The Broken Hourglass Interview
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GB: What size party will we be leading and how many NPCs will we be able to choose from when composing our party? Jason: The game is designed for a party of five (one player-defined character and four joined NPCs.) There are nine joinable characters in the game. We do not plan to directly support starting the game with more than one player-defined character, but as many of TBH's developers are experienced character modders, it would be silly of me not to point out that changing the starting limit and/or adding more joinable characters to the game is going to be fairly easy to do...
GB: Give us a few examples of party interactions. Will members of our party periodically begin talking amongst themselves as in Baldur's Gate II or will such dialogue only occur during specific trigger events?
Jason: We do indeed have a BG2-esque "random banter" system that will offer up interactions between your joined NPCs at various intervals, and you will also hear from your characters in circumstances where their expertise (or big mouth) comes into play. I feel good about the interplay potential between our nine characters--nobody has a relationship which feels forced or tacked-on to me, for instance.
All of the characters are "compatible" in that we don't have any pairs who refuse to work together, but there are certainly some clear affinity teams. Then again, a lot pivots around the way the PC is built. A physical, healer mage may not see much reason to travel with either Sanelon or Tuhan, while a big bruiser may not see any point in taking Nekos along. And we can never discount the challenge gamers who want to play all-mage, no-mage, etc., so we certainly can't assume any particular party configurations. Everybody will have plenty to talk about with everybody else.
For instance, one character blames another for the death of her family--with some good reason. A career criminal and master blackmailer, and a career government official and master economist, find that they have a surprising amount in common. And one character explains to another how he starts barroom brawls as a scientific exercise.
In addition, we're designing four different character romances--two with male NPCs, two with female NPCs.
There is a pair of characters who meet but can never truly banter, but you'll find out more about that when you play...
GB: Will NPC dialogue change as the game progresses and certain events have occurred? For example, will some of our previous actions be referenced during conversations with NPCs?
Jason: NPCs keep track of how you resolve situations and deal with people, and that factors into their (under-the-hood) "approval score". Some quest resolutions won't be palatable to certain NPCs. And we're watching, and what you do has an impact on the tone of the endgame, and what Mal Nassrin will look like when it's all over...
GB: Will any important world events occur in real-time, despite what our party might be doing at the moment?
Jason: A few things do require the passage of time outside the PC's watchful eye, yes.
GB: What can we expect from the game's combat system? Will it be turn-based, real-time with pause, or something else entirely?
Jason: Our combat system is real-time with pause. I've said before and I'll say again--I'm not religious about it, but I am comfortable designing for it. I'm one of the bigger Laser Squad enthusiasts I know (I've even got it installed on my Sansa MP3 player, thanks to Rockbox, and it's really not an exaggeration to say that I bought that particular MP3 player *because I knew I could install Laser Squad on it*) but I think our team is better at RTWP encounter design than we would be at trying to make like the Gollops.
With a wide range of equipment, our easy system for building multiple itemsets, and the relative ease with which a character can be both a fighter and have at least some rudimentary magical ability, I think players can expect to have a good, engaging range of options every time the combat music kicks in.
GB: How many types of weapons and armor will we have access to in The Broken Hourglass? Are items going to be hand-crafted with static locations or is there some sort of random element to their stats and/or locations?
Jason: Our equipment list is quite extensive--there are dozens of mundane weapons, seven basic shield grades, seven basic armors, various different types of clothing (most doesn't provide much in the way of protection, but it helps your non-armor-wearing characters look distinct!) Plus, of course, lots of enhanced and magical variations on those items.
Fundamentally, all weapons come down to one of five proficiency types: Bow, Sword, Polearm, Hafted, or Brawling (usually your fist, but there are a few items which are still considered Brawling weapons). Armor and shields don't require a specific proficiency to use, but they do require a higher carrying capacity in order to use them without penalty. See the question about inventory management for more about that.
In addition, there is a range of miscellaneous magic available. Unlike other games which employ a body-slot system, we don't have a hard limit on, say, the number of magic rings you can wear. Rather, that is governed by the mana you must give up to equip and wield the item. If you have more mana to spend, you can put it on. (Natch, you still can't put on two pairs of boots, etc.)
Primarily, we are working with static placement of designer-defined items. The variable here is what the Infinite Dungeon mode ends up bringing us--the capabilities of that play mode are still unfinished, but we may gain a robust random-item generator which could help flesh out some locations in the game. That's not to be confused with the ability to put random *pre-defined* items in a given container or inventory, which we can and to a limited extent already do.
