Raven’s Cry Interview

The editors over at GamingBolt have slapped up an interview with Reality Pump CEO Tadeusz Zuber about Raven's Cry, their pirate-themed adventure/RPG that's currently scheduled for release in May. A couple of questions and their answers:

Ravi Sinha: Raven's Cry features a very complex morality system in that you can use Fear to frighten enemies but at the cost of civility. Along with Notoriety, how does it serve to change and warp the world around you?

Tadeusz Zuber: When we were making Two Worlds II we implemented more story variables, and the result was that gamers were immersed in a richer world. We've done the same type of thing here, with the different factions in the game. If you commit a crime, you don't just get arrested or attacked by (the army). You can commit specific crimes in specific waters, and your actions will be noticed and dealt with in different ways depending on where you are in the Caribbean.

Also, as Christopher gains a reputation, he can leverage that notoriety against the different factions during trading, combat, or accessing new missions. On the other hand, he may find himself blocked from certain harbors for committing too many crimes in those waters, which will require adjustments in gameplay and how you approach missions as well. There are advantages to be had when you are a known threat, and Christopher will need to utilize his reputation more and more as his enemies grow stronger throughout the game.

And then there is his hook. which Christopher uses to scare his foes to death in the truest sense of the phrase.

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Ravi Sinha: What can you tell us about the Pirate charms? What kind of magic will the players have access to?

Tadeusz Zuber: Most magical elements, including charms, were scrapped a long time ago. We didn't want to create a pirate sorcerer who finds a crystal that allows him to disintegrate his enemies, or shoot fireballs out of his eyes. Raven's Cry will contain some very small voodoo elements, but nothing more than that.

We cannot really reveal too much in that regard without spoiling some of the experience, but we can offer a hint; don't think of voodoo as being in the realm of black magic, spells or demons, but more in terms of the unknown, the misunderstood and the terrifying yet physical and strictly grounded in reality.

Take voodoo powders for example, a fabled staple of horror movies; the powders are real objects that exist in our world, but of course they have no magic in them. What they do have is the still under-analyzed composition that allows them to exert certain uncommon effects on their users or on their hapless victims. That their effects may seem like dark magic to those who fear them. well, that's what makes them genuinely powerful.