Chaser Preview

AT: Most FPS titles are largely recognized by their indoor environments. Sadly, some of them convey a dark and gloomy atmosphere, and have totally neglected outdoor day-light surroundings. Can we look forward to seeing bright outdoor levels in Chaser? Something like the ones we've seen in, say, Serious Sam?

DD: Actually, most of the levels are indoor but we will have several outdoor missions, which are going to take place in Siberia during daylight, therefore you will come across some nice, huge and bright outdoor surroundings in Chaser.

AT: The AI routine also plays an integral part of gameplay. Name some of the AI features of the enemy characters.

DD: AI in Chaser is divided into several levels. The lowest level takes care of technical issues like pathfinding. Higher levels take care of avoiding obstacles, proper attacking, changing weapons, reloading ammo, and so on. The highest level ensures an intelligent cooperation among bots and execution of rules of each particular game (single player or multiplayer mode). We are confident that the opponents in Chaser will be really challenging.

AT: Explain more about the game engine and the advantages it offers.

DD: In Chaser we are using our in-house made 3D engine - CloakNT. You can find closer details about the engine on our web site (www.cauldron.sk) in tech section. Generally, CloakNT are two 3D engines incorporated into one. One uses lightmaps for lights and shadows and second one real-time per pixel lighting as you can see e.g. in Doom 3D engine. For Chaser we use the first one, because it allows us to create highly detailed scenes and richer lighting (as opposed to the results we get when we use the real-time per pixel lighting version). Additionally, you will be happy to know that the Lightmap version will be accessable on every system.

Furthermore, the game will have features like skinned animations, facial expressions, advanced particle system (capable of really nice explosions), outdoor terrain rendering. The biggest advantage is that it is our own engine so we can change it and make it work exactly the way we want. We've also included a level editor that speeds up level creation with its on-the-fly new features for level designers.

AT: Let us know a little bit more about the variety of missions and tasks that await players.

DD: That should remain a secret until the release of the game because we want the players to enjoy the story and missions and find out more for themselves.

AT: Why have you resolved to put strictly real-life weaponry in the game (such as, pistols, riffles, shotguns, grenade launchers, and explosives)? Why not have some more fun with futuristic kind of artillery (lasers, plasma guns, and so on)?

DD: We've made that decision because real weapons would intensify the in-game atmosphere. It gives a better taste of reality. Lasers and plasma guns are much more futuristic than how we feel Chaser should be. Some of the weapons in Chaser are somewhat futuristic, but there will be no lasers or plasmas. Maybe we can prepare a special multiplayer mode for using such weapons, but we feel that they have no place in the single player mode.

AT: When can we expect a playable version of the game?

DD: We are expecting to have a preview code in spring 2002.