Komt de naam Ankh je bekend voor? Dat kan kloppen, want Ankh is een remake van de game met dezelfde titel uit 1998. Maar waarom hebben ze geen nieuw deel gemaakt? En hoe serieus wordt de game? Wij konden het vragen aan Jan Klose, project leader van het spel.

Uiteraard wilden ook wij meer weten over deze point & click adventure, maar beseffen ons tegelijkertijd dat niet iedereen onder ons even goed de Engelse taal kan lezen. Speciaal voor deze lezers hebben we op pagina 2 een integrale vertaling opgenomen.

Gamed: "Why did the company decide to base Ankh on the original from 1998 and not make a new part in the series?"

Jan Klose: "The original game was only released on RISC OS machines which weren't very popular even in the 1990s. So I think the content of the new Ankh is unique to almost all players today. It was not sensible to create a part two if nobody knows part one... Also, having access to the great material of that early game enabled us to be very quick in producing the new Ankh. It wouldn't have been possible to create the game within only 12 months without these assets. Level designers Timm Schwank and Maxime van der Kloet were able to start modelling right away after finishing the game we were producing before Ankh. That was very good for our production process."

Gamed: "You said the game wanted to remain the faithful spirit of past Point and Click adventures. Are there any games in particular that you were referring to and how do we see this back in the game?"

Jan Klose: "We were especially impressed by the classic LucasArts titles; my personal favourite is "The Secret of Monkey Island". Still, we wanted to create our own gaming experience and only take these classics as a reference. We were supported by Telltale Games, the team of former LucasArts adventure specialists, which surely helped us a lot.

What I liked most about the old games was that anarchic style of humour mixed with very sympathetic characters. Also, the way items are used and combinded (which is never really straightforward in the old games but always remains logic) impressed me very much. Finally, the point-and-click interface is very easy-to-use, and at Deck13 we like it when things remain simple. So we tried to incorporate all these features into our new game, mixing it with our state of the art 3D environment designed by Technical Director Thorsten Lange."

Het team achter Ankh

Gamed: "The story is based around Assil who receives a death curse by accidentally breaking one of the holy urns, which leaves him with just a few hours to prevent his existence from being erased. Are we seeing this time aspect back in the game?"

Jan Klose: "Yes. The curse is getting closer and closer. It's also a visible experience because Assil receives more and more mystic tattoos all over his body as the story progresses. Also, the curse gains control over his limbs which is quite a frightening experience for poor Assil! Still, there's no real time dependency in Ankh. There are fixed spots where the story reaches a new level and Assil's situation gets more dangerous. However we decided to do without any time limits, as they are not the prettiest thing to have in an adventure game where you want to sit down and think about the solution of a puzzle as long as you like."

Gamed: "We've been told that the game uses gaming cliches in a funny matter. Can you tell us something more about that?"

Jan Klose: "I don't want to spoil too much here but an example for this is a health bar that suddenly appears on the screen in the middle of the game and Assil getting really worried about it."

Assil, het hoofdpersonage uit de game

Gamed: "What was the hardest thing to develop in this game, and what was the most fun to do?"

Jan Klose: "Hah, that's hard to answer! Developing a game like Ankh consumes much time and energy regarding almost all aspects of game development. Getting dialogues right and funny is as difficult as creating a 3D environment that looks great while being as stable as possible and supporting as many machines as reasonable. Level design, scripting, character design and animation were all difficult as well, especially regarding the financial and time restrictions of this project. It is almost a miracle that the game was released with very good quality (well, at least according to the reviewers so far), and this is the thing that made us most happy: that our efforts were rewarded. The greatest thing in development was to see the game actually finished, and watching people playing it and having fun. For us, this is the most important aspect in game development: To see people playing your game, smiling and simply having a good time!"

De game zal op 24 februari in de schappen liggen.