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Wael Amr Interview by Skinny Minnie
Minnie: How long ago was Frogwares Ltd. formed, and were all three offices (Ireland, France and Ukraine) opened at once? Wael: We opened two and a half years ago in April of 2000; first in Ireland, and then Ukraine and France. Minnie: What is your "mission statement" as a development team? Do you view all gaming genres equally and intend to continue developing different games for the adventure, strategy, and action gaming markets? Do you have various strengths when developing games for any one genre? Wael: We want to make very good adventure games, with a realistic base that slides into fantasy. The possibilities with adventure games today are to have very fantastic things in the game; characters, sets ... Everything is possible with 3D. With the upcoming Journey to the Center of the Earth, we want to go beyond the limits of present games. More than anything else, the atmosphere of a game is difficult to create, especially when you want to stick to reality. The player must understand the situation and feel the atmosphere at the very first glance he gives to the game, and then eventually come to understand that something is going wrong around there. The gaming genres are not equal, obviously, although like movie styles, they share the commonality of pictures and motion. Out of that you will not see the movie XXX as being the same as what you will see in Blue Velvet. Our gaming differences come also from the differences in the staff; we love RPGs, war games and action games. Their styles are different and game conception is drastically different, but one can love both Kandinsky and Bruegel. I do think that our strengths are our willpower and our creativeness, which are the basis on which to succeed in such an industry. To create an atmosphere close to reality in a game is really difficult. Imagine your desk at your home or your office: You have your computer screen, some CDs, some Post-it notes of your mother's calls (laughs), a two-week-old newspaper that you haven't read yet, a book about Indian genocide by the conquistadors in sixteenth-century South America, a postcard in bad taste, an old bus ticket, a glove from the previous winter, some eligible papers, a mug with coffee tracks beside a bra (smiles) ... But in no game have you ever seen such a desk, so to recreate that reality is very difficult, and it is what we tried with The Mystery of the Mummy. Minnie: Do you plan strictly to create computer games, or are you developing new console gaming ventures as well? What was the very first game developed by Frogwares? Wael: Console gaming is very interesting, but we prefer to concentrate on PC games at this point; that target is well-known for us. Our first game was The Mystery of the Mummy. Minnie: Hearty congratulations on Wanadoo's imminent publication of Frogwares' first title, The Mystery of the Mummy, are in order, then! Was this collaboration a result of Frogwares' presence at both this year's E3 and the London ECTS? How was mainstream press response in general at both events? Wael: E3 and ECTS were a discovery for us, and although interesting, they were not the occasion to sell games, having 95 decibels in our ears! (laughs) Most exhibitions must be prepared long in advance, but that wasn't the case for us. We concentrated on making a good game, and for us, the selling part was to be only after that. And I didn't meet any journalists at either exhibit; some proposed to meet me but then they were not present ... Minnie: Can you confirm for me the basic backdrop for The Mystery of the Mummy? If I understand correctly, the game is played in the first person, in point-and-click style, and is inspired by the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The gamer assumes the role of timeless hero and inimitable sleuth Sherlock Holmes, only this time, it's personal! A future member of the family named Elisabeth Montcalfe, who is set to wed Holmes's cousin, comes to Holmes himself pleading for justice ... She is distraught and desperate, as Scotland Yard has declared that her father, Lord Montcalfe, has committed suicide! However, this declaration is based merely upon circumstantial evidence found in his manor, and Elisabeth herself not only disbelieves the claim of suicide, but genuinely feels that her father still lives ... Wael: That's it, exactly! Minnie: Where exactly is Lord Montcalfe's manor located? It appears in the demo to be partly a museum and partly a private mansion. Wael: It is situated in London, near Kensington High Street. The mansion is big and so a part of it is a private museum; there are also Lord Montcalfe's apartments, and ... But I cannot say more. Minnie: Was Lord Montcalfe a wealthy private collector of some sort, or is there a deeper Egyptian mystery afoot, perhaps veiled by cunning traps and puzzles that were meant to deter onlookers from the truth? Wael: Lord Montcalfe is, before all, an archeologist, and a famous one indeed! He is a collector as well, but the mystery is deeper and more real, too. The right Victorian combination is mystery within reality; beliefs facing logic. Traps are present, and Sherlock can die many times. The level of difficulty is higher than in Syberia or Mystery of the Nautilus. Minnie: Both Frogwares' website screenshots and the demo's location within Lord Montcalfe's manor look fabulous! Besides the mysterious mansion (and its rumored hidden sanctuary that is protected by some sort of Egyptian magic), are there any other locales to explore? Will there be any sleuthing in outdoor locations, or ruminative contemplations in front of the fireplace in Holmes's living room? Speaking of which, in the demo, where the heck did Watson go anyway? Did he get stranded while on vacation in the tropics? (laughs) Wael: Thanks for the compliment about screenshots! Magic is present of course, but within the realm of Conan Doyle's writings. Sherlock doesn't go back to 221B Baker Street to think, but you will see him in some very ruminative positions in the kinematics. Watson is present, but I will let you discover how and when; it would be a crime to separate the couple. There are 35 different places to visit, all of them in the manor ... Minnie: Are The Mummy's puzzles mechanical in nature, inventory-driven, or both? Did I hear you mention action sequences where Sherlock can perish? (smiles) Are there any of those dreaded gaming mazes waiting within the manor's walls? Sorry, but I failed my kindergarten's "Topographical Maps Made with Bubble Gum" course at age 5 and have yet to get over it ... Wael: There are both mechanical and inventory puzzles; only one sort of puzzle is too boring, and both styles allow more creativeness within the game. Yes, Sherlock can die, so take care to save! The good thing is that the intensity of the game increases, the difficulty ramps upward, and the player cannot stop playing after a while! That's what the female tester said ... Minnie: When will the retail version of The Mystery of the Mummy hit store shelves in various countries, and what will the cost be in US dollars? I noticed that a gamer can preorder the game directly from Frogwares' online shop via PayPal or Ecopay. For the more anxious of us (cough), how much sooner will the game be delivered that way? Wael: In France, the game will release by the end of November. Wanadoo thinks it will be about the beginning of next year or so for the rest of the world. I asked Wanadoo to give us copies as soon as they are ready, midway through November; then we will ship them right out to those who have preordered. So order the game online; it will come sooner than in your US shops. The cost in the US is $20. Minnie: All of our readers would also love to know the inside story on Frogwares' ambitious new project, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Is the game set to follow the course of French science fiction author Jules Verne's original nineteenth-century novel, or is it only loosely based upon that work? Wael: Both, in fact, as we used the discoveries made in Jules Verne's book and his heroes, Lidenbrock and Axel, but our story plays out in the year 2005. The game will be very fantastic, and for the first time ever we are asking players to participate! I'm a gamer myself, and before creating my company I played a lot of games. One of my dreams was to make a game, or several, in fact! So today, through two Journey to the Center of the Earth forums at Just Adventure and Gameboomers, we are asking players to submit their stories and thoughts about our developing game, and we will implement some good stories into the game. We will try to stick these stories into the scenario or treat them as independent quests. The success of Frogwares' Journey forums is growing now, and I hope we can gather a lot of info from them. Everybody wants to create, and computer games are well adapted to imagination without limits. I invite all Four Fat Chicks members and readers to join the Journey to the Center of the Earth forums and to participate in the construction of the game—no qualifications required! Tell the whole world that we want that game to be fantastic, and everybody at Four Fat Chicks is welcome to help! Diet Coke and donuts are not accepted, though; Ukrainian customs won't let the "Amerrrricann dirrrty" food enter their territory ... (laughs) Minnie: While I'm at it, allow me to compliment Frogwares on their tastes in classic literature! I do believe, coincidentally, that Jules Verne's distinctive style of combining Romanticism with realism had more than a passing influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! Wael: Thanks! If we could, we would make games about Stendhal or Balzac, but there is no real diplodocus in their stories, just men; that is pretty much enough in most cases, though ... Minnie: What type of puzzles will Journey feature, and will the game have any action elements in it? Are there any screenshots available yet? What is the projected release date? Wael: Journey's puzzles will be complex, but we do not intend to make a Myst. We want a story with motion and a scenario with a real beginning and end. I wish not to tell more for the present, but I think it is rather different than Sherlock Holmes; less realistic and more fantastic and spiritual too. Also, Jules Verne was sometimes very depressed by the human world; Paris in the twentieth century, the character of Captain Nemo ... and the interaction between technology and nature is always present in his books. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Lost World, and it helped us to go further into our scenario. We do think that these bases are excellent for adventure games; very strange inventions, non-Manichean plot, wonderful graphics ... The technology is our own and looks like Syberia; it will allow for larger backdrops and the ability to see the heroine all the time, which is quite interesting, in fact. Journey's release date is to be in September of 2003. We hope to find a publisher soon to release the game at that time. As for The Mystery of the Mummy, we start "classically" and then slide more and more into the fantasy realm at every step. We think that after a while, the player will accept everything from the game, and it is also the best way to get him close to the story and to live it. Minnie: Well, thank you ever so much for stopping by at Four Fat Chicks for this exclusive interview, as well as for Frogwares' posting at our forums, and the best of luck to you with all of your current and future projects! Wael: Thanks to the team at Four Fat Chicks! We will give you
more info about Journey to the Center of the Earth, and we can
continue our collaboration then! |
