Crimson Alliance Interview
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7.When you first set out to make Crimson Alliance did you envision it to turn out the way it did?
I think with all projects you start with the initial vision for what you imagine the game to be, and you hold to that as much as possible, but you have to be open to let the game evolve as it develops to some degree. It's very difficult to design a game on paper, execute, and then have the end result not only be exactly to spec, but it also be fun. We spend a lot of time playtesting our games, and many times something new and exciting is illuminated that is worth exploring further. For example, we initially never planned to have a pick up and carry mechanic in the game, but after extensive playtests and numerous people commenting on it being on their wishlist, a small group went off and prototyped a working system that totally blew everyone away. And this was very near the end of the project so I was nervous to say the least! So to answer your question, I think the final game was what we imagined it would become, but during development we gathered extra features that we did not imagine would be in the shipping game and some systems evolved considerably.
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12.What is it like going from working on FPS games to a dungeon crawler RPG?
From a pure development standpoint, there is an initial adjustment moving from FPS to a third-person isometric camera. Creating a world in this perspective requires a whole different bag of tricks. One big thing is level of detail because the camera is so far above the character you don't need quite the same level of detail in the world as an FPS where you can get up close to most objects and inspect every inch of an object. Also the construction of levels is a bit different because there are optimal directions of movement the upper left and right corners of the screen are best for giving players a bigger view of a room. The lower corners are good for springing surprises because of the decreased visibility. Regarding systems, making an RPG with balanced systems is a far, far more complex task than making an FPS with a handful of weapons.
But with all that said, philosophically we tapped into our FPS experience when designing encounters. We're proud that all of the encounters in the game are hand crafted no randomized spawns anywhere. Because of this, we were able to design scenarios where players must think tactically to survive, something that you usually see in FPS games.
