THE COMPANY

JustRPG: Tell us about your company: its history and goals.

Brian: I formed inXile just about two years ago for the sole purpose of getting back into the development side of things. Because Interplay had grown to such an enormous size, I was unable to spend any hands on game development. Our goal at inXile is to focus on just a few titles and to bring as much quality, personality and original ideas as we can to video games. I’m very pleased with our first effort so far.

CREATING THE GAME/ DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

JustRPG: What were your goals when you set out to create The Bard's Tale?

Brian: The original goal with creating a new Bard’s Tale was to shake the genre up a bit and challenge some of the old RPG conventions. We also wanted to bring a more human quality to RPG’s to make them more interesting to non RPG players. People always gravitate towards people and the more we can create characters that behave like real human beings, the more people will take interest.

JustRPG: Reveal some of the development history behind the game and any challenges you have faced along the way.

Brian: One of the things that was very important to us was to spend months writing the design and plot without any overhead pressures. We were able to tinker with the design and make it creative in many ways because there was a not a large team sitting idle waiting for us. We took pre-production very serious and to another level. Too many times the best parts of the game happen in the first 5-30 minutes, but for us the clever bits are taken all the way to the last moments of the game. The biggest challenge we had was convincing people we could introduce humor into a game. For some reason there is a knee jerk reaction that somehow funny writing will detract from good game play. We well know the RPG conventions of stats, leveling up, tactical and strategic combat, learning new spells etc. so we felt the next place to go would be to inject lots of personality.

JustRPG: How is this Bard's Tale game different from the classic Bard's Tale games?

Brian: It’s hard to know where to begin to outline the differences since this is a totally new game. The Bard’s Tale that was released originally in 1985 with sequels up to 1991 was based on brining color graphics, music, and animation to a genre that was devoid of those elements. Those qualities are not selling points today so we needed to bring something else to the category. Our focus now is to bring a PC type depth of RPG to console and more importantly a sense of personality and style that we hope is a push forward in the genre. We love movies and books with tons of personality so our goal is to bring a greater sense of life to RPG's.

STORY/HUMOR/GAMEPLAY

JustRPG: Can you tell us about the story that will be featured within the game?

Brian: Too often games rely on some overarching plot to entice people to want to play their games. But general plots do not grab people’s attention; it is the journey along the way that entertains us. Rather than start with the generic plot of the 2000 year old evil that is about to re-emerge we decided to start small with an interesting character. Our Bard is not interested in saving the world or the local town for that matter; his interest is more personal and relative…. Money and women. If there isn’t coin or cleavage involved he has very little interest in doing anything. From there he gets sucked into a series of very different quests and eventually into a larger plot that twists and turns. We try to keep throwing some pretty funny and entertaining story elements at the player every 10-15 minutes.

JustRPG: It is obvious that The Bard's Tale will be a very humorous game. How are you accomplishing this and do you think it is an important element within the game?

Brian: The humor from the game really sprung from the Bard’s lack of interest in being a hero and from our own personal experiences from seeing the same RPG conventions used over and over for 20 years. We wanted the Bard to play the game like he himself has played too many RPG’s. Our attitude was… let’s question EVERYTHING. And while I don’t think humor is an important element in this game or any other, I do believe that personality and humanity are things that are important. Games are so much more fun when the characters behave like REAL people.

JustRPG: What kinds of quests and other gameplay elements can we expect to see in the game?

Brian: Even with the best of intentions many of the Bard’s actions end up backfiring and he has to undo the damage that he causes. They range from freeing an enslaved town that became that way due to actions from a prior period to tracking down a prisoner that the Bard let free. There is a strong sense of cause and effect based on the actions of the player. There are events that unfold 10-20 hours later based on the actions of the Bard in the early parts of the game. In fact, it is impossible to see all that could happen in The Bard’s Tale by playing it just once.

GAME ENGINE/FINAL COMMENTS/RELEASE

JustRPG: What engine are you using to create the game and what kinds of special effects is the engine capable of producing that will immerse gamers into this world?

Brian: We took the latest version of the Champions of Norrath engine and made our own adjustments to give some of the best graphics I’ve seen yet on a PS2. In fact, when I first began showing the game off on a DVD people thought I was showing a high end PC game. The graphics are a combination of fantasy and photo realistic. When the player walks around they will see that there is elegant animation everywhere from signs swinging to the leaves blowing in the trees. Much of the perspective is seen from top down and we’ve made those screens dramatic by bringing things like trees and roof tops way up into the foreground. We have great particle effects, big spells and top notch art from our outstanding art team.

JustRPG: Is there anything that you would like to mention that has not already been discussed? Why do you think gamers will enjoy The Bard's Tale over other RPGs when it is released?

Brian: I think the summoning system is something that players are going to enjoy playing with. The Bard derives all of this magic through the summoning of monsters to do his bidding. So rather than learn a “find traps” spell; the Bard instead learns to summon this old man who pokes around with his cane setting off the traps. Of course when you summon him back to help again he’s none too pleased about being killed off constantly. The Bard will slowly build up his party full or Fire Elementals, Stone Giants, Healers, light faeries and any number of odd misfits. The player will constantly be mixing up the composition of the party as it suits the particular situation. More than anything I believe the gamers will appreciate the combat system and the life that has been breathed into the world.

JustRPG: What is the current status of The Bard's Tale and when can we expect its release?

Brian: Currently we can play the game from beginning to end with relatively few bugs so now our jobs are to balance the game and polish it. We expect to have the game in plenty of time for Christmas on both PS2 and Xbox with the PC version following some 3-4 months later.