Gaming Today Q&A: Stephan Vakhtin of Hard to be a God

Hard to be a God is a new RPG from Akella (Tales of Pirates) slated for release sometime in December, and recently we here at Gaming Today were given the opportunity to speak with Hard to be a God lead designer Stephan Vakhtin. This interesting RPG is not going to be your average hack and slash or dungeon crawler, but something more in the realm of science fiction at its most intriguing.

GT: Please introduce yourself to our readers and tell them a little bit about Hard to be a God.

Stephan Vakhtin: Hello! My name is Stephan Vakhtin, and I am the leading designer of project Hard to be a God. Well, Hard to be a God is both a hack’n’slash and role-playing game. The events in the game take place in a universe depicted in the novel of the same name, written by the Strugatsky brothers. But the storyline of the game doesn’t repeat what’s happening in the book, but rather continues it. The action in the game takes place about two years later after the events described in the novel. Hard to be a God is a third-person-view game featuring dynamic combat, many weapons and fighting techniques and also a well thought-out and diverse role-playing system. Also, special attention has been paid to in-game dialogs and the storyline.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

GT: What was it about the book ‘Hard to be a God’ written by Arcady and Boris Strugatsky that inspired the idea to create a game based upon it?

SV: The fictional universe created by the Strugatsky brothers is very unique and attractive. It sort of combines two distinct and very different worlds - the dark medieval age of a backward civilization and the Utopian future with all its advanced technologies and scientific achievements. As we saw it, such a universe would be ideal for a background of a role-playing game. Not to mention that we are great fans of science fiction!

GT: What type of graphics engine did you use in the development process?

SV: The game engine was developed in the Burut CT Company. Initially this engine was to be used in real-time strategy games, but we have modified it significantly to better fit the RPG genre. Our engine supports numerous editable object types and renders very beautiful and detailed graphics.

GT: Being a non-linear game with many possible outcomes to many different scenarios, did this prove to be a challenge to both the writers and development team and still remain true to the original story?

SV: One of our main goals was definitely preserving the unique atmosphere of the novel, which made the book so popular with the fans. And it was indeed not an easy task to create dynamic combats, a diverse role-playing system, non-linear dialogs and a deep and interesting storyline. The player should find himself immersed into the atmosphere of the game, feel himself to be part of what’s going on. So we transferred the majority of the characters and locations described in the novel into our game. Even the relations between fractions and particular characters, the local customs and specifics of the behavior of people described in the book have been reflected in the gameplay. We tried to make it a living world, which lives by its own laws, with the player being one with it.

GT: Most RPGs have a turn based or real-time combat system. Is Hard to be a God’s combat system similar or will it be a combination of both?

SV: All combats in our game proceed in real time. We decided to make combat as dynamic as possible, with lots of special attacks, blocks, combos and so on. Of course, we were aware of particular drawbacks of this combat system and we tried to do our best to make combats more diverse. For example, the hero can knock his opponents down and even execute fatality moves under particular circumstances.

GT: The horse is an important factor in the game, instead of your usual RPG beast of burden. Was this the case in the book as well or is this something entirely new to Hard to be a God?

SV: Horses did play an important role in the book, and our game is no different. The horse is not simply a mount. It’s a great help in combat as it is hardy, has much more health compared to the hero and is also more resistant to damage. The hero may purchase a horse at any time, use it to travel across zones and fight mounted against both mounted and unmounted adversaries. On the downside, it’s quite expensive to buy and usually requires much time to rest. There will be about a dozen of different horses in the game, ranging from simple peasant jades to armored warhorses.

GT: NPCs in games are usually quest related or important factors. Will the NPCs be able to aid you in your quest, as well as provide new ones?

SV: Well, the advance in the game is actually based on interacting with NPC’s. The player constantly deals with them - seeks out additional information from them, searches for them, escorts them, strikes deals with them - and so on… There will be many quests when the player will need to protect a particular NPC or use other characters’ help to get to a particular enemy. The hero will have the option of helping his allies in combat - there will be a special dialog option to do this.

GT: Were any voice actors hired to play characters in the game or is the dialouge worded?

SV: All game characters were dubbed by professional actors. There are over 350 unique characters in Hard to be a God, and we tried to make their voices as distinct as possible.

GT: With Age of Pirates, Akella used the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. Did they provide the music for Hard to be a God as well? What sort of music should we expect to add dimension to the game?

SV: This time we didn’t use the orchestra in the recording of the soundtrack. All music was created by the development team. The soundtrack was written by a professional composer, and we have recorded it in our own studio. The in-game music is quite diverse, ranging from calm and melodic tracks to quick and aggressive combat themes. We paid special attention that the music themes suited the events happening in the game. To get oneself more familiar with the music in Hard to be a God, one can listen to the soundtrack which we plan to make available for downloading at the official website.

GT: What makes Hard to be a God stand out amongst the vast selection of RPGs on the market?

SV: We certainly realize that there are very many RPG games on the market these days, so we tried to make our game unique and distinctive from others. The most important of these features are:

1. Unique universe created by the Strugatsky brothers.
2. Horses play an important role in the gameplay.
3. The conflict between the medieval civilization and advanced technologies.
4. The terrestrial technologies function somewhat like magical items.
5. The role-playing system.
6. The attitude of the NPC’s towards the hero depends on the role the hero is currently playing.

GT: Thank you so much for your time. Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers about Hard to be a God?

SV: Well, I would just like to add a couple of words about our role-playing system - as far as I know, there was nothing like that before in any RPG so far. The point of this system is that the hero will have to play different roles depending on a particular situation he finds himself in. In other words, the hero can completely change his social status by using various clothing sets (the role-playing sets). The hero can disguise himself as a thief, a monk, a noble don - and this will greatly affect his standings with other NPC’s and factions. Also there will be additional role-dependant options in dialogs. For example, if you dress up as a noble don and choose to pay some brigands a visit, you will not only risk your possessions, but your life as well. But if you disguise as a thief, they will see in yourself one of their own kind, so you will be able to converse with them or even receive a quest. We also would like to thank everyone interested in our project for their support and attention. We hope that you will really enjoy Hard to be a God once it is released!

Thank you so much for speaking with us Stephan. Hard to be a God definitely looks to be a nice change of pace for RPG fans that are a bit tired of the redundancy in the genre. With an incredible must-read story like the one created by Arcady and Boris Strugatsky, this game looks as if it will not only be fun, but challenging as well.

Stephan was nice enough to send us some more screenshots of the game, and I must say that the more assets I view of this title the more impressed I become with Hard to be a God. For more information, you can check out our previous posts on the game, or for more media, look no further than our FileFront page.