With its promise of a story journey expertise and its immediately eye-catching retro artwork model, Centum has sufficient going as it’s to seize consideration, particularly if it is a style that often appeals to you, however you add to that the sport’s core hook of revolving round an unreliable narrator, and it turns into that rather more of an intriguing prospect. Desirous to be taught extra about this upcoming mind-bending journey title and what it’ll carry to the desk, we just lately reached out to its builders with a few of our questions on it. Beneath, you’ll be able to learn our interview with Hack the Writer’s head of studio Andrey Kiryushkin.
“The visible idea started with sketches of the preliminary room and the “rat” character, establishing the sport’s visible model characterised by grotesque imagery and a darkish, chilly aesthetic.”
Centum boasts a beautiful artwork model that immediately catches the attention. Are you able to inform us the way you landed on this search for the sport?
Centum is concentrated on its storyline, so the artwork division intently collaborated with the screenwriter. The purpose was to emphasise the sport’s originality and unconventional nature. The visible idea started with sketches of the preliminary room and the “rat” character, establishing the sport’s visible model characterised by grotesque imagery and a darkish, chilly aesthetic. The artwork model drew inspiration from numerous sources, together with well-known darkish fantasy video games like Darkish Souls and Concern and Starvation, in addition to The Golem, a novel written by Gustav Meyerink, and even dungeon synth albums. The artwork director maintained the model, whereas every artist added their private contact to the challenge, bringing of their attention-grabbing visions and references. So collective creativity additionally allowed us to carry many attention-grabbing elements into Centum’s look.
A story journey sport with an unreliable narrator- surprisingly we don’t see a whole lot of them. What prompted you to discover this storytelling approach, which has change into well-liked in different media, however doesn’t appear to have caught on as a lot in video games?
The fact of Centum is hostile to the characters for their very own good—a paradox, certainly. It views the participant as a personality within the sport, however the participant doesn’t essentially must agree with it. Due to this fact, this narrative gadget appears essentially the most acceptable for telling this story.
In your opinion, why are unreliable narrators uncommon in video video games?
A few of our best inspirations for Centum are video games the place the plot and narrative used this method to some extent, from comparatively unknown initiatives to extensively acclaimed hits. It implies a considerably larger involvement of the participant within the narrative course of, pushing them to behave and resist the sport world, basically changing into a sport inside a sport.
What video games would you say have been your inspirations for this title? The Stanley Parable involves thoughts as an apparent analog, however have been there any others?
The Stanley Parable to some extent, and to some extent Doki Doki Literature Membership. Nevertheless, the primary supply of inspiration was the Cyberdreams1995 masterpiece I Have No Mouth, and I Should Scream.
“The primary supply of inspiration was the Cyberdreams1995 masterpiece I Have No Mouth, and I Should Scream.”
Inform us in regards to the dynamic dialog system. How does that work, and the way a lot variation can gamers count on from it?
The dialogue system isn’t a lot completely different from these present in different video games. Nevertheless, it’s self-aware of its personal limitations. Typically it really works, generally it doesn’t, and generally a totally non-obvious selection could seem. Right here, we tried to create part of a sport that a synthetic intelligence would possibly create, not absolutely understanding what it’s doing and the way video games of this style ought to work. And this AI is aware of he’s horrible at his job. In fact, we tried to not cross the road the place it stops being a story technique and turns into an annoyingly poorly made sport with unhealthy dialogue.
How considerably will gamers’ actions impression the ending? What number of completely different doable endings does the sport have?
That is extra a sport in regards to the phantasm of selection. Within the actuality of Centum, all selections have lengthy been made, and we’re merely observing the implications. The endings of the sport are extra about why these choices have been made slightly than what penalties they led to. There are fairly just a few doable solutions to this query, so regardless of there being 5 endings within the sport, they will differ in numerous nuances throughout completely different playthroughs. The participant’s choices are essential, regardless that the top is predetermined.
Roughly how lengthy will a mean playthrough of the sport be?
You may count on about 8-10 hours.
