The Age of Decadence Interview
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GB: Each weapon will feature different types of attacks that may or may not be appropriate for certain situations. Can you elaborate on when a player might want to use a quick, power, or special attack with his or her weapon?
Vince: Fast attacks (less damage, (to hit) bonus, -1AP) are a good way to deal with fast, light-armored opponents, Power attacks (more damage, (to hit) penalty, +1AP) are great against slow heavy-armored guys. Special attacks depend on your situation: whirlwind does wonders when you are surrounded, disarm and anti-shield attacks are self-explanatory, and aimed attacks target a body part of your choice knocking someone down, disarming, slowing down, etc.
GB: Tell us about the game's seven factions. How will a player become part of a specific faction and what advantages/disadvantages will this present for their character?
Vince: You either select a background when you create your character, instantly becoming a respected member of a faction or you try to join one later. Joining a faction is more complicated than asking someone to sign you up. It requires proving your skills and passing the reputation check. If you are a known felon, the merchant guild won't even talk to you. If you are friendly with the guards, don't even show up in shady areas. Etc.
Advantages and disadvantages are simple. Your faction can help you a lot (alternative quests solutions) and even offer some nice bonuses (equipment, training, unique information), but your faction has some powerful enemies and now they are your enemies too, so your health insurance premium has just gone way, way up.
GB: Is each faction indifferent to the others or might we see alliances or hostilities between some of them? How is a character's faction reputation factored into the game?
Vince: There are both alliances and hostilities. Most of the faction quests directly or indirectly involve other factions, so your reputation with the factions will change with every quest and every decision.
Your faction reputation affects quite a few things. It's tied to your rank (it may take 3 missions to get promoted or one); it determines your influence (a bonus to your persuasion rolls a good idea from a (noob) nobody knows and the same idea from a well-established member of the (community) are two different things) and access to cool stuff; and it really pisses off hostile factions as an extra bonus.
GB: What can you tell us about the game's music and sound effects? What sort of theme are you going with for the soundtrack?
Vince: I'm not sure that I'm qualified enough to describe music. Here are some links to music demos we are working on (Link 1 and Link 2). Keep in mind that these are (musical sketches), some rough ideas to nail the feel and the atmosphere.
GB: To conclude, what would you say differentiates The Age of Decadence from the other RPGs on the market? What will it offer that other games don't?
Vince: The game is pretty much the opposite of what you can find in stores these days:
- a) it looks like something that crawled out of 1995;
b) it has a lot of text, so odds are you would spend more time reading than battling monsters, so you must, like, like reading and stuff, and know different words.
c) combat is turn-based (while the Japanese still make turn-based console games, North American publishers firmly believe that turn-based games are evil and a thing of the past when we didn't know any better);
d) there are real choices and even more real consequences. The industry thinks that most people play games once, which explains why many developers associate replayability with killing the same monster differently.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, Vince!
