E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy Interview

In case the thought had crossed your mind that Streum On Studio's EYE: Divine Cybermancy will be even remotely light on RPG elements, you should definitely check out this new interview on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Some of the goods:
RPS: Okay! What sort of game is E.Y.E.? What kind of experiences are you hoping to offer players?

Longuepee: E.Y.E is a FPS/RPG game, rather old school, and banking on a fast-paced combat gameplay. The player dives in a very dark Cyberpunk world (we're not talking about the lack of lights in the maps, as said in some comments, it looks like a French specialty, sort of like cooking, cute girls, or bad moods) where he embodies an assassin, torn apart between his sense of duty and his friendship with his mentor. We wanted to put an emphasis on the player's skills rather than his avatar's characteristics.

The RPG part is very present in the dialogues and the choices that player's character will make, that will influence the events and the scenario of the game. Another priority for us was to offer the player an immersion and a freedom of choice as powerful and complete as possible.

...

RPS: What sort of specialisations and abilities can we expect to see from the different character types? Can you also explain what sort of skills and inventory system you have?

Longuepee: The player has great freedom concerning his character's evolution: there aren't real classes. But if we had to describe the main possible ways:

- The infiltration-oriented character, playing with agility, speed and stealth.
- The warrior character, fighting essentially in close combat.
- The marksman character, specializing in firearms.
- The PSI-specialist character, who manipulates his psychic energy to control or destroy his enemies.
- The hacker character, shielded by his drone slaves and taking control of machines and NPCs' cyber-brains, but who can also destroy or infiltrate by using viruses.

And of course the player will be able to blend these ways as he wishes.

The character is represented by 8 characteristics:

Strength: Defines the weight of the equipment he can carry and the power of his hits.
Agility: Defines his speed and stealth.
Endurance: Defines physical resistances and stamina.
Accuracy: Defines his bonus to damage from long-range shots, and the weapons he can use.
PSI Force: Defines his psychic power and resistance to spells.
Hacking: Defines his skills in computer hacking and his level in implants knowledge.
Mental balance: Defines his psychology and his resistance to terror.
Medicine: Defines his efficiency to heal others and himself.

The inventory works on a base of cases and corporal zones, exactly like the old X-COM titles. Every weapon and item occupies a certain amount of cases. The player will have to pay attention to the available space in his inventory. And every item has a weight that will slow the player down.
I really like the sound of this.