Pc Guru - Radiated Wasteland

-Please tell the story of Pixel Pandemic! Who are you, how many people are working for the studio and why did you decide on making games?

We are a small indie studio with 8 people currently. The 3 founders started out as a hobby project a few years back when we started playing around with the first game designs. Our basic idea was to create a browser game which we would want to play ourselves. A game with a more hardcore and complex gameplay, than what most of the Facebook games would offer at that time. But also a game which had a lot of the features which you knew from the big MMORPG games compressed so to speak into a casual format which didn’t require hours to play daily.

-Pixel Pandemic already has a browser based zombie game: what is the difference between Zombie Pandemic and Radiated Wasteland?

Radiated Wasteland is being built on the same game engine as Zombie Pandemic. Thus a lot of the gameplay mechanisms will be the very same but the games are totally

-Since the beginning of the Fallout series, and especially after the 3rd episode, post-apocalyptic games kinda became the most popular them when it comes to making new games. Why did you sticked with it?

Well we have always been big fans of post-apocalyptic games. Not just the fallout series but also classic cult movies such as Mad Max etc. But much of our inspiration to making this game comes from the original Fallout games and great games such as Metro 2037, Stalker etc.

-According to the game's lore, Earth is not a pretty place in the game. Can you give us a brief summary of the story and the events that took place?

The story is set after a global catastrophe. Earth has been set in flames as a meteor of unknown origin crashed, destroying most of Central Europe and turning the skies into a radiated, poisonous atmosphere causing mutations to all exposed humans and fauna.
The mutations cause bodily deformations, in most cases crippling, but in some cases enhancing physical power, while leaving little intelligence and those exposed turned into flesh hungering monsters.

-How big is the game world and how open it is? What can we expect: a linear, story-driven experience, or something along the lines of a sandbox game?

The game world will be tile based similar to Zombie Pandemic. We are currently expecting the world to be at least 3000 tiles big and have plans on expanding as we go along. There will be a main storyline as well as a large number of side quests meaning the game world will be very sandbox like. There will also be an end game mode from where the storyline ends.

-You categorized the game as an MMORPG: is it a traditional 3D world with a lot of players online, or more like a classical browser game, with images, concept arts serving as the "graphics" and everything else is represented by text?

The game is going to be a browser based game with 2D graphics. We categorized the game as a MMORPG, because it will focus on a multiplayer premise where people can cooperate in a virtual game world which will be ever evolving depending on the players’ actions and because it will be a roleplaying game focused on character progression and a rich storyline as well as an open ended sandbox playing style.

-There are a lot of ways of making great looking 3D games with small teams: for example, Unity is well known for it's capabilities. Have you ever tried working with it, or with another engine?

Several of the team members come from an AAA background working on other 3D games but part of the idea of Pixel Pandemic is to focus on core gameplay in a simple browser based format and thus avoid use of 3D. It’s not that we don’t like 3D games, but we simply want to create browser games which can be played from any client including tablet and mobile devices, and games which are not about the looks and special effects, but about core gameplay.

-The combat system is going to be turn based, but how does it work exactly?

The combat system will offer a lot of tactical choices similarly to some of the great old games most of the development team have played numerous times. This includes the x-com game series and of course games such as the old Fallout and Jagged Alliance etc. Weapons will have different attributes and thus a shotgun will be able to have a high chance of hitting as well as causing massive critical damage at short ranges while being inefficient at long ranges. Explosives will also cause an area of effect, Molotov cocktails will cause burning damage and some weapons will have a knock back effect.

-There will be two version of the game: one straight to the browser and one for Facebook. What do you think about the Facebook space? Although there are some who made a fortune there, the biggest, Zynga, is making their own portal and steering away from Facebook. Do you think that this opens up spots which could not have been filled previously?

We are focusing on www.radiatedwasteland.com to be the primary platform for the game while the game will also be enabled Facebook meaning you can play it there if you prefer with some extra Facebook like features such as friend requests etc. It’s interesting that new casual game portals are emerging but we still expect Facebook to be a hub for lots of casual games going forward.

-Are you planning on monetizing the game through microtransactions? Free to play is getting bigger and bigger every day, especially on Facebook!

Yes the game will be free-to-play but offer a number of a premium membership option and it will offer ingame virtual goods such as exclusive weapons, armor and other cool stuff.

-Have you ever thought about getting your games onto other platforms? iOS seems an obvious choice, but there are new, interesting places, like the Google Chrome Store!

Yes actually our first game www.zombiepandemic.com is already offered on several platforms including Google Chrome store, Bigpoint and PopMog and we expect to do the same with Radiated Wasteland. In terms of making a native iOS and Android app for the game, that is also something we have in pipeline, enabling a subset of the game to played from your mobile, so you can barricade your safehouse to be safe from the mutants while waiting for the bus.