[Dasilva]

Hi everyone, since my website isent ready to debut, and I dont want this interview to go out of date so I decided to share it with you guys. Feel free to post people the link to this thread to share this interview & screenies to the whole world. (btw, now you all know the name of the upcoming website, Adventure Globe.)

THIS INTERVIEW & SCREENSHOTS ARE COPYRIGHT ME. SO PLEASE DO NOT STEAL THIS WITHOUT PROPER WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM ME. THANK YOU.

Interview by Dasilva with Lead Designer Jan Klose:
====================================

Q: Thank you for taking the time to have this interview with us. Tell us a bit about yourself and what role you play in the development of Ankh?

A: Hi, my name is Jan Klose and I’m the project leader of Ankh. The Ankh team consists of 13 people, supported by about the same number of freelancers who were responsible for the programming, 3D design, sound, and music.

Q: Tell us a bit about your past, and what happened when your company first started? Were there any other project attempts before Ankh that never made it through?

A: Well, they weren’t only attempts; the Deck13 team has completed more than 10 different games projects ranging from smaller games for the RISC OS platform (starting back in 1997) to huge action games like “Stealth Combat” which was released in 2002 for the PC. We’ve also worked together with Activision on various Tycoon games. However we always wanted to create games where we could tell new and interesting stories, so we've been drawn to the adventure genre since the very beginning.

Q: Tell us a bit about Ankh?

A: Ankh is a wacky adventure game set in ancient Egypt. While young Assil celebrates a party with his pals in a freshly built pyramid, he desecrates a mummy’s urns and ends up with a horrible death curse. Whilst trying to rid himself of this curse he bumps into Thara, a beautiful woman who hides a dark secret...

Q: Can you tell us more of what kind of interface Ankh will have? Will it be unique or something used before?

A: It’s a classic point-and-click interface, combined with state-of-the-art 3D graphics and dynamic in-game cameras. Our intention was to carry the spirit of the classic adventure game into the 21st century and thus creating a completely new gaming experience without giving up the tried and tested interface that so many people loved. We’ve built upon those sometimes unintelligible classic interface attempts and ended up with something that you will find intuitive to use.

Q: Judging by the work already produced Ankh has such amazing graphics, such high quality. Please tell us more about the hardware and software technology that is being used to create Ankh?

A: We’re using the open source 3D engine OGRE which is capable of displaying high quality graphics at a very decent speed. The levels have been created with Maya while the character animations are exported from 3DStudio Max with the dedicated animation plug-in CAT.

Q: Will Ankh lean more towards RPG or Adventure? And why have you chosen that direction?

A: Ankh's game play is based on the classic adventure. We’ve chosen this route because it was the ideal platform in which we could entertain you with a wacky story.

Q: What is the expected release date for Ankh?

A: The German release date was Nov 4th. Ankh will be released in Europe in January, in the USA in spring 2006.

Q: What future do you see for Ankh? Do you see any room for a sequel/prequel/expansion?

A: The extraordinary characters and the vivacious world that is Ankh leaves lots of room for sequels and other types of expansions. We’d be very happy to produce thousands of further Ankhs!

Q: As we’ve seen in the trailer this game obviously uses good humor, should we expect more of this?

A: Yes. Tons of humor. If you were into those classical funny adventure games than I’m sure that you’ll love Ankh. To ensure that the humor was really top notch, we joined forces with Telltale Games, the ex LucasArts team that has been working on Sam&Max 2 and that has just released “Bone”.

Q: Can you mention some names that are on the team? Writers? Artists? Programmers? Musicians? Animators? Others?

A: Armin Burger, co-founder of Deck13, assisted as technical and creative supervisor and did tons of the scripting.
Thorsten Lange is our lead programmer who architectured the complete technical framework.
Timm Schwank is our lead artist who breathed fresh life into ancient Egypt.
Maxime van der Kloet has been doing level design and can be especially proud of the Sphinx.
Gregor Weiß is a wizard who has done most of the character animation.
Robert Sander and Susie Sou have been the backbone of the project and assisted in numerous places.
Also, Frank Habel, Viktor Gesiarz, and Markus Friederich helped to make Ankh what it is now. A big thanks to all of them!

Q: Any word of advice for the game developers of the world?

A: Take your time in finishing off a game. Even the best game can turn out to be a horrible experience if the final 10 percent didn't turn out as planned. Other than that, in spite of the experience that we've collected since 1997, we still feel kind of new in the games industry and still hope that we can benefit from the advice of others!

Q: Any last words?

A: Of course: Go out, buy Ankh, and have fun!

Q: Thank you for your time to do this interview, greatly appreciated.

A: The pleasure was definately all ours!

END

NEW PC SCREENSHOTS:



THE REST:
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SCREEN 07
SCREEN 08
SCREEN 09
SCREEN 10
SCREEN 11

[bigjko]

The cartoony style looks pretty nice. Judging from the trailer, though, I'm not gonna be a big fan of the animation.

Oh, and.. are you sure you can copyright screenshots that actually belong to the developers of the game?

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by bigjko

The cartoony style looks pretty nice. Judging from the trailer, though, I'm not gonna be a big fan of the animation.

Oh, and.. are you sure you can copyright screenshots that actually belong to the developers of the game?

They are exclusive to me to display to the public. I have written permission.

[Maquisard]

Why does the game have a health bar (or is it a love bar )?

Also, seems like it'll have interchangeable characters. Interesting.

[Karmillo]

Great review
Never knew Telltale had anything to do with the project, how much involvement did they have?

Originally Posted by bigjko

Oh, and.. are you sure you can copyright screenshots that actually belong to the developers of the game?

I dont see a copyright on the images, just the name of the site that done the interview

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by Karmillo

Great review

*Interview.

Originally Posted by Karmillo

I dont see a copyright on the images, just the name of the site that done the interview

The website is mine, its not launched yet. But I didn't want this article to go to waste.

[Karmillo]

Originally Posted by Dasilva

*Interview.

Doh



Me

[ATMachine]

The dialogue displayed in these screenshots does not give me confidence in the quality of the translation.

[Erwin_Br]

I totally dig those screenshots.

--Erwin

[Karmillo]

Originally Posted by ATMachine

The dialogue displayed in these screenshots does not give me confidence in the quality of the translation.

I cant see a problem with them

[Jazhara7]

Originally Posted by Mares

Why does the game have a health bar (or is it a love bar )?

Also, seems like it'll have interchangeable characters. Interesting.

I won't spoil it to you, but trust me, this Health bar will actually make you smile. (It also only appears at one certain point).



-

[Kolzig]

Originally Posted by Dasilva

SCREEN 11

A spelling error, am I right?
I just wanted to point that out.


BTW, thanks for the interview Dasilva. It's always a pleasure to read all kinds of developer interviews, even though Ankh doesn't interest me that much.

[Karmillo]

Baseball set probably means the Bat with the glove and ball

[fov]

Originally Posted by Dasilva

They are exclusive to me to display to the public. I have written permission.

Unless you plan to spend a lot of time sending cease and desist letters to other sites, that's never going to happen. (Nor should it, but that's a discussion for another thread. ) If it's that important to you, though, you might want to place your watermark somewhere where it can't easily be edited out.

Anyway, thanks for posting the info. The interview doesn't really say anything new (sorry ), but the screens are nice. I wish they'd come out and make a formal announcement about US distribution... the suspense is killing me.

Originally Posted by Karmillo

Never knew Telltale had anything to do with the project, how much involvement did they have?

My understanding is that they acted as advisors, giving their comments on the script and the English translation. They didn't have anything to do with the programming of the game.

[Dasilva]

Don't worry, the screenshots dont mean that much to me because there are already tons of Ankh screenshots.


I know its nothing new but its more worthwhile now than after the games' release.

[squarejawhero]

"Desectated my tomb"? Shouldn't that be "desecrated"?

Thanks, D, nice info and very kind of you to share.

[Kolzig]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

"Desectated my tomb"? Shouldn't that be "desecrated"?

That's exactly what I was talking about.

[Cellardoor]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

"Desectated my tomb"? Shouldn't that be "desecrated"?

Maybe the mummy is mad about someone removing a sect from his tomb...

[bigjko]

Originally Posted by Karmillo

I dont see a copyright on the images, just the name of the site that done the interview

Originally Posted by Dasilva

THIS INTERVIEW & SCREENSHOTS ARE COPYRIGHT ME.

Spoiler:

I'm starting to like Ankh

[Dasilva]

You know what I mean. Sheesh.