Cateia Games – Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World
[b]Adventure Gamers[/b]: The last most of us heard, Kaptain Brawe was an episodic adventure by Napthalite Productions. Clearly a lot has happened in four years. What’s been going on since then, and how did Cateia come to be involved?
[b]Ivan Bralic[/b]: Well, Napthalite Productions was a brand owned by the game’s author, Petar Ivancek. But it’s very hard for one man to develop an entire game on his own, especially a game as big as Kaptain Brawe. I can’t remember the exact occasion I first saw the game, but we were really impressed with what we’d seen. Since both Petar and Cateia Games are from Croatia, from the same city to be exact, we decided to meet in person. After enjoying a couple of coffees together, things just clicked the right way. We decided we should work together and finish this game properly, releasing it at least on PC, Mac, Linux and Apple iOS devices.
Cateia Games took over the project some nine months ago and ported it to its own cross-platform engine called CAGE (Cateia games Adventure Game Engine). Despite the fact that 90% of the artwork was already done at that point, it took us this long to put everything together. Kaptain Brawe features some 12-14 hours of gameplay, so nine months of programming and testing seems reasonable after all.
[b]AG[/b]: What was the state of the game when you took over?
[b]Kreso Spes[/b]: When we took over, the game was made entirely with Visionaire, a cool little adventure game engine but not adequate for our needs. Mainly due to its slower performance and the fact that it was available only for Windows at the time. The game has to run on every iOS device, which means it can consume no more then 20MB of RAM at any given time in low-resolution mode (iPhone 2G/3G and iPod Touch G1/G2) so we had to plan the software design very carefully.
[b]AG:[/b] Petar, have you remained personally involved in the project since Cateia has taken over production?
[b]Petar Ivancek[/b]: Yes, I’ve been involved since day one. Of course, since 90% of artwork, story and music was done, I was there to help the guys put it together as closely possible. I am very pleased with the work they did, and Kaptain Brawe now looks and runs much better.
[b]AG:[/b] There was a demo way back in the day that presented much the same sequence that I just played in the new version. What’s different now?
[b]Kreso[/b]: The first demo was made using the old Visionaire version. The most noticeable changes are in the User Interface design. We spent a lot of time and had many people, both hardcore gamers and casual gamers, try it to come up with a perfect user interface for each platform that will satisfy everyone without making any compromises. We decided against a unified interface on the PC/Mac and iPhone/iPad – that way, both platform advantages can be used to their maximum potential.
[b]Petar[/b]: This version is true to my original design, so the gameplay has remained the same. But as Kreso said, overall improvement was done on the interface and a couple of new features, like the hint system and the object highlighting. I think players will appreciate these additions.
[b]AG:[/b] For you guys at Cateia, what convinced you that Kaptain Brawe was an adventure worth licensing to complete?
[b]Ivan[/b]: When I first saw the old demo, I was pretty impressed with its artwork, character design and the overall atmosphere. I was very fond of the game’s humor and I soon found out that this Kaptain Brawe, an optimistically crazy, English-illiterate, self-convincing, pure-hearted police officer from Eastern Europe is a lovable character that will make you laugh all the time. He has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s doing it anyway! And he’s doing it with all of his heart and terrible English.
Then, we saw some of the other characters like Luna, a secret agent working for the High Space Council, and Danny the reluctant space pirate, along with the bad guy Wrag (who can’t pronounce the letter “R” by the way) and the wooden robot called Rowboat – Kaptain Brawe’s personal assistant. They were all simply awesome!
Instantly we recognized Kaptain Brawe‘s homage to old-school adventure games like Monkey Island and Broken Sword. It gave us a strong nostalgic feeling from the good all days when we were kids, playing the aforementioned games all day long on our state-of-the-art 386 computers. And that is something precious we were sure many players would enjoy. We fell in love with the game instantly and couldn’t wait to start working on it, and now that I finally see it finished, it makes me believe that this was one of the best decisions Cateia Games has ever made.
[b]AG:[/b] This game is a big departure from your more serious adventures so far. Has it been a big adjustment switching from drama to comedy?
[b]Dejan Radic[/b]: True…we’ve stuck around dramatic scenarios for a long time. You could say drama has become our trademark over the years. Serious faces, intrigue, spooky storylines…that’s Cateia’s main course. But everything changes… We’ve always tried to out-achieve ourselves with each game we develop! We decided to go with a whole new approach with Kaptain Brawe’s story. And I think we’ve done it well!
[b]AG:[/b] Tell us about Kaptain Brawe, the man.
[b]Petar[/b]: Kaptain Brawe is a true point-and-click protagonist. He is naïve, courageous and generally means well, but he also has another side. You will see him get angry, sad and provocative. He believes in the New Space Union, justice and law, even when things around him don’t look that way. However, during the game he will have to make a choice. His career or…
[b]AG:[/b] Yes, or… We know very little about the plot so far. What kinds of trouble can we expect the Kaptain to get himself into? Or more likely, cause.
[b]Petar[/b]: Well, the game features a couple of planets, each making a separate chapter of the story. You will hunt for kidnapped aliens, blow up dams, blow up laboratories, cook and tinker with the latest space technologies. I just realized you blow up everything you come in contact with. 🙂
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