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| Alpha Black Zero Interview |
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| by Jason "Rodzilla" Rodzik |
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| Posted on January 28, 2003 |
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After trying for months, we finally were able to corner Yesse America and Erik t' Sas from Khaeon and get some answers out of them regarding their upcoming game, Alpha Black Zero.
Hello, My name is Yesse America, I am the Lead Designer for Khaeon on Alpha Black Zero. That's my real name by the way - not my superhero alias or something.
And I'm Erik t' Sas and Lead Code on the Alpha Black Zero project for Khaeon.
Seriously! - What was the inspiration for Alpha Black Zero (formerly Living Sword)?
Yesse - The inspiration for Alpha Black Zero comes from various books and movies. Naturally the movies Aliens and Starship Troopers - and I am talking about the design of the setpieces, vehicles and weapons here, not the aliens themselves, because ABZ doesn't have any. A huge influence in writing the story and the the backstory for the universe was the excellent "Night's Dawn Trilogy" by Peter F. Hamilton: a science fiction book series that is just amazing. As far as games go I must say that the biggest influences were Hidden and Dangerous, Max Payne, Halo and Splinter Cell. I hope that makes any sense - but it's specific elements of gameplay or design in those games that got us thinking.
Seriously! - What are you currently working on?
Yesse - At the moment I am overseeing art production and producing the ingame cutscene models. These are somewhat higher in polycount than the actual game models, especially since their faces have to be animated and lip-synched to the voiceart. Within a month or so I will start production of the ingame cutscene sequences.
Seriously! - What can you tell us about the storyline of the game?
Yesse - The underlying theme in ABZ is moral fidelity vs. martial superiority. Popular science fiction often depicts that moral sensibilities will change once we reach out to the stars and start to colonize other planets, creating more space for our diverse range of cultures. ABZ's back story concludes differently. It takes current real world threats and political tensions, and overlays them against a future society that, for all its advancements, looks very similar to our own.
In this future there are wealthy planets and there are poor planets.
Most wealthy planets cluster together in political and economical conglomerates that exclude those poor planets, but do enforce a galactic law upon them. Some of these wealthier planets are run by governments which do possess a modicum of integrity (as far as politics allow), but there are others that don't. All the while, the inhabitants of those poorer planets have to face a dreary, hungry, and miserable life from day to day, and have to accept political meddling by the more powerful planets. The latter ones might try to do what is best in the greater scheme of things, but factually, they bring war, famine and unrest through their actions in the intergalactic political arena.
Inevitably, these "weaker" planets fall prey to dictatorial regimes or criminal organizations, which bear a grudge to those wealthier planets, using the local populace for their own ends.
So it is that in the ABZ universe there are a whole slew of "third world" planets that harbor political and military threats which are not yet apparent to the rest of the galactic community.
This galactic community, which is called the SolGov (Sol Government) Federation, has slowly begun to realize that for all of its strength, it is vulnerable. Not in a sense that they lack military resources or political power, but because of the many badly or partly terra formed planets it has ignored for so long - which have now become the homes of dangerous terrorist elements which could strike at the heart of humanity in ways previously unimaginable.
It is this uncertainty that drives them to drastically reorganize their military structure, veering away from bloated fleets of star cruisers, instead forming small groups of men and women who can seek out and negate such dangers.
These teams, called E.T.I. (External Tactics Initiative) teams, are very new to the military hierarchy of SolGov, and much doubt is cast on their effectiveness by military hardliners. There is no doubt however, that the face of warfare has changed, and that SolGov needs to adapt to face unknown threats. Military dominance at all costs (the cost for example being the lives of misguided colonists, for whose fate SolGov is ultimately responsible in the first place) can conceivably only be attained by a certain degree of moral abstraction on the part of SolGov's politicians and military commanders. Again this leads back to the moral fidelity vs. martial superiority theme.
The back story of the game revolves around the actions of the very first activated E.T.I. team: Alpha Black Zero, who is sent on a standard V.I.P. extraction mission. At a certain point the mission takes an unprecedented turn and the ABZ team is stranded in dangerous territory: a third world planet populated by hostile tenth generation terra forming colonists who are under the influence of an unknown terrorist organization. The Alpha Black Zero team has no access to ammo, food, or backup. Effectively, they are on their own, since communication relays with their HQ have been sabotaged. From that point on the mission changes: the team will have to operate under E.T.I. Intrepid Protocol, which comes down to: no matter the amount of danger or opposition, interplanetary security must be maintained at all costs.
During their Intrepid Protocol mission the ABZ team stumbles across an incredibly deep rooted conspiracy, which they try to counter according to the mandates given to them. Effectively, this ends in a bloody incursion into the heart of SolGov's inner system, where the ABZ team manages to stop the conspirators.
This is where the game starts.
The leader of the Alpha Black Zero team, Lieutenant Kyle Hardlaw, is charged by the SolGov military with mass murder, performed by him and his team during the Intrepid Protocol mission. Before a court marshal, Hardlaw has to prove his innocence to military judges who are none too easily sway to his point of view, and who have the greatest suspicion of covert strike teams such as Alpha Black Zero.
As the game progresses, the player plays the entire Intrepid Protocol mission as it is related by Lieutenant Hardlaw to the military tribunal. In between the action, the judges will evaluate the evidence the player has effectively gathered by playing a level of the game (a sort of flashback structure). The ultimate objective is to prove you - as Hardlaw - innocent of the count of mass murder.
Seriously! - What weapons will be in Alpha Black Zero? Which do you think is the most powerful? Most original?
Yesse - Weapons will be available according to the kind of mission you are playing and whether you are still out of contact with your HQ. At the beginning of each mission you will be presented with a weapon load out screen, from which you can pick what you think will be appropriate. There will be suggestions as to what might be best too, but since we tried to present each mission in an as open format as possible, our suggestions may not work for you. There are assault rifles, silenced machine guns, heavy machine guns, two sniper rifles, grenades, a flechette pistol and a silenced pistol.
One of our favorite weapons is the Freyland Snub Gun, a burly sniper rifle which can fire superheated armor piercing rounds and a wide variety of small grenade charges, ranging from explosives to SenseDull rounds (imagine a flying flashbang that emits a high-pitched shriek - very good for breaking up and confusing large clusters of enemies).
Erik - Even though the gameplay is completely different from Serious Sam, you can rest assured that the weapons pack a gratifying amount of firepower. The balancing process will decide which weapons are the deadliest, but so far the Snub Gun definitely is the prime 'clear that room NOW!' candidate, but that all depends on the situation you find yourself in.
Seriously! - What kind of player models, enemies, and structures will be in the game?
Yesse - There will be a variety of enemies in the game: colonists, guerrillas, offworld mercenaries, rebel soldiers, coorporate death squads and androids. The player models are the Alpha Black Zero team. De structures, well…There will be a large variety of indoor and outdoor terrains, featuring colonist villages, space stations, bunkers, coorporate head quarters, embassy compounds, subterranean access systems and weapons processing facilities.
Erik - The enemies are nothing like the ones you've met in Serious Sam, which is mostly thanks to a far more powerful AI system which allows for complex behavior. The main goal for the AI in ABZ is to present a believable enemy that use their environments in order to attack or defend certain areas or buildings.
The models themselves are all implemented in SKA, using a broad collection of animations and parts of animations which are blended together in order to get the movement right. The static models are also implemented as SKA models.
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