The Steenberg Emails

Well, email. "Emails" just makes it sound cooler, like a political thriller. I'm sorry I lied to get you in here, but there's something fun waiting for you. I promise. You might remember the post from last week when I DRAMATICALLY REVEALED Love guru Eskil Steenberg was working on a strategy game, codenamed The Dark Side Of The Moon. It was all very exciting. I received a round of high-fives, and Adam told me to take the weekend off, even though it was my last post of the week. Anyway, I asked a few questions in it, because Eskil's games always leave you with a few head-scratchers. Eskil took it on himself to answer them, pretty much doing my job for me. I wrote a news story and Q&A in one! Go me!

Here is the world exclusive uncut Steenberg Email.

Eskil: Thank you so much for covering my poorly audioed game video! (I tried 3 different headsets, but now i think its the audio port. I will work on it for next video). So let me answer your questions.

Craig: I wonder how far along this art is? Is it finished, or is it super temporary?

Eskil: The graphic look is final. Sure it will be tweaked and get more animation feedback and things like that, but in general I'm going with this schematic style. However the graphics and graphics engine is completely divorced from the game logic. Because the idea is that if the game becomes popular I will write a separate high-end "realistic" graphics engine too. The idea is that I want to focus on just gameplay right now, and even if I had the sexy high-end engine, I would still want a low end engine too that you can play on a netbook, tablet, or old PC. If I make this second engine, both versions will be compatible and you will be able to switch in-game.

Craig: What are you fighting for?

Eskil: The game takes place in a future world where Earth has mysteriously stopped rotating, and one side is always turned to the sun and one side is always facing away. The survivors in the tempered twilight rim venture out in to the frozen dark side to scavenge and fight over old world technology.

Craig: And where is the moon?

Eskil:I code name my projects after albums that seem appropriate, so Love was Daft punks "Homework", and for this on Pink Floyd just felt right.

Craig: Eskil states that people will be granted access “soon” in the video, so I won’t have to wait long for answers to my queries. I’ll just go and watch a pot boil for a bit.

Eskil: I hope you pot hasn't boiled dry yet. My goal is to have the multiplayer version done by GDC. But I will make something similar to what you have seen online available sooner. Then later I will add pickups (Like health packs that you can revive downed units with), and vehicles (So yes they are not little tanks, because in that case later they would be little tanks driving larger tanks and that would be silly). I'll let you know once something playable is out.

Ooh, so there will hopefully be something playable before the end of March. I love the idea of a game where the gamey bit is separate from the graphicy bit (technical terms!), so the thing can be played on a wide number of PC configurations. I hope it happens, just to see the differences between the two.

Thank you for your time, Eskil.