2. It's been almost 25 years since Rogue was released. How has the genre evolved? Have you paid attention to what other developers did, direction they took, features they added? What are your favorite rogue-like games?

I'm not an authority on roguelike games. However, what strikes me as their most enduring feature is the uncompromising focus on gameplay. While the professional industry appears to writhe under the heal of the console
economy, roguelikes offer a unique experience that people still find enjoyable. I am not a gaming purist either way, so in S.C.O.U.R.G.E. I try to blend the best of both worlds.​

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Lionheart wasn't a good game by any standards. There was too much click fest combat to make it a good adventure RPG. The combat itself was poorly implemented and thus failed to meet the standards of today's action RPGs, and Lionheart definitely didn't qualify to be an RPG in a role-playing kind of way. So, why write a review if the game clearly sucked, you ask? Lionheart should have been a very good, if not a great game. It took a lot of talent and skills to bury that promise. Let's follow each choice and see where and how it went wrong.​

If you ask the staff members of the RPG Codex for their favourite CRPGs, you're likely to find two common answers from all of them: Fallout and Geneforge. The first is something of a no-brainer but many gamers have never heard of the latter, which is a real shame given how good it is. For a mere $25, the good folks at Spiderweb Software would sell you Geneforge, easily one of the best CRPGs in years. Geneforge was a solid success for Spiderweb, prompting the development and release of a sequel, Geneforge 2. We're happy to report that Geneforge 2 is a fantastic game and lives up to its predecessor admirably.​

During the summer of this year, the people at Bethesda Softworks saw fit to inflict upon us another expansion to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.Bloodmoon has you investigating werewolves on the snowy island of--oh, who gives a shit? It's the same old hopelessly dull Morrowind gameplay. You run around fairly pretty countryside beating the tar out of hordes of stupid cliff racers doing completely pointless quests that involve murdering people for no real reason and occasionally 'talking' to the walking search engines the game calls NPCs. Morrowind is a terrible game and the expansions for it don't seem to fix any of that horror.​

2. Silent Storm has many interesting and rarely seen these days features: turn-based combat, role-playing, non-linear campaign structure, multiple paths to complete missions, and interactive environment. Please tell us why each option was chosen, i.e. turn based instead of real time, non-linear instead of linear, etc.

The ultimate goal for all these improvements and concept key-points was to provide players with maximum freedom at every level of gameplay. Thus, for Silent Storm we've chosen the turn-based genre as it offers full control over the tactical situation and every operative in your squad. It enables players to make the best use of equipment, weapons, combat patterns and so on. It allows you to immerse into your mission, step into the boots of your squaddies, scrutinize details or apply group strategy whenever needed, at your own choice.

Yet again, non-linear campaign structure means more freedom, flexibility and replayability for the game. Every time you start the game, special randomizer mixes up campaign missions, clues, sensitive information and other game evidence that drives you throughout and uncovers the plot. As you proceed and find these clues, new missions and objectives open up on the global map. This is where you decide which mission to take and in what direction you want to investigate and impose your subversive activity.

Appearance of multiple paths to complete missions was inevitable with the introduction of totally destructible environment and powerful graphical engine in Silent Storm, unseen in the games of its genre before. It lets you collapse buildings, crush through doors, shoot enemies through ceiling by the sound of their footsteps. So, for instance, you can blow a wall with a pack of TNT anywhere you please and distract enemy guards while doing silent killing on the side of the lab. This permits you to fully use your tactical thinking and equipment at hand to accomplish the mission in the best way possible or in your own style. That's why we've chosen it.​

2.) Flatspace has some interesting features from rogue-like games, including permadeath, graveyards, random universe generation, and so forth. Can you tell us a little bit about why you've added features like this? What made you think they'd be interesting in this context?


Well, I like Nethack. Random elements always make a game better because they really add to the depth for such a small amount of development work. Once you've completed Half Life, there is no real reason to ever play it again so why don't they add random levels? Getting the computer to generate as much from seeds can lead to great depth and complexity without much outlay. The real Universe is generated algorithmically after all.

The exploration aspects of rogue clones is rarely used in games, yet those are some of their most interesting aspects. Every game is different. It keeps the game interesting even at the start, a plot driven game gets more and more interesting until you finish the game and never play it again. If a game is just as fun at the start as the end then permadeath is not a penalty.
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