![]() You can work on your part without worrying too much about the bigger picture - there are other people to take care of that, which makes life easier. Bigger companies are normally more financially secure and can provide more bonuses, which is obviously good. Slava: There are advantages and disadvantages, of course. And since I’ve had prior experience working on RPGs, people were more willing to agree to such a risky venture.ĬSH: For all the dreamers out there, what was it like working for a big company like Larian? Also, having a clear idea of the time frame and scope and scale of the project really helps. But the industry is basically very small, everyone knows each other, even if they did not work together.Īcquaintances acquired during my work helped me to assemble the team. Slava: I've known some of the team members for many years, and some I’ve only met since creating Dark Crystal Games. ![]() ![]() If not for the dream and happy possibility of launching a new studio and directing my own creation, I could hardly be imagine a better place to work than Larian.ĬSH: If most of you worked for different companies, how did you all meet, and how did the project come about? Most of us worked at different companies but there is a small core which were involved with Larian Studios’ latest games.įor me personally, my time with Larian remains the perfect memory of a great team with incredible love for what they are doing and their creations. Experience and hardening, and that’s exactly what you need to pull off a new, complex project. There are projects where our staff members were the driving force and made a great impact and there are projects where we were thrown to plug the holes and do monkey work.īut this all is part of the experience. Our team’s professional stories are no different in this regard: there are sad cases of cancelled projects or projects which got a mixed response, there are gems that are warmed by the love of critics and players alike. ![]() There are good and bad times during every development cycle, but there are thousands of post-mortems, articles, and analyses written about that already. Slava: The game industry is fascinating and hardcore and ruthless at the same time. It would be a damn shame to see Encased fall in the same trap, so I’m happy to hear you’ve factored that issue in right from the start.Īnyway, the team boasts an incredible portfolio! Your website lists Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2, Dragon Age, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and a number of other high profile games. I know I’ve backed a couple of games that were extremely promising but proved nigh unplayable because of dodgy localisation. There are also talks with other people who are very experienced and will add high-level project expertise, but we will announce that later.ĬSH: Effective English conversion is crucial, for sure. Several other indie RPGs from our region were struggling to do this, so I had it in mind from the very beginning. The game is being developed in Russian (with English in mind) and there are multiple writers and narrative designers which help us to adapt it for an international audience and make it really smooth. Our mentors and experts are mostly from the design and writing departments. Since we are indies anyway - some people wear several hats and know how to do multiple things. Those are split up into code, art and design areas. Slava: The core team is actually more than 15 members now. So we just added Games at the end, and that was it.ĬSH: Tell us a bit about your team? Do you have all bases covered, or will you need to call in outside help for voice acting, localisation, that sort of thing? We were thinking for a while, and then someone proposed Dark Crystal, because Dark Crystal is one of the most famous magical sets of equipment in Lineage 2, and several of us spend a lot of time in this game. When we were thinking about the company name, we really wanted to find something medieval or noble or epic, with fantasy or sci-fi vibes, because we focus on making games with interesting worlds and stories. Basically, we all play a lot of RPGs, including some of the multiplayer ones - World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, EVE Online and many others. Slava: Yeah, there is a small story behind it. Also, his name is practically unpronounceable for us English folk, so he likes to go by the name Slava, which is a cool nickname when said with pronounced with a thick pseudo-Russian accent.ĬSH: Where did the name Dark Crystal come from? It seems unusual for a Russian company to have an English name. Today we welcome Viacheslav Kozikhin, Dark Crystal Games’ creative director, who joins us for a discussion about his new company, his experience with Larian, and of course his new Fallout-inspired RPG Encased, which is on Kickstarter and set to smash its funding goal any day now. Interview by Chris Picone, 07 October 2018
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |