Ion Hardie & Eric Dallaire Interview

Reflexive's Ion Hardie and Eric Dallaire took the time to answer a batch of questions for eToyChest about their upcoming RPG, Lionheart. An excerpt to follow:
Q: The words "role-playing game" mean a lot of different things in gaming today. Is Lionheart a game that focuses primarily on combat and action sequences, or is there a good deal of puzzle solving and character interaction as well?

A: The term RPG does mean so many different things to so many different people. These days, you have to be careful how you classify your game so that you don't misrepresent your product. Role-playing games often have additional descriptors like 'Action', 'Hardcore', 'Story-Based', or even 'Classic' also known as the 'Hack and Slash'. There are a few games that do each of these types of RPGs very well, and others that attempt to blend multiple types of RPG elements together into a cohesive experience.

I'd have to say that Lionheart is one those RPGs that combines several different elements from different RPG sub-genres. Lionheart has a rich story, but also involves a good deal of classic leveling, dungeon exploration, and various combat encounters. If you enjoy playing combat based characters that use blades or magic, there is plenty in Lionheart that will appeal to you. If you enjoy searching for traps, sneaking around as a stealthy character, solving puzzles, then there is another character path for you in Lionheart. If you like engaging in dialogue with many characters, and you don't leave dialogue until you've read everything someone has to say, there are plenty of verbose characters that would love to chew your ear off. Our Speech and Barter skills also allow diplomatic characters to avoid sticky encounters with intelligent opponents, though there are times when enemies have no intention to bother talking to you. We've also made a concerted effort to put in hard-to-find extra material in for the hard-core gamer that likes to complete tons of side quests and find all the secrets.