The Age of Decadence Interview

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Iron Tower Studios, you’ll want to pay close attention to the following interview. While mainstream developers are focusing on action-heavy console RPGs, Iron Tower Studio has taken it upon themselves to develop an ambitious turn-based, isometric, dialogue-heavy CRPG influenced by such classics as Fallout, Arcanum, and Planescape: Torment. If that sounds good to you, then you’ll want to read on as lead designer Vince D. Weller answers our questions about The Age of Decadence:

GB: First of all, how is development coming along on The Age of Decadence? Is the game still on track for a fall release?

Vince: We are doing fine. The game will be completely playable in a few months, but it’s hard to estimate how long tweaking and polishing would take. Being a small first-time developer we can’t afford to release anything less than a quality game, so if we have to take more time, we will.

GB: Tell us about the engine powering the game and what specific goals you had for its capabilities. What sort of system requirements are you shooting for?

Vince: We are using Torque Game Engine that we had licensed from Garage Games, a huge indie hub founded by the ex-Dynamix people. Torque is an aging, but decent and well-supported 3D engine with a large and active community, so it’s a good choice for any indie developer.

If I have to name a specific feature, that would be TorqueScript. For a game like AoD, a powerful scripting language is a must. As for the requirements, the game should run well on P3 500 with 128 megs of RAM. A working monitor will greatly enhance your experience.

GB: The game will feature 22 specific locations. Can you give us some background information for a few of these locations?

Vince: Sure, here’s one. An arcane tower was buried under sands during the war. Protective energies still emanating from the tower attracted people crossing the desert, and soon a small village was built around the broken top of the tower the holy place. The village, being isolated from what’s left from the society, regressed to an almost tribal state, worshipping he-who-dwells-in-the-darkness, and sacrificing visitors and occasional villagers by dropping them into the aforementioned darkness below.

Why visit such a friendly place? Other than the obvious (loot the tower) (good luck with that) idea, the tribe, being a closed group, has preserved the knowledge of the early post-war days in their myths, which may conflict with several official versions of the events.

You can see the concept art for this location here. And here is the full view of a similar tower, just to give you an idea of what to expect.

GB: How diverse will the overall “look” and surrounding environment be for each unique area?

Vince: Reasonably diverse: desert and forests, old crumbling towns of various styles and new outposts, tribal villages and pre-war facilities, devastated areas where the fabric of reality has been broken, dead towns and ruins, etc.

GB: Tell us about the dialogue system in The Age of Decadence. How will skills, factions, or even previous actions play a role in what dialogue is available to a character?

Vince: The 3 conversation skills need no explanation. As for the other skills, here is an example: you are asked to find a stolen ore shipment (I think we gave these dialogue screens to RPG Dot, you can find the link on our site the Press section). You start inquiring about ore, and suddenly someone asks you a question only a character with some Crafting skills would be able to answer. Should you fail, people may start wondering why someone who doesn’t have a clue about ore is asking so many questions in the wrong area of the town where accidents happen so often.

Your standing with the factions determines whom you may ask for help or (list as a reference). For example, you can either convince someone that helping you is a great idea or you can remind people (who you are with) Godfather-style.

As for the previous actions, here is another example. One of the solutions to a certain smuggling quest is to help the town guards’ captain, who would gratefully let you smuggle anything you want in return. That establishes your relationship with the very open-minded captain, which would open up some solutions (new dialogue options) to several other quests, including the one mentioned below.

GB: Can combat take place anywhere in the gameworld? For example, could we find ourselves battling it out in the middle of a town where buildings and other obstacles could be used as cover? How large of an area will a typical battle take place in?

Vince: Combat can take place anywhere: wilderness, town, rooftop, ruins, etc. There is no limit to the size of the combat area. You and your allies / opponents can freely move anywhere. You can pursue someone across a town if you care.

GB: How much work has gone into enemy AI? What might we expect to see during combat from one of the game’s wittier opponents?

Vince: While the game is focused on choices & consequences, combat is an important part of the game, so we did spend enough time tweaking the combat system and combat AI. Different enemies have different combat scripts and thus capable of surprising you with different tactics. You would be able to quickly see the difference between a simple thug and a well-trained, well-equipped Imperial Guard. While the former will attack chaotically, the latter will use a variety of equipment (anti-shield pilums, throwing nets, even acid to eat through your armor) and attacks that work best against your combat style.

Don’t read too much into it though. We are not talking about emergent gameplay here, but basic scripting.

GB: What can we expect from the game’s quest system? How many mandatory/side quests are you planning to implement? Will there be some sort of journal that logs all quest steps?

Vince: All quests were designed with 3 criteria in mind:

2) Several distinctive skill-based solutions to each quests

3) Different consequences affecting factions dynamics

So, basically, playing a game a bit differently may create a very different playing field for you. Here is an example: the Imperial Guards ask you (as a new recruit) to take over a gate guarded by two town guards. The situation has 3 outcomes:

2) The Imperial Guards take over the gate AND the towers, eliminating the town guards, effectively taking over the town’s perimeter, also affecting many quests.

3) You get kicked out from the Imperial Guards, so don’t count on them in the future quests.

Making sure that the Imperial Guards take over the towers is a bit more complicated than acting directly against the town guards, so don’t bother with the suicide missions.

GB: How will inventory management work in The Age of Decadence? Will encumbrance be a factor? If so, will players have a place to store items they want to keep but no longer have room for?

Vince: The inventory system is weight-based, similar to Fallout’s inventory system. Space isn’t a factor, so as long as you can handle the weight, you can add an item to your inventory. There are no encumbrance levels and penalties. If you are overloaded, you can’t move until you drop something.

You will be offered quite a few (headquarters), ranging from a simple room in an inn to more prestigious (it actually does bump up your Prestige rep) quarters in a palace. You can store all your junk there.

Going back to the example above, option #2 gets you the former captain’s (the same captain who could be very helpful if he stays in power) quarters in one of the towers.

GB: How varied will the game’s weapons and armor be? Will there be different qualities of the same weapon or armor and will items deteriorate with use?

Vince: 32 unique weapon models, 8 helmet & armor models, and 4 shield models. Multiply it by 5 different metal types (i.e. bronze short sword, iron short sword, steel..), not to mention numerous crafting upgrades (masterwork, balance, edge, flaming, poison, etc). You can easily craft a simple bronze hammer into a deadly weapon far superior to average steel hammers, for example.

The items don’t deteriorate with use and are always in mint condition. We did a survey long time ago and asked 3 questions:

Is it fun to repair armor and weapons in games?
Did you like that feature in games that had it (Arcanum, Morrowind, Diablo 2)?
Did you miss that feature in games that didn’t have it (Fallout, Baldur’s Gate, ToEE)?

The answers were mostly (no).

GB: Are you going with static or randomly placed loot throughout the game? Will there be unique items that can only be found in certain locations or on certain opponents?

Vince: Hand-placed. There are unique items like Power Armor powered by a magical equivalent of vacuum tubes (same affect, achieved through magical means) and less exotic stuff that could be found, like you said, in certain locations or on certain NPCs. One of the vacuum tubes, for example, is being worn on a chain as a magical pendant by a noble. As most other ancient (objects of power) they don’t do much for their proud owners, but show that they are rich enough to afford them.

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:

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.

So, if reading, turn-based combat, choices, and crappy graphics don’t turn you off, there is a good chance you will enjoy our game.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, Vince!