 The art direction and game design of this early sequence were handled by Deren.Research and development of the game's technology were key focuses during this time, as the team planned to use ray-traced and pre-rendered visuals at a resolution of 640x480, a technique that Nichols said "hadn't been done before" in a game.According to marketing manager Mike Yuen, the team worked extensively with focus groups while prototyping, both to refine "Timelapse" and to determine players' opinions on "Myst" and similar adventure titles.