a-tiny-indie-game-managed-to-recruit-a-star-studded-cast-featuring-the-voices-of-arthur-morgan-and-more
• 05/03/2021. “Beyond Pixels: Francisco González Talks Rosewater, and the Development, Design and Future of Adventure Gaming”: https://www.jumpdashroll.com/article/beyond-pixels-francisco-gonzalez-talks-rosewater-adventure-game-development-design-and-future
• 01/09/2021. “Developer interview: Rosewater (Gamescom)”: https://pressplaynews.net/2021/09/01/developer-interview-rosewater-gamescom/
• 12/09/2020. “Interview with Francisco Gonzalez”: https://mysterymanor.net/libintvrosewater.htm
• 01/09/2020. “Bending an Elbow With Grundislav Games”: https://maroonersrock.com/2020/09/interview-with-grundislav-games/
• 29/03/2019. “From Lamplight City to Rosewater — Francisco González GDC Interview”: https://monstervine.com/2019/03/from-lamplight-city-to-rosewater-francisco-gonzalez-gdc-interview/
• World of Vespuccia Steam webpage, a group of games to which Rosewater belongs: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/36657922/
• Steam forum webpage mentioning the ages of the protagonists: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1226670/discussions/0/603029860838835500/
• Wikipedia webpage about Amerigo Vespucci: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci

Pictures sources

• The artwork at the beginning of this article comes from the following webpage: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/ags-games-in-production/rosewater-a-western-drama-set-in-the-world-of-lamplight-city/20/
• The screenshots illustrating this article come from my gaming sessions on the game Rosewater.