Morbus
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
RPG Codex has just published a long and interesting interview with Maciej “Augustus” Prósiński, Afterfall’s Lead Designer. Here’s a snippet:<blockquote>Will there be multiple solutions for quests, and different outcomes depending on your choices? If yes, to what extent? Do you have any example of a quest?
Quests will have many solutions, most of which will only be available to a player character with specific skills. Thanks to the plot bypasses you will often come upon completely alternative solutions, for example, to convince someone to help you, you will use acquaintance with some important characters. It is worth to mention that certain choices in performing a quest will bear various, sometimes long-term consequences. Some of the suggested paths may also prove to be dead-ends.
As for the endings, we have adapted for ourselves the brilliant, but for an unknown reason never repeated solution from Fallout – the modular epilogue. After finishing the game and watching the outro presenting the consequence of the path you have chosen, you will also be able to see the fate of the world and its individual locations which you have influenced by your actions or non-action. (...)
How will you be able to interact with NPCs [talk with them, steal from them etc.], and will there be NPC schedules like in Gothic or Ultima VII?
Conversation, pickpocketing, attacking or trade are standards. Apart from that many NPCs will be able to provide medical care, fix your gear, do some cyber-prosthetics or create objects from the provided components. Stealth action includes also knockout – a character who did not see who took their lights out with a gourd hit to the back of the head, will not blame anyone particular for it. Most untypical interactions will be effected via the dialog box. We wish to be able to present to the players virtually any event; if not with graphics or sound (which cannot render, for example, the smell of the sewer), then with the classic combination: narration plus black-out. The NPCs have schedules, but the scope and mechanics of them is not as elaborate as in Gothic or Oblivion. (...)
By what games or other media (movies, books) has Afterfall been influenced?
(...) Among the games influencing our work, most are also classic for the genre: Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate series, KOTOR I and II, Deus Ex.... and of course both parts of Fallout. On the other hand, tactical games have also left their mark: Silent Storm and Brigade E5, and also stealth action games like Thief and Splinter Cell. (...)
What effects does the environment have on your character? Do you, for example, have to wear sufficient clothing in cold areas or take damage from the cold?
The issue of temperature is quite simplified in Afterfall. If an armor or clothes offer enough protection from temperature damage, heat or cold will not be doing any harm. The surroundings do however play a big practical role. The realistic cost of action and realistic damage dealt in combat make it worthwhile to seek cover from enemy fire or for the time of magazine change, to attack through windows, jump over fences, climb to roofs, etc. Every wall, pit or mound can have tactical importance. It gets even more interesting with stealth action. Then you have to look out for lights and shadows, the loudness of the surfaces, or sound sources which can drown out your footsteps. These mechanisms work two ways – if the character is high on drugs or adrenalin, he risks tripping (no pun intended) on terrain which is too difficult.</blockquote>There’s still a lot more to read. Just follow the link.
Quests will have many solutions, most of which will only be available to a player character with specific skills. Thanks to the plot bypasses you will often come upon completely alternative solutions, for example, to convince someone to help you, you will use acquaintance with some important characters. It is worth to mention that certain choices in performing a quest will bear various, sometimes long-term consequences. Some of the suggested paths may also prove to be dead-ends.
As for the endings, we have adapted for ourselves the brilliant, but for an unknown reason never repeated solution from Fallout – the modular epilogue. After finishing the game and watching the outro presenting the consequence of the path you have chosen, you will also be able to see the fate of the world and its individual locations which you have influenced by your actions or non-action. (...)
How will you be able to interact with NPCs [talk with them, steal from them etc.], and will there be NPC schedules like in Gothic or Ultima VII?
Conversation, pickpocketing, attacking or trade are standards. Apart from that many NPCs will be able to provide medical care, fix your gear, do some cyber-prosthetics or create objects from the provided components. Stealth action includes also knockout – a character who did not see who took their lights out with a gourd hit to the back of the head, will not blame anyone particular for it. Most untypical interactions will be effected via the dialog box. We wish to be able to present to the players virtually any event; if not with graphics or sound (which cannot render, for example, the smell of the sewer), then with the classic combination: narration plus black-out. The NPCs have schedules, but the scope and mechanics of them is not as elaborate as in Gothic or Oblivion. (...)
By what games or other media (movies, books) has Afterfall been influenced?
(...) Among the games influencing our work, most are also classic for the genre: Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate series, KOTOR I and II, Deus Ex.... and of course both parts of Fallout. On the other hand, tactical games have also left their mark: Silent Storm and Brigade E5, and also stealth action games like Thief and Splinter Cell. (...)
What effects does the environment have on your character? Do you, for example, have to wear sufficient clothing in cold areas or take damage from the cold?
The issue of temperature is quite simplified in Afterfall. If an armor or clothes offer enough protection from temperature damage, heat or cold will not be doing any harm. The surroundings do however play a big practical role. The realistic cost of action and realistic damage dealt in combat make it worthwhile to seek cover from enemy fire or for the time of magazine change, to attack through windows, jump over fences, climb to roofs, etc. Every wall, pit or mound can have tactical importance. It gets even more interesting with stealth action. Then you have to look out for lights and shadows, the loudness of the surfaces, or sound sources which can drown out your footsteps. These mechanisms work two ways – if the character is high on drugs or adrenalin, he risks tripping (no pun intended) on terrain which is too difficult.</blockquote>There’s still a lot more to read. Just follow the link.
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