02/28/05 >> Scratches

Genre: Point-n-Click

Developer: Nucleosys

Publisher: n/a

Official Site

 

 

Agustin Cordes, Lead Designer of Nucleosys, was kind enough to spend some time answering our questions about their upcoming adventure game, Scratches.

 

 

 

Tell us a bit about yourself, Nucleosys, and your game Scratches.

Hello Gameplay Monthly! My name is Agustín Cordes and I'm the lead designer of Nucleosys. I also take care of the programming aspect of our projects. Along with my partner, Alejandro Graziani, we're working on our first endeavor, Scratches. It will be a 'traditional' adventure game (no stealth, combat or physical puzzles whatsoever), controlled by a point n'click system in a first-person view - and very moody! We decided to call the team 'Nucleosys' because it sounded sort of cool (well, in reality the choosing of the name has a story behind it... but it's too long and boring). We're located in Argentina , Buenos Aires and Scratches will be the first commercial adventure in this country!

You're described as a big adventure game fan.  What were some games that influenced you in becoming a game designer/programmer?

All of them! As soon as I began playing King's Quest about twenty years ago now (oh my, that makes me feel so old), I knew I'd be in love forever with this genre. There was something about exploring the forests, expecting another challenge to be found around that corner, perhaps a dangerous creature or a friendly being, that greatly appealed to me. This is a feeling that was enhanced in one way or another with games like Space Quest, Monkey Island , the Infocom series, you name it... I value each adventure for what it is, as long as it motivates me and there's that feeling of challenge.

Even though Scratches is an entirely different kind of game (if compared to King's Quest), I think the essence remains the same.

 

 

Were there any games that influenced you while creating Scratches?

Indirectly, yes. The basic premise of Scratches was conceived a few years ago but it was while playing Dark Fall that I realized it could be fulfilled as a viable project, so I teamed up with Alejandro Graziani and decided to give it a go. The idea to make an adventure game was there but for some reason or another it was just that - an idea. So I can't say any games influenced us during the development process, but Dark Fall was certainly one of the things that 'triggered' its creation.

From your website, it looks like you're just a three-man (2 guys, 1 girl) team?  Will it stay this way or will the team expand?

In a way, the team has already been expanded. Dark ambient composer Cellar of Rats joined the crew shortly after our first teaser was introduced (little more than a year ago). We never considered having a full soundtrack in Scratches thinking that the music would mar the atmosphere, but it was only after hearing Cellar of Rats' work that we realized this was what we were missing, the final element to create the unsettling atmosphere we were looking for. Right now I can't imagine the same gameplay without this soundtrack. It makes the whole thing a very cinematic experience.

At its core, there are two people actively working on this game (Alejandro and me) - three if you count Cellar of Rats. The girl, Alina Graziani, would take care of all the numbers and administrative aspects of Nucleosys. Except we need to have one game finished to do so. But in the meantime we decided to put her in the website so she doesn't feel sad.

Let's talk about Scratches.  Is this a Myst-styled game, where the player looks through the eyes of the protagonist and manipulates objects with the mouse cursor?  What kind of transitions will there be when traveling room-to-room, level-to-level?

If by "Myst-styled" you mean just looking through the eyes of the protagonist and interacting with the mouse, then yes, but that's where the similarities end. It'd seem any first-person adventure has to be measured with Myst today, but in reality Scratches and Myst are two completely different games. Scratches will be a game more akin to, say, Blackstone Chronicles - much more story-driven than Myst.

There won't be many transitions. We don't want to turn the players into spectators; they have to feel they're fully involved in the story and controlling the events. I'm not sure what kind of transitions you mean though. If it's, say, a cutscene showing the protagonist raising a stairway (always from the first-person perspective), then yes we have some transitions like that.

 

 

The storyline for Scratches sounds intriguing.  What can you tell us about the character you play?

I used to warn everybody not to take the Scratches story at face-value. But now I'm relieved, seeing as most people seem to be aware there's more than meets the eye in this game! You see, the basic premise has the protagonist, a new famed writer, buying a Victorian house in the outskirts of a merchant town - not only to fulfill his dream, being an admirer of the Victorian architecture, but to finish his in-progress second book. While inside this house, Michael Arthate, this writer, will become instantly entangled with the place and learn its past history, uncovering some dark secrets in the process. An old case about a mysterious murder shrouded by odd circumstances resurfaces. Incidentally, Michael will begin experiencing strange events - is this house really haunted or his overactive mind is playing tricks on him?

The screenshots show off a very foreboding atmosphere.  Were there any films (i.e. The Others) or books (H.P. Lovecraft) that influenced the look of the game?

Yes, achieving a foreboding and dense atmosphere is one of our primary goals. Not only in the looks but also the background music, writing, ambient sound effects... I mean, all those elements must come together to create the adequate atmosphere. In other words, if you think the screenshots show a foreboding look, just wait until you play the final game! In this regard, H.P. Lovecraft has been a big influence. We and Cellar of Rats happen to be huge fans of his work so is no surprise that all the elements I mentioned before fit very nicely with each other. I always like to warn everybody when I mention H.P. Lovecraft though that his work has only influenced us in terms of atmosphere. What I mean is, people shouldn't expect Scratches to be based directly on some of his stories.

Can't tell if any movies have influenced the look. We watch many movies and I guess in one way or another you can see some influence here and there. For instance, the kitchen of the house was slightly adapted from the one in the film Empire of the Sun... which doesn't even belong in the horror genre! That's the only specific example I can think of though.

What can you tell us about the engine powering the game?

The SCream engine is in a mature state and very flexible. We hope it will become in the future the ideal solution to independent developers for their projects as it's designed as a budget but powerful engine from scratch. For instance, all the libraries (ie: OpenAL for audio management) used during the programming are open-sourced and can be used without any kind of restriction. This doesn't mean they're low quality libraries - they're actually great pieces of software and even rival many commercial solutions out there, such as the newcomer video codec Theora from Vorbis (the team behind the increasingly famous Ogg). Even better, they're highly portable and along with our own code it means a game developed with SCream may run in several systems without too much hassle. Right now the engine supports all Windows platforms but we're aiming to immediately port it to Mac systems and Linux (we already did some successful tests in Linux).

Aside from these technical details, I can tell you that basically games using our engine are programmed via a scripting language, designed keeping simplicity in mind. Right now it's the only way to program them though but the intention is to begin working on a user-friendly and graphical IDE for it once Scratches is ready.

Will there be branching story paths or multiple endings?

There won't be different story paths. While there are many layers to the story, the plot remains the 'same' throughout the whole game. This doesn't mean Scratches will be a linear experience, on the contrary, several tasks can be solved in any order and the place explored at the players' leisure. It'd be accurate to say the story will be revealed in a non-linear fashion and the players will have to fit all the pieces of the mystery together. As for the multiple endings, the Scratches story was always intended to be finished in one way, but we decided to add an alternative ending since it happens to (surprisingly) fit very well. Reaching it will be difficult though, so you could say it's some sort of easter egg. I can tell you both endings are the complete opposite... and that's it!

I love being such a teaser, hehe.

 

 

Will there be any combat involved, or is it all puzzle/story driven?

No combat! Actually, nothing requiring reflexes or any physical tasks. Scratches will feature a quite relaxed kind of gameplay. It's the only way to achieve the type of scares we mostly want to have in the game. There will be a couple of "jump out of your seat" sequences but overall the whole gameplay is more oriented towards building a suspenseful atmosphere... we want to have the kind of fear that creeps under your skin!

When will Scratches be released?

Hard to say right now as it depends on the publisher(s) we sign with. Which means that yes, we're working on that. The game should be completed in a few months but I really can't talk about a release date (well, certainly this year, that's for sure!).

When will the full demo be released and what will it contain?

It's coming soon, about a couple of months (is that soon enough?). It will contain the beginning sequence of Scratches since it works great as an introduction to the game and its characters. Problem is, given the non-linear nature of the game, we might have to 'lock' certain doors or prevent some areas to be reached, of course in a natural way to the player... if not, we'd have to more or less demo the whole game!

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Well, first of all thank you very much for this fine interview. If any of your readers would like to find out more about Scratches, they can visit our homepage (http://www.nucleosys.com) and are welcome to join our forums (http://forum.nucleosys.com). We have a developer's journal currently on the works too, so there's plenty of information available! Of course, still nobody knows exactly what they're up against in this game. They'll have to find out for themselves once they enter inside the creepy house... and pray they'll be able to leave!

 

 

Interview by Alex Hammond