Cateia Games – Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World
[b]Adventure Gamers:[/b] The other planets in this “brawe new world”… Are they anything like Earth, or should we count on some pretty alien (literally) environments to explore?
[b]Petar Ivancek[/b]: They are all like Earth. I wanted diversity in the environments, but on the other hand keep them very familiar to players. The planets are just an excuse to change the setting and atmosphere of the game. You will notice that the mood of the story reflects the ambiance of the environments. The first planet that you will play, called Jama Spacea, is a lush, colorful, tropical island, which serves as an intro to the story. Next is Schminkell 7, an icy planet, where you get stuck inside an ice cave. The feeling of isolation is then enhanced with music and artwork. That was the general motif while I was designing the game.
[b]AG:[/b] Who are some of the other characters (in every sense of the word) that we’ll meet in our inter-galactic travels?
[b]Petar[/b]: On Jama, you will meet a Space War I veteran, space pirates and a crucial (but ever-so-dead) previous owner of the motel. But I assure you, there are no ghosts. Kidnapped aliens appear here as well as Kaptain Brawe’s superior, Space Precinct Chief. On Schminkell you will play with a new character and also be introduced to a third. This is an introduction to multi-character gameplay which will evolve on Planet Varion.
[b]AG:[/b] The lack of voice acting is always a divisive point among gamers. But you’re a small Croatian studio funding your own games. Explain the challenges in getting a fully localized game to market.
[b]Dejan Radic[/b]: We were considering recording voiceovers for the game but unfortunately math is a very cruel science…
Kaptain Brawe has so much dialogue, voicing it all would be a huge undertaking, and although we are aware that the game would have more widespread appeal with voice acting, the cost of recording quality voice-overs is far too high…
We are constantly improving our skills and it isn’t too hard to imagine Cateia Games being able to produce high quality, polished voice acting in the near future. However, at the moment, we believe it’s better not to have voice-acting than have bad voice-acting (which we hear too often these days in adventure games).
[b]Kreso Spec[/b]: As Dejan said, the amount of text in the game would have sky-rocketed the recording price. We considered recording voice-overs with our local actors which would be affordable, but the local accent would be very noticeable and in our opinion, would be much worse than not having any voice-overs.
Voice acting should be done with native actors to the language the game is being made for, in a studio, with a producer that makes sure everything is being done properly, and all emotions from the script are being transferred to the voice. And that costs a lot! Anything else would produce a sub-standard quality, inadequate of our beloved Kaptain Brawe!
[b]AG:[/b] Besides the incredible artwork, what is it about Kaptain Brawe that will appeal most to adventure fans?
[b]Kreso[/b]: Kaptain Brawe is no doubt our most ambitious project to date and we’ve put huge effort into perfecting every detail of the game. I’ve played the game through and through while testing the programming and the game still manages to make me laugh. I think adventure game fans will mostly appreciate the good old-school feel of the game and its very unique story and clever puzzles.
[b]Petar[/b]: To make things clear, I grew up on adventure games and actually learned English through them. When I set out to make Kaptain Brawe, one thing was crystal clear. It had to have that Monkey Island 3 feel to it. Characters need bold, bright and colorful artwork, the backgrounds need that level of detail to keep everything believable. However, it’s the puzzles and interface that will immediately feel right with experienced adventure players.
[b]AG:[/b] Is this a standalone adventure now, or are you planning to have more Kaptain Brawe adventures to follow?
[b]Ivan Bralic[/b]: Originally, the game was to be released in several episodes, but we decided against it. We don’t want to reveal too much information to avoid spoiling the story, but we can tell you that Brawe and his friends will make a huge turnover in their careers through the game. There is a proper ending, but it leaves us much room for possible sequels. If it comes to that (and this mainly depends on the game’s sales), Kaptain Brawe will have a completely different role in this chaos-driven universe.
[b]AG:[/b] You’re also releasing the game on iPhone and iPad. Are there any noticeable differences between versions?
[b]Kreso[/b]: The pre-retina resolution iPhones and iPod Touches will run the game at a lower resolution (compared to the PC version) but despite that, the game looks remarkably good on such a small device. The iPhone4, iPod Touch G4 and iPad will feature a full HD resolution version of the game. There are noticeable differences in the user interface between PC/Mac, iPad and iPhone versions to make everything intuitive and easy to use on each device.
[b]AG:[/b] The PC version will be available for download on November 1st. Any chance of seeing a full retail release of the game some day?
[b]Ivan[/b]: We are negotiating with several retail partners for different countries and there will certainly be more than a few retail releases. However, retail releasing takes much more time than digital download, especially if retail partners want to localize the game for their territories and maybe even record voice-overs. Optimistically, I would say that the first retail version of Kaptain Brawe could be expected in spring 2011.
Cateia Games will release the game on November 1st through more than 20 partner sites, including GamersGate. At this very moment, GamersGate is offering exclusive pre-orders of the game for PC and Mac at a special discount of 15% off!
[b]AG:[/b] Petar, we’re glad to see this game didn’t disappear for good after all, and thanks to you guys at Cateia for helping make it happen. We appreciate you all taking the time to talk about the game.
[b]Ivan[/b]: Jack, thank you for this great opportunity to present our new game to your readers. I hope everyone will spend many entertaining hours playing it!
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