Follow up and end of the interview :
"Certain dialogues will use the dynamic approach and others will use a fixed camera. There were certain environments that were impossible to have more then one shot.
Microids have got us used to great soundtracks for its releases. What kind of music will you use for the purposes of Still Life and how much time will the total soundtrack last?
We know that Still Life needs great music to keep players on the edge of their seat. Fortunately, we have terrific musicians that will give Still Life just that! The people who scored Syberia 1 and 2 are back for Still Life. They will be scoring all the cinematics and all the in-game sounds. We have Tom Salta, who will handle all the ambient in-game music, which will chill the spine of any thriller fan. As for the soundtrack's running time, I haven't a clue because they haven't finished it yet.
Do you plan to use voice-actors that have appeared in previous Microids titles or are you going to hire a whole new cast?
We are very happy to have Sara Leger back with us. She played a small role in Post Mortem (Bebe, or Berenice). Now Sara Leger will play Victoria McPherson. For the other voice talents, I'd rather not comment because we are still in the casting process.
Adventures from Microids have been praised for their technical standards (graphics and music) but when it comes to gameplay they have received their fair share of criticism from adventurers. First of all, some adventurers claim that the Syberia series for example is lacking a bit on interactivity. For example there are many screens where the player cannot do anything else but walk through them, i.e. there are no objects to look at/interact with or persons to talk to. Will there be such 'empty' screens in Still Life or do you plan to increase the interactivity level with this new title?
Still Life will have less empty spaces simply because Still Life is very different from the Syberia series on many levels, especially the narrative pacing. Syberia is an epic voyage, making it important to make things a little 'slower' and create breathtaking environments. It would be boring in a game like Syberia to give everything right away. The goal was to witness Kate Walker's voyage to Syberia and her personal evolution throughout her journey. However Still Life's story revolves around an investigation of a series of murders in the streets of Chicago (and Prague). The narrative structure in Still Life is one that leads players to a series of cliffhangers, due to the switches from one time period to the other. Most objects we find in the game are used on location.
Some of the mechanical puzzles in Syberia 2 were quite illogical and gave almost nonexisting feedback to the gamers. Will Still Life feature mechanical puzzles or will you base gameplay more on investigation and character interaction?
There are no mechanical puzzles in Still Life. However, Still Life is not a CSI clone, where Victoria has to collect evidence throughout the entire game (it happens only once). We have what I like to call classic adventure style puzzles, and some that are very original. We took great care to integrate the puzzles into the storyline.
2 puzzles from Post Mortem that were deemed impossible to solve by many adventurers were the portrait puzzle and the lock pick puzzle, both due to non-existent feedback to the player. I.e. when you presented the portrait you had drawn you just got an answer that it is not the right person instead of pinpointing which part of the face you had drawn wrong so that you know what you have to change. Do you plan to take better care this time of giving feedback to players?
Yes. Victoria will say things to point the player in the right direction without it being a walkthrough of course. Also, depending on the puzzle, there will be sound or actions (taken by Gus, Victoria or NPCs) that will let the player know if he's doing things right or wrong.
If we say that Syberia 1 was an easy game while Post Mortem and Syberia 2 leaned more on the difficult side would you describe Still Life as an easy or a difficult game?
It is hard to determine whether a puzzle is difficult or easy. Some players will breeze through one while others will be stuck for hours. That's why Still Life will go through extensive focus groups to give us a good idea of the level of difficulty. When the results from the focus groups come in certain aspects of the game will be adjusted. To me Syberia 1 is the easiest one, Syberia 2 was a bit harder and Post Mortem is definitely the hardest of the three. My personal prediction is that Still Life will be like Syberia 2 in terms of challenge. The puzzles are difficult, but logical.
Do you plan to use any new and innovative kind of tasks/challenges/puzzles for Still Life that has not been seen before in adventure games?
I don't know if this has ever been seen before but there is one puzzle that the team is proud of; the robot puzzle. Victoria 'borrows' a small experimental robot from the bomb squad. The goal is to navigate the little robot through a maze of lasers so that the robot can shut them down for Victoria.
Kate Walker from the Syberia series remained quiet for the most part of the game not commenting on her surroundings and the objects that she picks up, unlike what some other adventures have got us used to. Will the main characters of Still Life make more comments or will they be 'silent' like Kate Walker?
Victoria is quite different from Kate Walker. She does have a tendency to give her opinion about certain things in her environment. For example we have Victoria commenting on a couple of dolls. The dolls are hanging from a noose in an abandoned building (crime scene) and when the player clicks on them Victoria says: 'Nice Christmas decorations'.
Could you describe to us the interface of the game? Is it similar to Syberia?
As I mentioned earlier, the inventory interface is now full screen. This will have two new features. The first one is a examine button. This will allow players to get an up-close view of the object that can even reveal clues. The other is the combine button. This will allow players to combine two objects in the inventory like for example combining film to a camera."
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