Eschalon: Book II Interview
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2. Eschalon: Book 1, your first game, has been out for just over a year now. How do you feel the reception of that game has been?Thanks, RPGWatch.
We are really happy with the reception of Book I. To be honest, we set our original sales estimates low because we wanted to be realistic about how a game like this could perform in a marketplace dominated by MMOs and Action RPGs. We ended up beating those original sales estimates which is incredibly thrilling for us, but I always feel that I need to put a realistic spin on our success for others who have dreams of following our lead- Book I has sold well for a first time independent title, but our sales are not even a fraction of what a game like Fallout 3 has seen. The only thing saving us from failure is that we have a very small studio with very little overhead, so we've been able to survive. If we were larger and had 3-4 salaries to support, we would have closed our doors by now. It is incredibly important for a small studio to get every single sale we can.
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4. A lot of developers cut features from games as the development advances, did you cut anything you regretted from Eschalon: Book 1?
We were fortunate in that we were able to get most everything that we wanted into Book I, but certainly in the end some corners had to be cut. Food and Water as a requirement was cut from Book I, horses and crossbows were cut, and a few other thing which I won't mention now because they are ideas that might make it into a future game!
5. So, did any of these features make it into Eschalon: book 2?
Food and water requirements are back in, but as an optional game rule (if you don't want to bother with feeding your character, just turn the rule off). Unfortunately horses did not make it because of limitations with our current engine, and crossbows were deemed pointless after some extensive research and a discussion on the subject with a historian of medieval weaponry.
