Afterfall Interview
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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.
