Quite a while ago, gry.o2.pl held a big interview with Intoxicate, developers of Afterfall. It was supposed to be translated right quick, but instead it took quite a while. Nonetheless, the Afterfall official site finally has the full translation for you.<blockquote>Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): How would you briefly describe Afterfall: Prelude and Afterfall to those, who are yet unfamiliar with your projects?
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): Unlike Afterfall, AF: Prelude is going to be a short cRPG, for a few hours of play. The idea for its creation came up when we were considering the question of a demo. The Prelude will be out before the unveiling of Afterfall, instead of a demo, and will introduce the players to the world we have created, as well as reveal some aspects of the game. The Prelude’s plot, the story of two looters exploring some ruins untouched since the atomic war, is going to be connected with the events of the proper game.
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): The plot of Afterfall is about…
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): …the fate of a human who is suddenly stranded in an extremely hostile world. He can depend solely upon himself, and the world around him for some reason will not stop harassing him. The plot of Afterfall tells also of humanity and of being stripped of it, of survival, of mutilation, and of the strive for perfection. It is about ambition which requires the sacrifice of many lives to fulfill. It is about people and societies put in extremely hard conditions, about how those conditions changed them, and continue to change and re-shape their children.
(...)
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): How are we going to conduct fighting? What opponents are going to stand in our way and what will they be capable of?
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): Fighting will be facilitated by the mechanisms of dynamic turn-based combat. Only a turn-based system allows for the use of as wide a range of possibilities as the one our combat affords. Gamers have expressed their concern about this element from the beginning – today turn-based games are associated by many of us with a want of dynamics and action, or with games tending towards oldschool or radically niche. We have the ambition to show to the players that this solution has been undeservedly abandoned. In Afterfall you will see many revolutionary ideas, the implementation of which would have been impossible in real-time – ironically, due to interface limitations. Combat in Afterfall, in spite of being turn-based, is going to be full of dodging, seeking cover, counter-attacking and evading. The ballistics simulator will make you want to duck, seeing bullets hit right next to your character’s head. Increased muscle mass, resulting from mutation, will allow throwing your opponents against walls. An assassin appearing behind and struggling with the character, or an enemy opening fire through a wooden wall because he heard you, can give you quite a scare. Combat is also influenced by the equipment you use. Apart from classic weapons there are numerous home-made devices such as catapults, customized nailers, spring-powered launchers, or bearing-ball shooters. There are grenades, including smoke, gas and flash, heavy powered armor, and even vehicles, which also function in turns. The opponents you are going to encounter will often surprise you with their skill at coordinating their actions, seeking good positions, setting traps, and often… with a complete lack of combat skills. In the end, a trained soldier is a rarity in a post-nuclear world. Often you will see an opponent fleeing in panic and tripping over a comrade’s body, an enemy trying to hide from you while loudly panting from fear and thus revealing their location, discharging in panic all of their ammunition within seconds and without accuracy, escaping their own grenade, begging for mercy… sometimes, only to mysteriously change their mind as you turn your back, and shoot you in it. In Afterfall you rarely fight with the ‘bad guys’. More often with ordinary people, sometimes crippled by mutation, who just like yourself are trying to survive. It is just that their method requires you to die or give up your food or valuables. It is worth to remember that a desperate or panicked person can be much more dangerous than ten rational and therefore predictable people. Underestimating the enemy can cost you everything. Another group of opponents are different mutated animals, of varied intelligence and physical strength. Some of them attack in packs, others hunt by lying in wait and attacking by surprise. Some jump at their victim with extended claws. Some others will attack you only if in spite of roars and warnings you get too close to them.
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): Can you reveal to us something about the quests?
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): Practically any group of people has some kind of job to offer to you. Everybody needs a helping hand, everybody has problems, therefore there will be plenty of quests in Afterfall, quests of all sorts. From the schematic ‘go, kill, get’ kind, to missions which seem simple at the beginning, but turn out to be a load of trouble. The thing that is going to surprise the player in comparison to other games is that virtually no one can be trusted, and the greater the reward for a seemingly easier task, the more probably there is a catch, something is amiss, or the employer is simply going to try to get rid of you after the job is done, or at best renounce the whole thing. Verifying and figuring out the employers’ true intentions is going to be paramount. Another thing is to consider if you were told everything about the quest itself, for example about the person you are supposed to kill, or the sealed cargo you are to transport. Do you really know the consequences of what you are about to do… Of course, moral dilemmas do not have to concern you at all. It is worth to mention the so-called ‘bypasses’, which could come as a reward for quest completion. These are events relating to important quests and influencing the options available in them. Let me give an example. You have a quest requiring you to infiltrate the structures of one of Warsaw’s gangs. The employer will usually suggest 2 or 3 methods of achieving that. However, if at some point the hero becomes the champion of the Warsaw combat arena, the boss of that gang will come to him on his own, with a proposition of membership and high status. That is going to create a shortcut, bypassing a dozen or so tasks that you would otherwise have to perform for the group before you got close enough to the boss. There is going to be a lot of such bypasses interweaving different threads, including the main one, and discovering them all will be very difficult even with several passings of the game. Thanks to this method, the more important a quest, the more ways there will be to complete it, both obvious ones and ones scattered across the world as bypasses. There will also be solutions available to characters with special abilities. Seeking access to a guarded building, a stealthy player will use lockpicks, and sneak behind the guards’ backs; a technician may divert their attention with sabotage; a hero skilled at hand to hand combat may jump them by surprise and knock them unconscious; an able soldier, attack frontally; a strong mutant, uh… throw a table at them?; a speaker, convince the guards to let him in, etc. Most often, the players will employ combined approaches, just as the abilities of their characters are going to be. A character who is a speaker and a thief may first persuade the guards to leave their post, and then open the door with a key stolen from one of their pockets. Career quests in different organizations deserve a separate mention. Each major organization, if you hadn’t antagonized them before, will be willing to accept you in its ranks. In some cases advancing high in the hierarchy will allow the hero to solve many of his problems with the help of the organization’s contacts, and sometimes even its military might.
(...)
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): Aren’t you afraid of exaggerated reactions after the unveiling of the game? I mean the plans of introducing slave trade and sex into the game world, which can cause an uproar, especially among non-players.
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): The game will be rated 18+. We certainly will not give up our plans on that account. Besides, the game will not contain anything more drastic or ‘dirty’ than some movies set in similar conditions (the ‘Mad Max’ series, ‘The Postman’, ‘Waterworld’), which were sometimes allowed for 16-year-olds, or than certain literary works from the post-apocalyptic genre, without age limits. As for the pseudo-experts who have little scientific methodology under their belt, or politicians speaking out on these matters without knowing anything about them… we simply do not care about their opinions. Especially that we are going to introduce a series of filters, which can turn off most of the gore in Afterfall.
(...)
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): What would you say is the current stage of the game development?
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): We have concluded the preproduction process, as well as world design on the level of detail which we call ‘preliminary design’. Currently we are completing the set of materials presenting our game, and the first of the planned technical demos, which we shall demonstrate to the publishers interested in our project. The future of the enterprise hinges on the outcome of these negotiations.[/i]</blockquote>Link: “If you are disappointed with the Fallout 3 preview, check this out…” - full interview on Afterfall official site.
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): Unlike Afterfall, AF: Prelude is going to be a short cRPG, for a few hours of play. The idea for its creation came up when we were considering the question of a demo. The Prelude will be out before the unveiling of Afterfall, instead of a demo, and will introduce the players to the world we have created, as well as reveal some aspects of the game. The Prelude’s plot, the story of two looters exploring some ruins untouched since the atomic war, is going to be connected with the events of the proper game.
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): The plot of Afterfall is about…
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): …the fate of a human who is suddenly stranded in an extremely hostile world. He can depend solely upon himself, and the world around him for some reason will not stop harassing him. The plot of Afterfall tells also of humanity and of being stripped of it, of survival, of mutilation, and of the strive for perfection. It is about ambition which requires the sacrifice of many lives to fulfill. It is about people and societies put in extremely hard conditions, about how those conditions changed them, and continue to change and re-shape their children.
(...)
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): How are we going to conduct fighting? What opponents are going to stand in our way and what will they be capable of?
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): Fighting will be facilitated by the mechanisms of dynamic turn-based combat. Only a turn-based system allows for the use of as wide a range of possibilities as the one our combat affords. Gamers have expressed their concern about this element from the beginning – today turn-based games are associated by many of us with a want of dynamics and action, or with games tending towards oldschool or radically niche. We have the ambition to show to the players that this solution has been undeservedly abandoned. In Afterfall you will see many revolutionary ideas, the implementation of which would have been impossible in real-time – ironically, due to interface limitations. Combat in Afterfall, in spite of being turn-based, is going to be full of dodging, seeking cover, counter-attacking and evading. The ballistics simulator will make you want to duck, seeing bullets hit right next to your character’s head. Increased muscle mass, resulting from mutation, will allow throwing your opponents against walls. An assassin appearing behind and struggling with the character, or an enemy opening fire through a wooden wall because he heard you, can give you quite a scare. Combat is also influenced by the equipment you use. Apart from classic weapons there are numerous home-made devices such as catapults, customized nailers, spring-powered launchers, or bearing-ball shooters. There are grenades, including smoke, gas and flash, heavy powered armor, and even vehicles, which also function in turns. The opponents you are going to encounter will often surprise you with their skill at coordinating their actions, seeking good positions, setting traps, and often… with a complete lack of combat skills. In the end, a trained soldier is a rarity in a post-nuclear world. Often you will see an opponent fleeing in panic and tripping over a comrade’s body, an enemy trying to hide from you while loudly panting from fear and thus revealing their location, discharging in panic all of their ammunition within seconds and without accuracy, escaping their own grenade, begging for mercy… sometimes, only to mysteriously change their mind as you turn your back, and shoot you in it. In Afterfall you rarely fight with the ‘bad guys’. More often with ordinary people, sometimes crippled by mutation, who just like yourself are trying to survive. It is just that their method requires you to die or give up your food or valuables. It is worth to remember that a desperate or panicked person can be much more dangerous than ten rational and therefore predictable people. Underestimating the enemy can cost you everything. Another group of opponents are different mutated animals, of varied intelligence and physical strength. Some of them attack in packs, others hunt by lying in wait and attacking by surprise. Some jump at their victim with extended claws. Some others will attack you only if in spite of roars and warnings you get too close to them.
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): Can you reveal to us something about the quests?
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): Practically any group of people has some kind of job to offer to you. Everybody needs a helping hand, everybody has problems, therefore there will be plenty of quests in Afterfall, quests of all sorts. From the schematic ‘go, kill, get’ kind, to missions which seem simple at the beginning, but turn out to be a load of trouble. The thing that is going to surprise the player in comparison to other games is that virtually no one can be trusted, and the greater the reward for a seemingly easier task, the more probably there is a catch, something is amiss, or the employer is simply going to try to get rid of you after the job is done, or at best renounce the whole thing. Verifying and figuring out the employers’ true intentions is going to be paramount. Another thing is to consider if you were told everything about the quest itself, for example about the person you are supposed to kill, or the sealed cargo you are to transport. Do you really know the consequences of what you are about to do… Of course, moral dilemmas do not have to concern you at all. It is worth to mention the so-called ‘bypasses’, which could come as a reward for quest completion. These are events relating to important quests and influencing the options available in them. Let me give an example. You have a quest requiring you to infiltrate the structures of one of Warsaw’s gangs. The employer will usually suggest 2 or 3 methods of achieving that. However, if at some point the hero becomes the champion of the Warsaw combat arena, the boss of that gang will come to him on his own, with a proposition of membership and high status. That is going to create a shortcut, bypassing a dozen or so tasks that you would otherwise have to perform for the group before you got close enough to the boss. There is going to be a lot of such bypasses interweaving different threads, including the main one, and discovering them all will be very difficult even with several passings of the game. Thanks to this method, the more important a quest, the more ways there will be to complete it, both obvious ones and ones scattered across the world as bypasses. There will also be solutions available to characters with special abilities. Seeking access to a guarded building, a stealthy player will use lockpicks, and sneak behind the guards’ backs; a technician may divert their attention with sabotage; a hero skilled at hand to hand combat may jump them by surprise and knock them unconscious; an able soldier, attack frontally; a strong mutant, uh… throw a table at them?; a speaker, convince the guards to let him in, etc. Most often, the players will employ combined approaches, just as the abilities of their characters are going to be. A character who is a speaker and a thief may first persuade the guards to leave their post, and then open the door with a key stolen from one of their pockets. Career quests in different organizations deserve a separate mention. Each major organization, if you hadn’t antagonized them before, will be willing to accept you in its ranks. In some cases advancing high in the hierarchy will allow the hero to solve many of his problems with the help of the organization’s contacts, and sometimes even its military might.
(...)
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): Aren’t you afraid of exaggerated reactions after the unveiling of the game? I mean the plans of introducing slave trade and sex into the game world, which can cause an uproar, especially among non-players.
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): The game will be rated 18+. We certainly will not give up our plans on that account. Besides, the game will not contain anything more drastic or ‘dirty’ than some movies set in similar conditions (the ‘Mad Max’ series, ‘The Postman’, ‘Waterworld’), which were sometimes allowed for 16-year-olds, or than certain literary works from the post-apocalyptic genre, without age limits. As for the pseudo-experts who have little scientific methodology under their belt, or politicians speaking out on these matters without knowing anything about them… we simply do not care about their opinions. Especially that we are going to introduce a series of filters, which can turn off most of the gore in Afterfall.
(...)
Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): What would you say is the current stage of the game development?
Koloska (Intoxicate Interactive): We have concluded the preproduction process, as well as world design on the level of detail which we call ‘preliminary design’. Currently we are completing the set of materials presenting our game, and the first of the planned technical demos, which we shall demonstrate to the publishers interested in our project. The future of the enterprise hinges on the outcome of these negotiations.[/i]</blockquote>Link: “If you are disappointed with the Fallout 3 preview, check this out…” - full interview on Afterfall official site.
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