France seems to be a good country to develop games in these days. Not long ago we were impressed by the innovative adventure titles of Lexis Numerique (and especially by Red Johnson’s Chronicles, and today we`re taking a look at Kylotonn and their upcoming PS3 title, The Cursed Crusade.

Some of you may know these guys from the popular PC FPS Bet on Soldier: Blood Sports. For their most recent project they stepped away from the shooter genre without suffering a loss in brutality. Their action-adventure, The Cursed Crusade, invites the player to step back to the period of the fourth crusade.

As this marks Kylotonn’s debut on the PS3, we took the time to interview their co-founder, Yann Tambellini.

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Red Johnson’s Chronicles is the most recent addition to PlayStation Store from French indie Studio Lexis Numerique:

I immediately fell in love with this innovative Crime-Noir Adventure and many gaming journalists have picked up the game and came to the same conclusion I did: it is a real gem.

One of the advantages of my job is that, if I like a game, I can get in touch with the developers and talk to them to find out more background. The following interview is with Djamil Kemal from Lexis Numérique and I sure hope that you enjoy the interview as much as I enjoyed the game.

PSBlog: With titles like eXperience112 and In Memoriam, fans developed a specific expectation towards Lexis Numérique games. What is the gameplay like?

Djamil: Thanks for the compliment (smile). At Lexis Numérique, we always try to bring innovation because it’s in our DNA. In Memoriam (aka Missing: since January) was one of the first wide scale Alternate Reality Game and Experience112 tried something new in the adventure genre by not letting you control the main character but her environment.

With Red Johnson’s Chronicles, we didn’t try to bring a total revolution to home consoles but we believe we bring something really fresh. Red Johnson’s Chronicles’ innovation lies in two elements: the mix of existing genres (adventure, investigation, puzzle games) and also in its large ambition for a downloadable title.

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Not quite two years ago, Square Enix pleased its European fans with DISSIDIA, a completely new approach to the FINAL FANTASY series. Originally meant as part of the campaign of the FINAL FANTASY series 20th anniversary, the substantial fighter quickly turned out to be one of the most popular PSP games of all times.

With the release of DISSIDIA 012 [duodecim] FINAL FANTASY, the legendary battle between Chaos and Cosmos returns to our beloved PSP systems. We talked with Game Director Mitsunori Takahashi about his thoughts on the game.

It is quite an interesting time in the development of FINAL FANTASY. Many fans are curious about where the series will head. How does your work on DISSIDIA 012 differ from other games in the universe?

DISSIDIA, in the first place, was produced to mark the 20th anniversary of the FINAL FANTASY series. We have put in our best effort to work out what new gameplay we might be able to provide our users, with combat action elements mixed into RPG. Therefore, although the DISSIDIA series would not exist if it were not for FINAL FANTASY, the direction is different to many of our other games. This means that DISSIDIA has its own challenges for us to face.

Other than familiar characters, how do you retain the feel of the FINAL FANTASY world while also introducing a completely different fighting mechanic?

Actually, the development team did have a debate during the initial stage of the original DISSIDIA project in an attempt to understand what makes a FINAL FANTASY a FINAL FANTASY. However, we eventually reached the conclusion that we should not be too preoccupied by such “Final Fantasy-esque” elements. FINAL FANTASY is a series in which fresh challenges have always been taken for each game and we were afraid that, if too much attention were to be paid to the common elements, we would only allow ourselves a reduced level of freedom and be bound to too many restrictions.

We therefore decided to ensure that the game would not contain anything not suited to the universe, rather than consciously pursue those that naturally are. No sooner than establishing this policy, we began to hit upon many good ideas and, as a result, we ended up with two very “Final Fantasy-esque” games: DISSIDIA and DISSIDIA 012.

The first DISSIDIA was so rich in content; some people said it was the richest PSP-game ever. However, you have added even more to the sequel. How did you manage to put all that on this tiny little UMD?

Cramming everything onto a UMD was really gruelling but we eventually managed everything we wanted after trying various measures, such as designing the game with a view to optimal use of resources and getting the entire team involved in our efforts to reduce the volume, and so forth. From the start of the project, we always committed ourselves to enhancing in-game RPG elements as much as improving the battle system. After all, this tile is predominantly for fans of the Final Fantasy universe and this means that many of its users love RPGs, and that some of them may have given the previous DISSIDIA a miss solely because it was an action game. Therefore we thought it would be essential to add new elements to cater for those gamers’ needs and made the decision to introduce an in-game world map.

Can you give us some details on DISSIDIA 012 Prologus? What is the idea behind this prequel of a prequel?

With DISSIDIA 012, our focus is also on DLC such as extra costumes and distribution of additional BGM. Prologus is a part of this direction we are taking.

We wanted to make Prologus available as a separate product rather than a playable demo. That is why we tried our best at its development stages to produce good enough content to justify the price; content like an original short story not included in the main game and the use of Aeris in the main game as a special assisting character.

If you have already purchased the main game, you might want to get in Prolugus for Aeris, whereas those who have yet to buy the main game may wish to taste the feel of the game with Prologus to see whether they like it enough to get hold of the main game. It would be great for us if many gamers would follow such a process.

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Eleven long years have passed since we lead the great heroes and villains from Marvel and Capcom into some of the most stunning fights which have ever been seen in a video game. Now, we`re just a week away from the spectacular comeback of the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise – on February 18th Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds will finally find its way to your PlayStation 3 systems. The game didn`t even have to hit the market to win its first prizes (E3 2010 Game Critics Awards in the category “Best Fighting Game”, Best Fighting Game award from IGN and more) and has already earned some impressive review scores.

But why did it take Capcom so long to revive this popular franchise? How did the integration of all these different and unique characters work? And what is it that makes Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds more than just an HD-Remake of MvC 2? We asked Capcom for some answers. In reaction we did not only get some insights from game producer Ryota Niitsuma himself, but also an all-new world-exclusive gameplay trailer.

Lean back and enjoy the show!

Several years have passed since Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and the game established a huge fanbase. Why did the series almost die and why is it coming back to life now?

Unfortunately, it’s hard to really say why MvC almost died, but since it was originally quite popular, and because there has been a recent surge in fighting game popularity, the renaissance came about rather organically.

I guess it was a lot easier for you to pick out the Capcom characters appearing in the game than it was the Marvel characters. How did your collaboration with Marvel work out?

Actually, since we wanted to preserve the sense of each of the respective worlds of the Capcom characters featured in this game, we had frequent discussions with the people in charge of each franchise, which turned out just as difficult. Marvel, on the other hand, was very respectful of our position—as we were of theirs—and were very helpful in discussing what characters would be popular and suitable for a video game.

How significant was Marvel’s input in developing behaviours for characters that are not specifically designed to appear in video games?

With the Marvel characters, we put a lot of work into replicating their movements, designs, and mannerisms from the comics. Marvel gave us lots of precise direction regarding the character design, but was willing to leave the actual game balancing to us at Capcom. Regarding characters not originally from fighting games, we simply tried our best to carefully preserve their essence from whatever their original source was and see how we could siphon that into an interesting fighting game character.

What makes MvC 3 an outstanding game and not just an HD MvC 2?

I suppose to put it simply, the evolved graphics. We’ve faithfully created all of the characters and stages from the ground up, not just reworked old content from MvC2. You could consider this the next stage in the series’ evolution after MvC2.

Do you plan any DLC?

As of now, we’ve confirmed the decision to release two downloadable characters, but nothing else has been decided. We are considering a number of possibilities, so please stay tuned.

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Double Fine should be known by most gamers out there, partly because Tim Schafer, one of the creative heads behind timeless legends like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Brütal Legend, is head of the studio. Just a short while ago, the guys from Double Fine brought Costume Quest to PSN and now we can look forward to their next downloadable title: Stacking, which lets you play with those famous Russian figurines called Matryoshka dolls.

Interestingly, each Matryoshka doll has its own power and if you jump in another Doll with the one you are currently playing, you get to use the new doll’s power. This alone gives you plenty of scope for unique puzzles and hours upon hours of funny gameplay, thanks to the standard and tone of storytelling that we expect from Double Fine. We recently spoke to Lee Petty, Project Lead for Stacking and Art Director at Double Fine, about his vision for Stacking.

Why matryoshkas? Who came up with this idea?

When I set out to design Stacking, I knew that I wanted to make a contemporary version of the classic adventure game. I was looking for a way to distill the adventure game experience down to a more approachable, compact experience without losing the charm and character driven story telling of the classic adventure games.

At the same time, I saw my daughter playing with a set of matryoshkas, and I realized that they would be a perfect way to create a new game mechanic, condense the experience, and add a unique personality to the game. The matryoshaka dolls became the verbs, the inventory, and the characters that the player interacts with to solve puzzles.

Will Stacking tell a story or did you focus on the puzzle aspect of the game?

We wanted to both tell a compelling story and also focus on interesting puzzles. Stacking follows the story of Charlie Blackmore, the world’s smallest stacking doll on his quest to save and reunite his family from an evil industrialist known only as The Baron. The puzzles that the player solves put Charlie one step closer to saving his family.

I saw a funny trailer of the game which was, as far as I noticed, mainly set in a train-station-scenery. Is this train-station a single level in the game? How big will these levels be?

The Royal Train Station is the first environment that the player encounters and acts as a ‘hub world’ for the game. Players will board various trains from the train station to travel to all of the other locations in Stacking.

The player will return to the train station several times throughout the game, and each time the train station will have new challenges to solve and new areas to explore.

The levels are constructed in such a way to let the player solve the puzzles in the order that they want. The levels are large, but not expansive spaces where the player will get lost or become uninterested. We wanted to create lots of detail in the environments for the player to find and appreciate.

How many levels will the game contain?

The game contains the Royal Train Station, three additional full levels (each set in a unique location), and one ‘final challenge’ area (also set in a unique location). Players can also make return visits to any of these locations. The game also features a rich game over state, where the player can freely move throughout the entire game to complete all of the optional gameplay, such as collecting unique dolls or finding additional solutions to challenges. In addition, several bonus challenges appear in the levels after the primary playthrough has been completed.

The trailer speaks about different levels of difficulty. How will these be felt in the game? Will there be totally different puzzles depending on the difficulty settings?

We approached game difficulty differently than most games. All of our puzzles (or “challenges”, as we call them) have multiple solutions. The player is only required to do one of the solutions to move the story along, but is rewarded for finding additional solutions. The solutions vary in difficulty from easy to hard.

This means that a casual player can choose to find only one of the solutions for a challenge and move forward with the game. However, a more core player can choose to find more solutions at any time — including the hardest solutions. This approach allows the player to focus on more difficult solutions if a particular puzzle interests them, but doesn’t force them to grind on a puzzle that they’d rather be done with.

Once again you are working on a download only title. Did Costume Quest convince you of this format?

Not specifically, since we started all four of our download only titles at the same time. However, we have been encouraged by Costume Quest’s success and are excited to continue moving forward with this method of making games.

Tim Schafer has a huge fan base which loves him just for being Tim Schafer. What role does Tim have in the games from Double Fine Productions these days? Is he sitting in his office, sending “awesomeness-waves” of inspiration through the building or is he involved in the whole development process?

Tim is the creative force behind the studio and has a lot of influence over the games. His direct involvement with each game varies. In the case of Stacking, Tim and I designed several of the puzzles and developed a lot of the major story beats together.

Tim also likes to patrol the team areas and beat people with reeds when they make eye contact.

Can’t anybody make a Day of the Tentacle-HD-remake? (Not like this question would have anything to do with this interview, but I felt like no interview with a Tim Schafer company could be complete without it.)

Well, we can’t do that, but we do hope that Stacking takes on the world!

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