Indie-o-rama: Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. It’s obvious that Underrail was heavily influenced by Fallout, among other post-apocalyptic games. As we all know, Bethesda decided to go a different route with Fallout 3 or, as it’s commonly known, “Oblivion with guns”. That meant some fans were left craving for a game with the style and gameplay of the original. How much of a compromise has been met in order to acknowledge that influence, while at the same time staying true to your own ideas and concepts?

Dejan Radisic: Well, I’m not so sure about the Fallout release timeline, but I think I started the development of Underrail even before Fallout 3 was released. Or at least I started working on the engine with the intention to build this kind of a game.

So back then there wasn’t, or at least I was not aware of, this craze with the fans that wanted the old Fallout back. And it certainly all started before this Wasteland sequel thing and all that. The game obviously draws some inspiration from Fallout, such as the mood, environments, some weapons, etc, but it wasn’t ever meant to be the new “real” Fallout. I don’t have a problem with people considering it that, though, and I believe that those who come to this game with such expectations won’t be disappointed and will find some of the old Fallout elements that are missing in the newer games. So in short, I do not mind it, but I’m also happy when people point out design differences and acknowledge the game as being it’s own thing.

IOR: Devastation and lack of resources are two of the most important elements in the game. Maybe this situation has something to do with the item creation system? Are you satisfied with that playable part of Underrail?

DR: Story-wise, food and habitation are the two scarcest thing in Underrail, so that’s not really a direct influence for the crafting system. As for the system itself, I’m happy with how it’s working out for now. There’s a bunch of blueprints I still want to add in, though, especially in the utility department.

It’s one of the most enjoyable things for me when developing – adding more stuff to craft, but it’s also really time consuming. I also want to make sure to eventually add things that you can only obtain by crafting. So to give a slight edge to those characters that invested a lot of skill points into that.

IOR: Talking about items, what methods are you using in the development of such a deep game? Would you pick the same tools if you have known the usability at the beginning?

DR: The game runs on a custom engine that I wrote myself. I also wrote all the tools involved. There’s a few things that I’d do differently if I were to start over again and some of them need more work, but I’m generally happy with them. I have an area editor, a character editor, an item editor, a dialog editor and then a bunch of smaller tools.

When I come across something that I can’t easily do in the tool then I have to make a choice to either modify the tool or to do it the hard way. Before I released an alpha version I was kinda in a hurry so I didn’t want to spend my time modifying the tools (even though that’s almost always more time efficient), but nowadays I do make improvement to them once in a while.​