Evil Islands: Curse of The Lost Soul Preview

AT: The factor of experience and skill improvement is crucial to a good RPG. In what way will Evil Islands present this factor?

SO: The "Evil Islands" role-playing system differs from what we usually see in RPG's. Here you do not have levels or even classes of characters. As I have mentioned before, any character can improve combat, magic or stealing skills depending on what you want this character to become. There are six basic skills and about 80 special abilities; skills can be improved and abilities acquired for a number of experience points. You receive your experience points for both successfully completed quests and killed enemies. These points are divided among your party members, and you can allocate them as you like. This kind of role-playing system, partly inspired by GURPS, allows for a more flexible gameplay and an additional strategic element. There are many ways to build an effective party depending on the way you develop its three characters. You will hardly have enough experience points to make an equally good fighter, a mage and a thief out of each character, so you will have to choose and establish certain preferences. However, even if at a moment in the game you understand that someone's development went the wrong way and the character could work more effectively, you can correct it, adding earned experience points to your character's weak places.

AT: In what way are items generally presented in Evil Islands? Also, there will be an item constructor as well as a magic constructor. Please give us more details on that.

SO: Weapons, armor, and spells in "Evil Islands" are all customizable. Any weapon or armor can be assembled from a blueprint and a certain amount of material, and can also be dismantled into these components. There are about 30 blueprints and 30 materials in the game - so there are many possible variations in weaponry, even without mentioning spells. For instance, if you have thin leather armor, you can dismantle it and combine the blueprint with a tougher material for better protection. Certain materials can be looted from the bodies of dead enemies. For example, troll skin makes fine armor. Materials and blueprints can also be purchased in a shop. The assortment of items available in the shop depends on your progress in the game. For example, when bring a new piece of weapon to your craftsman for the first time, you will find that he has learned to produce this kind of weapon. Spells contain a keystone that defines how the spell looks, and a number of runes (there are about 30 all in all, but you can only insert 8 in one spell), which greatly modify the spell's characteristics. With a lighting spell, you can increase its range, the number of targets it can affect, and decrease the amount of magical energy it takes to be cast. Add an "enemy filter" to allow you to keep your party members and allied characters safe even within the range of the spell. However, the overall number of individual items you can create is still several times as big because you can also add spells into items. There is a special rune called "trigger" which allows you to insert a spell in an item. The trigger spell will work all the time or at the moment when an item hits its target. Of course, not all possible combinations are allowed. For example, you cannot add metal to a blueprint suitable for creating leather items because you need a special blueprint for metal armor and weapon. Useless spells are also banned. You cannot enhance the attack parameter of andeagle sight' spell because it is not supposed to inflict any damage at all.

AT: Can you explain the main characteristics of the combat system (besides that it's in real-time)?

SO: The combat is real-time but there is also a pause that can be used at any moment to give commands to your party members. As for the combat tactics, a player will have a great variety of choices. You can deliver hits to several parts of your enemy's body, such as head, torso and the four extremities. A hit in the head is most effective, but it also requires higher skill. A hit from behind has the greatest chance to be critical at first blow. However, despite of all the fun of a direct combat, more often than not you can find a more efficient way to complete a quest using certain stealth elements available. Not only can your characters walk or run but they can also sneak or crawl - a very useful thing to get past a stronger enemy unnoticed or approach from behind without raising alarm.

AT: Tell us more about the basic multi-player concept and the features it has to offer gamers?

SO: Evil Islands supports a cooperative multiplayer game allowing 1 to 6 players to play simultaneously over LAN or Internet. One of the players works as a server and also as a party leader responsible for choosing quests. Your party will perform quests of different difficulty levels in the single-player game zones with different inhabitants. The multiplayer character generator adds much fun to the game. Due to the ability to modify your character's body, you seldom see two multiplayer characters that look alike. We also created a master-server technology that allows players to find each other's servers on the Internet. Any server holder can add its IP address to a master server's list to make it available to anyone or make it private and password-protected.

AT: We're also waiting impatiently for your new title Ether Lords. How's that project comin along? Is there anything you'd like to say about it?

SO: We can't comment on "Ether Lords" yet, but we're looking forward to giving you more details soon!