Technomancer Interview

Here is the first part of my interview with Jehanne Rousseau, CEO and co-founder of Spiders. We talked about her new RPG game called Technomancer. Check back later for the next part.

Couchpotato: You just announced a new RPG game called Technomancer this week. Would it be possible to share a brief sample of the game's setting/story?

Jehanne Rousseau:  As I've said before, The Technomancer takes place in the same universe as Mars War Logs, but in another corporation, called Abundance (they were the guys in charge of the prisoner camp at the beginning of MWL). You play as a young technomancer officer, and you have just learnt the great secret that links all the Abundance technomancers together (during the prologue): The technomancy comes from a mutation that seems to date from the first colonists. As you can perhaps remember, the mutants on Mars are treated like animals, so if this secret was to be revealed, the technomancers would suffer greatly.

Abundance (which is deeply inspired by Stalin's USSR) has a spy and surveillance force called the ASC. These guys want to discover the technomancers' secret and will do everything to obtain this information. So your main mission is to find all the clues and relics coming from Earth to try to find out why this mutation appeared, and most of all to contact Earth, and escape this hell on Mars.

Couchpotato: How long has the game been development?  Do you have a release date?

Jehanne Rousseau:  We began the preproduction a year ago, and I can't give you a release date for now. I think Focus Home interactive, our publisher will do an official announcement in the coming weeks.

Couchpotato: What platforms will the game be released on, and will you be offering a DRM-Version, say, on GOG.com?

Jehanne Rousseau:  The game will be release on PC and consoles, Concerning the selling platforms I can't tell you, Focus will decide.

Couchpotato: Will you be using your own Silk engine once again?

Jehanne Rousseau:  Yes we're using the Silk engine again but, as you'll see, we worked a lot on it, and have really improved it.

Couchpotato: One thing I like about most of your games is the ability to customize your armor. Will Technomancer continue the trend?

Jehanne Rousseau:  Of course, with even more armor pieces to customize!

Couchpotato:  On the topic of customization - Will you be able to customize your hero this time?

Jehanne Rousseau:  Partly yes. You won't be able - as in Bound by Flame - to choose your hero's sex, but you'll be able to choose his face, haircut, skin and eye color.

Couchpotato:  What type of combat system will the game have this time?

Jehanne Rousseau:  The combat system has been improved, with some new features, but it's still action oriented.

Couchpotato:  Will you be able to have more than one party member this time, and will your companions impact the game in any way like Mars: War Logs?

Jehanne Rousseau:  You'll be able to have two out of five companions with you. Each of them is deeply involved in the story and, of course, your behavior with them will change their approval, and the story itself too. You won't be able to choose their skills or abilities, but you'll be able to equip them this time. We've worked a lot on their AI, but you'll still be able to change their global behavior with simple orders (you can't control them completely).

Couchpotato: My final question is this. You are aiming to make Technomancer larger and bigger than any of your past RPG games. So, I was wondering if you can talk about some of the changes you have, or maybe want to implement in the game?

Jehanne Rousseau:  The world is bigger and not linear. You'll be able to go back to some previously visited places for more missions (of course these places will probably look different depending on your previous actions). There are different narrative threads all linked together that makes the story deeper and that allows plenty of quests (more than 80 quests and side quests). We have really worked on the character improvement, so we now have talent points (for charisma, medicine and science, mechanism and craft, etc) that are used during dialogs and in the gameplay. Also ability points (strength, power etc) and four skill trees (Rogue with knife and gun and stealth skills, Guardian with shield and one hand weapon skills, Two handed with quarterstaff skills, and of course technomancy) with a lot more active skills than before.

Of course I could also say that we'll have more characters, more equipment, etc, than ever. I hope that it will be a lot of fun for our players!

Don't forget to check out the developer's website!

Link - http://www.spiders-games.com/

And we also covered every game on our website.

Link - http://www.rpgwatch.com/developers/spiders-335/games.html