November 11, 2013 at 21:41After Reset - a game that is hard to believe even after seeing (Kickstarter Campaign)
Project page on Kickstarter - ( Kickstarter link page )
Project page on Facebook - ( Facebook game page )
Official website of the developer After Reset Official web site
Game-play video on Youtube Video-link
An exclusive video specially made for Habr on Vimeo Video-link
It just so happens that on New Year's Eve, developers began to throw projects on Kickstarter one more beautiful than the other. To be honest, you don’t know which one to write first. There are really a lot of them, and many of them are worthy of publicity. Today I want to stop our attention on the After Reset project. I also thought it would be good practice to interview the developer, if possible with exclusive materials. Still, Habr, the largest Russian IT resource, how can you do without rare artifacts?
In short, this is another project that claims to be the pedestal of our beloved desert isometric friend with blackjack and you know who. The claim is so serious that it can fit into doubt. And I doubted. And do not be shy about it. I doubt, by the way, even after I got acquainted with rare publications on the network, videos, and even chases a press build (it was from this version that screenshots were taken). The dish looks excellent. Especially against the backdrop of the Desert Hamburger . Why doubt?
Without agitating or crushing, I propose to go the usual way. Armed with shoulder blades, examine the issue in more detail. Read about the project, read the interview with the developer, watch exclusive screenshots, watch the video and decide for yourself. Believe it or not.
Doubts. Imagine ... you went to a sushi bar (or to any other place, with any other, but certainly your favorite food), and, having gotten a menu, jumped to the ceiling? For cheap. Assuming a day of discounts or some promotion, you try the dish. Delicious. Where the hell is the catch? Indeed, experience helpfully suggests that there is always a catch.
Original: click
Here take any object, and fractions. If possible. Because everyone is done right. The optimization arm has not yet touched this content. He is beautiful, detailed and attractive. This is what pre-alpha should look like so that you are not told in other departments.
More recently, I still did not have access to internal materials, I only heard words and smiled. Then I saw screenshots, and a skeptical smile changed color to a warm one. Then I saw a video. He whistled and apparently it was for this “whistle” that he got access to the closed demo version. Now I see that the words that first made me smile skeptically are backed up by deeds. What after dinner? I still doubt it, but already believe it. Believe it or not, this is the question. All I can do is try to provide you with reliable information.
This story for me began quite a long time ago. As you know, during the Wasteland 2 campaign on KS, I had some fun on the field of creativity, and drew a fair amount of pictureswhy do all kinds of people still come to me on a variety of issues. Someone likes what I'm doing, someone doesn’t like it. Someone needs a consultation, someone has a technical question, and someone comes to say thank you.
When a character under the pseudonym “Mr. Nixon” knocked on me on Skype, I strongly doubted that something good would come of us. Do not misunderstand me. Fallout, a post-apocalyptic setting, is another isometric RPG with lots of features that make hair stand on end even for a seasoned player. Would you believe
Original: click
I like to take a walk, you know, in search of "jambs." But in this demo, the matter is limited only to the clatter of the tongue and a long examination. Attempts to dig something led me to the following discoveries (see next image)
(the rest of the fears are under the spoiler, as the publication unexpectedly turned out to be huge)
That like this, from the floundering bay, for no apparent reason, a game will appear claiming at once to several fields firmly occupied by ancient games. That promises will be made to follow the traditions and return to us that golden and hardcore that was lost many centuries ago. Have we not heard this a thousand times? Well, isn't that doubtful? Is it true? It’s a sin to hide, I also dream of making a post-apocalyptic RPG, and therefore ... doubtful. Right away. Unconditionally. Doubtful! And it would be completely so if it were not for the materials accompanying this potentially good game.
I have no doubt that Brian Fargo is already biting if not his elbows, then certainly his lips when he sees the first screenshots of After Reset. Yes, this is just an environmental screenshot, yes, as long as the characters cried, the interface still does not exist, but how is everything served? Already at the start of the fundraising campaign, there are very solid materials. Not just a video with screenshots, but an action in motion, where you can immediately see how detailed and with what love the work on this wasteland was done.
Original: click
The camera easily illustrates how detailed the content is. This, excuse me, is the level of a first-person shooter, you can calmly lower the camera and enjoy a beautiful picture.
I did not really like the way the game was presented, because, to put it mildly, I do not really like borrowing from other games. But as I studied promotional materials, my dissatisfied eyebrows on the bridge of my nose were smoothed out. Because ...
Let's ask a question. What is most important? Actions or words? Of all the options not proposed, I’ll choose - what words are on the drum, the main thing is that things should be. Perpendicularly, who and what said, if in the end all the same we got the Inhabitants of the Island lined with pink foil. It is entirely parallel who and how much spent, if the road, in the end, was partitioned thoroughly Tired and useless.
What matters is not words, not regalia, and not the size of purses filled or empty, not faceless percentages, not hated slogans, and not witty wrapped slogans. Always and everywhere we are measured by our deeds.
Original: click
Sorry, dear developers, I could not resist the temptation to find an uncomfortable camera angle and ... "catch the cap." What can I say ... I'm impressed. Someone would say that this is a crazy spending of the budget, and I will answer that this is love for the subject. And the game, as such, has no budget. The developer does it himself, at your own peril and risk. Therefore, it is invested in its business, not as it is customary in large offices. And with feeling. Enough to notice him, and not to miss.
I have no doubt that Brian Fargo is already biting if not his elbows, then certainly his lips when he sees the first screenshots of After Reset. Yes, this is just an environmental screenshot, yes, as long as the characters cried, the interface still does not exist, but how is everything served? Already at the start of the fundraising campaign, there are very solid materials. Not just a video with screenshots, but an action in motion, where you can immediately see how detailed and with what love the work on this wasteland was done.
Original: click
The camera easily illustrates how detailed the content is. This, excuse me, is the level of a first-person shooter, you can calmly lower the camera and enjoy a beautiful picture.
I did not really like the way the game was presented, because, to put it mildly, I do not really like borrowing from other games. But as I studied promotional materials, my dissatisfied eyebrows on the bridge of my nose were smoothed out. Because ...
Let's ask a question. What is most important? Actions or words? Of all the options not proposed, I’ll choose - what words are on the drum, the main thing is that things should be. Perpendicularly, who and what said, if in the end all the same we got the Inhabitants of the Island lined with pink foil. It is entirely parallel who and how much spent, if the road, in the end, was partitioned thoroughly Tired and useless.
What matters is not words, not regalia, and not the size of purses filled or empty, not faceless percentages, not hated slogans, and not witty wrapped slogans. Always and everywhere we are measured by our deeds.
Original: click
Sorry, dear developers, I could not resist the temptation to find an uncomfortable camera angle and ... "catch the cap." What can I say ... I'm impressed. Someone would say that this is a crazy spending of the budget, and I will answer that this is love for the subject. And the game, as such, has no budget. The developer does it himself, at your own peril and risk. Therefore, it is invested in its business, not as it is customary in large offices. And with feeling. Enough to notice him, and not to miss.
When I have questions, I go and ask them who their source is. In this case, it is the developer. He must dispel my doubts. He must reassure me. And so we interview him.
Weilard: Please introduce yourself . I understand that the question is boring, standard, but the public, I believe, will be interested to know where you were born, what you did before After Reset, where you worked before, where you work now, and how you got into the game industry. All this in detail starting with the name.
Richard:My name is Richard. Born in the USSR, he served in the Mission Control Center (naturally, before GLONAS). He worked in the UK MBA with accreditation in Pleshka. He independently built his own furniture business. "Sawed" After Reset as a hobby. I was waiting for normal Fallout 3, but alas ... I did not wait, I had to get down to business myself.
Weilard: How and when did you decide to connect with the gaming industry. When did it happen? At what point did your work in game development begin?
Richard:I have no work, in the full sense of the word, in the gaming industry. About five years ago, when DM grew up on Neverwinter Nights servers, he started creating his worlds on the Aurora engine. How DM, being invisible to players and reviving the world around them, watched tens and hundreds of lives intertwined in an amazing way and floated along the waves of plots ... plots built for players. It dragged on a lot more than playing on your own. "Industry" is a business. My business is different ... wooden, After Reset is for the soul.
(continuation of the interview, where you will find out if Mark Morgan was about father games, whether AR is a competitor for Wasteland 2, and much more ... and be careful, there really is a lot of text, let's just say - I got carried away)
Weilard: What prompted you to start developing AR? After all, Black Cloud studio was “voiced” quite recently, and before that, as I understand it, you haven’t been involved in game projects.
Richard: For three years, I made shards based on the D20 system and on the Avrora engine for Fallout D20 Online (for more details, visit us at: www.afterreset.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1 ) Time passed ... I watched it bitterly what Bethesda did with Fallout and with those who tried to reanimate it, and decided not to risk it, but to build its own lunapark with blackjack and ...
Weilard: ... official companions.
Richard: ...
Weilard: What kind of games or works inspire you to work on AR? What is more and what is less, what is the root, or the main salt?
Richard: Fallout 1/2 / VB, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Walking Dead: the Game. On the literature side, these are Robert Sheckley, and Roger Zhelyazny. In addition, special thanks I want to say to Vlad Kop for his selection in the Model for Assembly .
Weilard: We had the opportunity to work together on a series of illustrations for AR, and I noticed that you are pretty much inspired by a variety of modern brands including Fallout. In addition, in a series of discussions about AR, players noted a certain similarity of certain elements with other brands. Tell us more about this please.
Richard: Trends inspire and help very well convey the ideas of the game on an emotional level - bypassing the mind right in the heart.
Weilard: ...
Weilard:As I understand it, you were going to collaborate with Mark Morgan on the post-apocalyptic wave that reappeared on the fields due to the hype around Wasteland 2. Can you confirm or verify this information?
Richard: Not ready to comment on this issue (smiles).
Weilard:Personally, based on the considered content, I am inclined to see you as the main competitor of Wasteland 2. Literally in a year, without attracting third-party investments, as they say, on your own money, you managed to create a picture of the game, many times superior in quality to the visual part of the Wasteland 2 project, which could not impress us with its beauties, even having a million-dollar budget (more precisely, three million dollars). You, as I understand it, do not have a million budget, no big name ... who makes this beauty? Who is helping you? Who sets and maintains quality standards?
Richard: I do not think that After Reset and Wasteland 2 are competitors. These are different games in fact After Reset - this is an RPG like Fallout 1 & 2, Wasteland 2 - a tactical strategy, like a series of Commandos games. And according to the setting, if AR sci-fi is an apocalypse, then Wasteland 2 is a retro apocalypse.
My position on this score - the more good games - the better. As for the picture ... he said that I was doing the game for the soul, therefore he was attentive to everything, like a child. If I made the game as a businessman, of course, the picture would be different, and the game would be different ... Because the essence of business is to receive. And the essence of the hobby is to give. I support quality standards myself. Everything is simple here - either everything is perfect, or we reject the option. Commercial "and so it goes, the main thing is to invest in PR" in your favorite business can not be. And my ideas are embodied by a large number of free-riders, among which at the moment a pool of the most reliable "associates" who perfectly feel the setting has been determined. I really hope they make up the backbone of developers after Kickstarter.
Weilard:Since we are talking about the beauties, could you tell us about your team. Who is included in it, what specialists are involved, what specialists are planned to be connected in the future?
Richard: Wow ... there really are a lot of them. The more or less constant pool that I mentioned can be seen on our website in the Contacts section.
Weilard: Who is the “behind the scenes” After Reset narrator in your intro? For my inexperienced taste, a professional worked, I would like to know who it is.
Richard: Yes, I really like his voice too. This is my friend Martin Lewis, his voice can be heard in many trailers in Hollywood, he also works with Universal Pictures.
Weilard:Who is the author of the music for After Reset which permeates the listener with the life-motives of the wasteland named after Morgan Free ... Mark Morgan?
Mariusz Jasionowicz. For each track, it took us a month of daily work and buckets of sweat and blood. Because, as mentioned a little earlier, “either everything is perfect, or we reject the option.”
Weilard: The Black Cloud logo knocks down its elusive resemblance to the logo of the famous and respected studio Black Isle. What caused the choice of just such a path? In the logo, in art, and even in music, everything is filled with notes of a bygone era. Yes, what is there with notes. In your video, fonts and even their location reminds of an unforgettable Fallout. Not afraid of reproaches for plagiarism?
Richard:As one of Fallout fans addressed Bethesda said: you can take copyrights from us, but you won’t take our souls from us. I’m making a game that I myself want to play. God already knows how many years. I miss these notes, miss that bygone era. And she won’t go anywhere while she lives in our hearts and memory
. Author’s note: At the mention of a fan and “to Bethesda” my hair moved on my neck. The fact is that this phrase has been the subject of a lengthy debate in one old and respected forum. Initially, I planned to write “Your trademark, yes our soul,” but older and wiser forum residents convinced me that an open confrontation was not needed, which did not stop me from applying this slogan to the reins in the harness of an elk .
Weilard:Beauty is beauty, but as we all know, the head of the table is a game play. In an exclusive video provided specifically for Habr’s readers, we see to a greater degree a demonstration of working with environmental management (and I must say a damn attractive work). But in general? How soon can we play AR if the kickstarter campaign is successful? Any intermediate steps? Closed Beta? What is ready and what is not?
Richard: I can promise alpha for bakers, selected journalists and robots in 2014.
Weilard:What distinguishes After Reset in terms of game play among other RPGs? What can we expect from the game? Nowadays, too many things are subjected to casualization, too many game mechanics are simplified. In your debut video, you say “only hardcore!” I would like to know what exactly will be hardcore. What is hardcore in your understanding?
Richard: I want to apply my experience as a DM and a developer on Neverwinter Nights game servers. There has always been this dilemma. Some players insisted that everything is very complicated, there are a lot of ingredients, it is very inconvenient to carry food with you, it is difficult to raise money, monsters are too strong and so on.
Others, on the contrary, said - you give the introduction of a system of fatigue, food, water, a meeting of needs, we want a more complex AI, we want to complicate the variability of battles, we want to nerf something. I think for 5 years of observation I have chosen for myself such a balance of hardcore that it does not turn into insanity.
Weilard: Please tell us about Quanton Sync. As I understand it, this is an online add-on that directly affects the game play game if the player is connected to the network? I correctly understood the essence of this service? A certain service increasing the degree of immersion in the game world?
Richard:Yes. Firstly, it makes it possible for all your actions after passing the game to influence the setting of the whole world After Reset, and, based on the results of the game session (approximately a year after the release), form detailed consequences - the global ending of the game. Something similar, in a simplified version, is present in The Walking Dead: the Game, when after passing through each series I show you how many percent of the players made certain choices during the passage. And of course, it’s convenient to weave new chips through it (like random meetings, additional locations, etc.) and implement co-op.
Weilard: What determines the choice of Unity3D? As far as we can see the picture on it, you give out an impressive, but nonetheless, what engines did you pay attention to before choosing Unity, and why was it chosen?
Richard:I have 5 years of experience working with Avrora (the internal Bioware engine that was used for Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic), so I was looking for something closest to it. In addition, Unity3D is very affordable for developers and is highly customizable.
Weilard: Do you plan in the manner of Brian Fargo to use the help of the community, doing not only carfounding but also crowdsourcing as well? How strong is the community’s influence on the game?
Richard:I am interested in the opinions of all players, as well as the choices that they will make during its passage. But my position is that any project should have its own leader, whose task is to reflect on all the opinions of the players, but at the same time make decisions and be responsible for them. In other words, I want to make the game an interesting book, not a page of a social group for discussion.
Weilard: I’m not very clever ... although I’m all lying, I swear. What happens to After Reset if the Kickstarter company is not successful? As we know, there is such a possibility. Tom Hall and Brenda Brathwaite released on KS with the Shaker project probably did not expect the fundraising campaign to fail, and it's hard to call them newcomers. What will happen to you in this case, what will happen to the project?
Richard:I don’t count on Kickstarter at all. As did not count on Steam Greenlight. One evening I placed my project there, by chance. And for me it was a complete surprise at what speed they began to vote for him. Interest and desire to purchase the game from an incredible amount of people. Equally unexpected was the invitation from Steam, which arrived less than 5 days later.
With Kickstarter, in general, the same thing is to do something, at random, and see what comes of it.
As before, this is just a hobby that I will be engaged in regardless of the results of KS. If we don’t collect it, we will accept support via paypal and continue to work on the game, because the publisher has already been found.
You know, after all I was persuaded by PR agencies: “set the bar lower, the proven business - the main thing is to grab your own, and then like everyone else, just feed people with promises - see how everyone does it, this is marketing” or “set the schedule lower, everyone does it, lie to KS now, and then put it off and bear it like all people. ” He sent them ... Which, incidentally, would not have done in business.
But if we collect it, then I will transfer the management of my company to another partner, and I will take care of After Reset entirely and very tightly. According to the tested option. Lock up with the team together on the island and do not leave it until we finish the game (smiles).
Richard: For three years, I made shards based on the D20 system and on the Avrora engine for Fallout D20 Online (for more details, visit us at: www.afterreset.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1 ) Time passed ... I watched it bitterly what Bethesda did with Fallout and with those who tried to reanimate it, and decided not to risk it, but to build its own lunapark with blackjack and ...
Weilard: ... official companions.
Richard: ...
Weilard: What kind of games or works inspire you to work on AR? What is more and what is less, what is the root, or the main salt?
Richard: Fallout 1/2 / VB, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Walking Dead: the Game. On the literature side, these are Robert Sheckley, and Roger Zhelyazny. In addition, special thanks I want to say to Vlad Kop for his selection in the Model for Assembly .
Weilard: We had the opportunity to work together on a series of illustrations for AR, and I noticed that you are pretty much inspired by a variety of modern brands including Fallout. In addition, in a series of discussions about AR, players noted a certain similarity of certain elements with other brands. Tell us more about this please.
Richard: Trends inspire and help very well convey the ideas of the game on an emotional level - bypassing the mind right in the heart.
Weilard: ...
Weilard:As I understand it, you were going to collaborate with Mark Morgan on the post-apocalyptic wave that reappeared on the fields due to the hype around Wasteland 2. Can you confirm or verify this information?
Richard: Not ready to comment on this issue (smiles).
Weilard:Personally, based on the considered content, I am inclined to see you as the main competitor of Wasteland 2. Literally in a year, without attracting third-party investments, as they say, on your own money, you managed to create a picture of the game, many times superior in quality to the visual part of the Wasteland 2 project, which could not impress us with its beauties, even having a million-dollar budget (more precisely, three million dollars). You, as I understand it, do not have a million budget, no big name ... who makes this beauty? Who is helping you? Who sets and maintains quality standards?
Richard: I do not think that After Reset and Wasteland 2 are competitors. These are different games in fact After Reset - this is an RPG like Fallout 1 & 2, Wasteland 2 - a tactical strategy, like a series of Commandos games. And according to the setting, if AR sci-fi is an apocalypse, then Wasteland 2 is a retro apocalypse.
My position on this score - the more good games - the better. As for the picture ... he said that I was doing the game for the soul, therefore he was attentive to everything, like a child. If I made the game as a businessman, of course, the picture would be different, and the game would be different ... Because the essence of business is to receive. And the essence of the hobby is to give. I support quality standards myself. Everything is simple here - either everything is perfect, or we reject the option. Commercial "and so it goes, the main thing is to invest in PR" in your favorite business can not be. And my ideas are embodied by a large number of free-riders, among which at the moment a pool of the most reliable "associates" who perfectly feel the setting has been determined. I really hope they make up the backbone of developers after Kickstarter.
Weilard:Since we are talking about the beauties, could you tell us about your team. Who is included in it, what specialists are involved, what specialists are planned to be connected in the future?
Richard: Wow ... there really are a lot of them. The more or less constant pool that I mentioned can be seen on our website in the Contacts section.
Weilard: Who is the “behind the scenes” After Reset narrator in your intro? For my inexperienced taste, a professional worked, I would like to know who it is.
Richard: Yes, I really like his voice too. This is my friend Martin Lewis, his voice can be heard in many trailers in Hollywood, he also works with Universal Pictures.
Weilard:Who is the author of the music for After Reset which permeates the listener with the life-motives of the wasteland named after Morgan Free ... Mark Morgan?
Mariusz Jasionowicz. For each track, it took us a month of daily work and buckets of sweat and blood. Because, as mentioned a little earlier, “either everything is perfect, or we reject the option.”
Weilard: The Black Cloud logo knocks down its elusive resemblance to the logo of the famous and respected studio Black Isle. What caused the choice of just such a path? In the logo, in art, and even in music, everything is filled with notes of a bygone era. Yes, what is there with notes. In your video, fonts and even their location reminds of an unforgettable Fallout. Not afraid of reproaches for plagiarism?
Richard:As one of Fallout fans addressed Bethesda said: you can take copyrights from us, but you won’t take our souls from us. I’m making a game that I myself want to play. God already knows how many years. I miss these notes, miss that bygone era. And she won’t go anywhere while she lives in our hearts and memory
. Author’s note: At the mention of a fan and “to Bethesda” my hair moved on my neck. The fact is that this phrase has been the subject of a lengthy debate in one old and respected forum. Initially, I planned to write “Your trademark, yes our soul,” but older and wiser forum residents convinced me that an open confrontation was not needed, which did not stop me from applying this slogan to the reins in the harness of an elk .
Weilard:Beauty is beauty, but as we all know, the head of the table is a game play. In an exclusive video provided specifically for Habr’s readers, we see to a greater degree a demonstration of working with environmental management (and I must say a damn attractive work). But in general? How soon can we play AR if the kickstarter campaign is successful? Any intermediate steps? Closed Beta? What is ready and what is not?
Richard: I can promise alpha for bakers, selected journalists and robots in 2014.
Weilard:What distinguishes After Reset in terms of game play among other RPGs? What can we expect from the game? Nowadays, too many things are subjected to casualization, too many game mechanics are simplified. In your debut video, you say “only hardcore!” I would like to know what exactly will be hardcore. What is hardcore in your understanding?
Richard: I want to apply my experience as a DM and a developer on Neverwinter Nights game servers. There has always been this dilemma. Some players insisted that everything is very complicated, there are a lot of ingredients, it is very inconvenient to carry food with you, it is difficult to raise money, monsters are too strong and so on.
Others, on the contrary, said - you give the introduction of a system of fatigue, food, water, a meeting of needs, we want a more complex AI, we want to complicate the variability of battles, we want to nerf something. I think for 5 years of observation I have chosen for myself such a balance of hardcore that it does not turn into insanity.
Weilard: Please tell us about Quanton Sync. As I understand it, this is an online add-on that directly affects the game play game if the player is connected to the network? I correctly understood the essence of this service? A certain service increasing the degree of immersion in the game world?
Richard:Yes. Firstly, it makes it possible for all your actions after passing the game to influence the setting of the whole world After Reset, and, based on the results of the game session (approximately a year after the release), form detailed consequences - the global ending of the game. Something similar, in a simplified version, is present in The Walking Dead: the Game, when after passing through each series I show you how many percent of the players made certain choices during the passage. And of course, it’s convenient to weave new chips through it (like random meetings, additional locations, etc.) and implement co-op.
Weilard: What determines the choice of Unity3D? As far as we can see the picture on it, you give out an impressive, but nonetheless, what engines did you pay attention to before choosing Unity, and why was it chosen?
Richard:I have 5 years of experience working with Avrora (the internal Bioware engine that was used for Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic), so I was looking for something closest to it. In addition, Unity3D is very affordable for developers and is highly customizable.
Weilard: Do you plan in the manner of Brian Fargo to use the help of the community, doing not only carfounding but also crowdsourcing as well? How strong is the community’s influence on the game?
Richard:I am interested in the opinions of all players, as well as the choices that they will make during its passage. But my position is that any project should have its own leader, whose task is to reflect on all the opinions of the players, but at the same time make decisions and be responsible for them. In other words, I want to make the game an interesting book, not a page of a social group for discussion.
Weilard: I’m not very clever ... although I’m all lying, I swear. What happens to After Reset if the Kickstarter company is not successful? As we know, there is such a possibility. Tom Hall and Brenda Brathwaite released on KS with the Shaker project probably did not expect the fundraising campaign to fail, and it's hard to call them newcomers. What will happen to you in this case, what will happen to the project?
Richard:I don’t count on Kickstarter at all. As did not count on Steam Greenlight. One evening I placed my project there, by chance. And for me it was a complete surprise at what speed they began to vote for him. Interest and desire to purchase the game from an incredible amount of people. Equally unexpected was the invitation from Steam, which arrived less than 5 days later.
With Kickstarter, in general, the same thing is to do something, at random, and see what comes of it.
As before, this is just a hobby that I will be engaged in regardless of the results of KS. If we don’t collect it, we will accept support via paypal and continue to work on the game, because the publisher has already been found.
You know, after all I was persuaded by PR agencies: “set the bar lower, the proven business - the main thing is to grab your own, and then like everyone else, just feed people with promises - see how everyone does it, this is marketing” or “set the schedule lower, everyone does it, lie to KS now, and then put it off and bear it like all people. ” He sent them ... Which, incidentally, would not have done in business.
But if we collect it, then I will transfer the management of my company to another partner, and I will take care of After Reset entirely and very tightly. According to the tested option. Lock up with the team together on the island and do not leave it until we finish the game (smiles).
Weilard: Thanks for the frankness! You rarely hear such things, including the work of PR agencies. I want to summarize this impromptu interview with a question that is likely to become a classic for all my blitz interviews with developers. Now you are reading (or maybe already watching and listening) the multimillion audience of the largest IT resource in Russia. Is there something that you would like to say personally to a Russian gamer or personally to Habr?
Richard: Thanks to Habr, after all, is one of the five favorite Russian resources of those that I regularly read. Well, for the gamer ... support our game if you want and stay tuned. After all, if you succeed with me, then you will succeed with any of us!
Let's try to summarize our interview and emotions with a small set of facts. They are few, which is not surprising, because this story is just beginning. But they are.
Greenlight. It took a little less than a week to get to Greenlight. If I'm not mistaken, five days. Which indicates interest from a potential audience. Even if the player is not ready to invest in the development of the game, he absolutely definitely wants to buy it. And this cannot but rejoice.
Style. At this stage, even at the stage of primary visualization, it can be seen that the developer approaches the development of the game in more than detail. This is evidenced by the integrity of the image. Unlike Wasteland 2, which resembles a more popular hodgepodge, After Reset boasts a unity of style. What will happen next is still unknown. But if you define visual style as an intention, the intention is more than serious. Based on this, I am inclined to see in AR a serious competitor with the right to life, rather than a team of amateurs.
Audio accompaniment. Creating a “good tracing-paper” in the good sense of the word is not easy. The musical accompaniment of AR already now resembles Mark Morgan more than Mark Morgan himself in the project already mentioned above. I tend to consider this approach not as a parody or loan, but as a strict adherence to traditions. Even if every second track will sound, as today's tracks to AR sound - I, as a passionate Fallout fan, will be only too happy.
Demo version. I felt it myself. Works. For an alpha alpha, more than enough. Involved are special effects, audio accompaniment (musical and environmental sound), environment models, saturation models, character, animations, etc. Of course, there are minor bugs. Of course, there is no optimization. But we will be honest, put our hand on the heart and compare two screenshots. The first is the Wasteland 2 game, which has been under development for almost two years, still having alpha status, still not presenting a single completed screenshot that would have shown us a vertical section of the game, - the second After Reset image from ambitious newcomers who fell like snow on their heads.
Despite the fact that the author of After Reset does his best to deny comparisons and the title “competitor”, I allow myself to disagree. In both cases, this is an isometric view, in both cases, life after the disaster, in both cases it is the use of the Unity3D engine. For me, these pictures well reflect the effectiveness of two different teams. The slogans "graphics are not important" - I do not accept, and do not comment. Graphics, of course - is not the most important link in the game. But if you do something qualitatively, you can make it quality by even being a follower of minimalism.
As I have already mentioned, there are not many facts. Many more assumptions. Nevertheless, looking at the information provided, I do not ask myself the question - to help or not. I am impressed by the perseverance of this person, I like this approach, “it doesn’t matter how, but I will still make my game.” Adhering to exactly the same outlook on life, with the exception of successes in the field of the furniture business, I want to wish Richard good luck in his other endeavors.
After all, in the near future, I myself will have to go this way from and to, except that I’m unlikely to write about this publication or to interview myself. I hope, like Richard, at random.
I hope this publication was interesting to you. Thank you and see you soon. And they, I must say, will not be slow to happen. This month is rich in discoveries. The main thing is that there is enough time for this. At the moment, details of yet another interview with another developer, this time from Johannesburg, are being settled. True, most likely, the dialogue will not work. Which, in general, will not affect the series of publications devoted to good projects.
Thanks for attention. And thanks for your time.
Note 1: In accordance with the request to reduce traffic, all images in the article (except for the shovel) are saved in JPG format
Note 2:Interviews and images are under the spoilers. I know that many people get tired of “spinning the wheels”, and I think that it’s easiest to decide for yourself what you want and what you don’t, and whether you really want to.
Note 3: This text is not an advertisement for a product, or an auxiliary PR action by a developer. The publication was carried out as a “rust lover” after reviewing the project. By no means do I deny any involvement in AR. Yes, indeed, the following images are listed behind my pen.
I distinguish between such concepts as interest and loyalty. And if the first one is in abundance - there is no second one at all. I don’t know how much I need to pay to write a paid article. As Jane said, the day will be funny in that case. In the case of Wasteland 2, in terms of style, I was already disappointed, if I was disappointed here, I would no doubt pour pepper. This is not PR for me, I just insure myself against all kinds of Sherlock Holmes, since I have enough ill-wishers (smiled).
Note 4: Wildly sorry for the errors, if any. We are in different time zones and I'm damn tired of making up this pile of text, I could not overlook something, miss something.
Note 5: (11. 11.13 - 22:03)Already, work is underway on the bugs. You probably noticed how tight the KS movie turned out to be. In my opinion, this is not the best serve, because statistically, the player watches the video from 15 to 30 seconds, and if what is happening on the screen does not put it mildly, then the tab closes. Richard received a fair amount of wishes to shorten the length of the trailer, removing all the “water” in a separate video, leaving only the game play. Tomorrow’s viewer will be more lucky than today’s, he will immediately receive a game play video (well ... as far as a game play video presentation environment is concerned). The rest will probably be presented in the form of some kind of update.
Note 6: (12. 11.13 - 07:56)There was a jamb on my part, those images that were supposed to be in JPG format saved the original PNG. For which everyone who has lost traffic, I offer my deepest apologies.
Note 7: (12. 11.13 - 07:56) A number of people who wish to remain unrecognized conduct quite adequate and interesting conversations in drugs. People, please better comment on the thread. Even negatively. As you wish. The main thing is that it be constructive. And if this happens, it will be easier for me and you. You because you get an interesting thread with interesting comments, or an uninteresting thread with interesting comments (in both cases you are in relative gain). But I don’t have to write you the same thing in drugs three or four times. Thanks.
Epilogue
At the moment, I am finishing "article support." So I call the numerous and cross-cutting answers to a variety of questions. The answers, of those that remained, will be selective and they will not concern those - “Well, why did I like this game?”. It seemed to me that in the text I gave sufficient explanations for this. The fact is that the Johannesburg developer of another game with Kicksterter mentioned a little earlier in the article gave the go-ahead for a short blitz interview about his project. That is, literally within a few days a new, probably the same emotional material will appear.
To everyone who is confused by the style of publications, the manner of presentation, I would recommend to refrain from reading the subsequent material. To all those who wrote me messages in their personal mail, to those who, while restraining curses, helped me correct my many mistakes, and to those who simply went to debate, many thanks. This information and the thread itself will greatly help the game developer, having formed a certain vision and sensation from his project from the audience of Habr.
Thank you all for your attention. Thank you for your time reading this material.