Η ομαδα ειχε γνωστοποιησει την προθεση της να υπαρξει καποιο ερωτηματολογιο πανω στο παιχνιδι, οπου πραγματοποιηθηκε με επιτυχια. Οι ερωτησεις και οι απαντησεις της ομαδας ειναι οι παρακατω:
What started this project?
- Not all details can be revealed at this time, but some members of the team had for many years considered doing a project of sorts together, once their other commitments where done or time allowed it. Resident Evil 1.5 surfaced as a potential project all the way back in 2007, but when the chance to do it finally came upon us, the initial plan was actually just to do a rough bug fix patch of the build that was acquired. However, upon actually seeing the build we acquired in action, it quickly became apparent that what we had was too barebones to be considered a "fun" experience for the average gamer or anyone looking for a retro survival horror experience. If we were to start patching things up with a build like this, it'd become a mess of deciding where to draw the line. Air-jesus? Translations? Engine stability issues? Incomplete cutscenes that lacked animation or script data? Untextured or missing models? Rooms without collision data? Some of these would require a lot more work than the others, with very little payoff. The decision was quickly made that the sky's the limit and as long as we could get something to run stable, and on hardware, we would fix it, implement it, polish it, and take see it through to completion.
What have we seen so far in the leaked builds?
- A release of the source build we initially acquired and a leaked WIP build of our project, from a very early stage in development. The source build gives a clear indication of how broken and incomplete the game is. The WIP build gives an insight in the process of what might get broken as another function is fixed. In order to fix on problem, another one had to be made. Some of the engine's modules had to be completely thrown out in favor of entirely newly programmed ones. When the project reaches completion, people will be able to compare and see how things ultimately ties up in a production that has been gunning for a goal of technically delivering something with the essence of being the best of both worlds.
How'd you go about with your translations?
- Our core translator is an experienced translator who's been doing video game, manga, anime, and comic book translations for over 10 years. In addition to him, our staff all has linguistic profficiency in two or more languages. When translating 1.5, the first draft was done by doing a script dump of all text present in the game's asset and pass it onto the translator, who wrapped it all up in a single evening. This initial draft and rough translation is what some of you might have seen in the old leaked WIP build.
So that script was translated in one evening, by a guy who had not even seen the game yet?
- Correct. The translator received the script, like any other assignment, and started cracking away. To give some perspective on Resident Evil 1.5's script, I think it's important to bring up what type of mess it is and in which state it is. In terms of structure; each room contains text relevant for that room, and dialog appears in a somewhat chronological structure within that room. When we say chronological structure for dialog, we don't refer to the runtime of the narrative, but rather the point of which it was implemented. Tricky. To make matters worse, the rooms themselves are not listed in a chronological order either, so no sort of progression path is visible there. The Stage structure, however, does this. Stages serve as a chapter like progress indicator in the game. So we have a lot of random text, in pretty much random order. Fortunately, full dialog exchanges appear in chronological order. Dialog exclusive to each of the two scenarios are also mainly sorted in different files. One for each scenario. However, some text appears in both scenario files, despite evidently belonging to only one of the two main protagonists. This appears to stem from a time in development where the game kept both scenario dialog scripts in the same file. Hooray for lack of clean up. To make matters worse, the dialog script for Resident Evil 1.5 also lacks a lot of letters. We are not talking abbreviations or odd slang used for space limitations. They're not even letters that are simply absent from the game's font set. They are actually absent from the entire script itself. This probably stems from their compiling system, where a script will be processed and a font generated. Due to the memory limitations of the PS1, the font generated can only contain a fixed amount of letters. At first, they must have worked with a constant set of letters, rather than a filtered set containing only those needed at any given time. To solve the issue of these huge text gaps, context based guesswork was initially needed, but access to solid reference material made the translations portion a non-issue.
What type of technical additions or changes can we expect to see?
- There are some things that will have some visual tweaks applied to their appearance in the source build. There were certain aspects of the UI that was clearly not as ultimately intended. Placeholders are updated with apropriate finalized designs. Many based off of their retail counterparts in later productions, but some also completely original and designed from scratch by the team. The latter because a suitable donor did not exist, or because we felt the available donor did not carry the same visual style as what has been seen in Resident Evil 1.5. A sample of this would of course be the many placeholder item pictures and the use of a typical low resolution, almost BIOS-like, font on the title screen.
- The game's map menu was very barebones and always displayed a full map, so we added functionality to it that makes it only display the room's you have visited in a Stage. If you acquire a Stage's map, you will see the full map of the area, along with the appropriate outlines. This is a design decision also seen in other games. We also fixed indicators for showing player location and whether a door is locked or not.
- We added a FILE system. Any FILE you pick up in the game will be categorized into one of several different categories. Each category, as with other games that categorize documentation, will represent FILEs with contents of a specific purpose or origin.
- The item box and save systems were ultimately missing in source build. Their menu interfaces are based entirely around the game's pause and inventory menu. The item box supports sorting functions. The game is also perfectly capable of recognizing the save data of other games, an important technical addition that amongst other things ensures that the game does not overwrite other data on your Memory Card.
- We have come a long way since 1997. Most significantly to a PlayStation game would be how Sony released the DualShock controller, which all Resident Evil titles were officially updated to support in all of their re-releases. It was an obvious requirement to make sure DualShock functionality would be in place. In addition to this, we studied other types of functionality that had been added or altered in various releases of the classic Resident Evil titles or features that were introduced in later releases. The ones we felt were design appropriate for the Resident Evil 1.5, we have decided to implement. Many of the later changes the Resident Evil games have experienced to their controller and gameplay schemes have been additions requested by fans, mainly as a means to better the experience of dealing with the stiff tank-like controls of the franchise. One important aspect of all functionality we created that we felt caused an anachronical gameplay experience, or the fans would not be expecting of a Resident Evil game at this point in time, was that this should be optional. For this reason, there were added additional flags in the code that toggles functionality such as Analog Support, Quick Turn, Tactical Reload, and Vibration Feedback. Additionally, due to the inconsistency of the official franchise and how it affects gameplay difficulty, we decided to extended this toggle switch system to also enable toggling of the Auto-Assisted Aiming, a feature enabled by default in the source build.
- The important part about technical additions is that we felt it was very important that any additions we did fits into the overall design of the game and franchise, which is why you will see most new additions utilize elements from the source build or other classic releases.
- Many changes are non-visible, but take care of bugs and errors in the engine. Plenty of legacy engine bugs that were not even visible in the source build were also taken care of. The most glaring one is how the game code actually only carries references to one door type, but now is able to call for unique doors and also which direction the door animation should open towards.
Does gameplay functionality changes include AI changes?
- The term AI is very broad. A short answer is that a Resident Evil 1.5 zombie remains a Resident Evil 1.5 zombie while it's still walking (or crawling). It will however not magically vanish. It will also try to avoid utilizing non-existant zombie x-ray vision or bypass obstacles that it has no reason to assume it should be able to bypass or reach a target through. Unfortunately, the source build does not include AI for a lot of the confirmed enemies for Resident Evil 1.5. To fix this, we have studied the AI of their later counterparts and given elements of their behavior a twist that ensures that their Resident Evil 1.5 variants operates in a similar manner, but not in such a simple manner that they will just feel like reskinned enemies with adjusted hitpoint and damage values.
How do you approach missing rooms?
- For some elements we have been completely in the dark. How do you design a room which has no reference material? Well... "No reference material" is not exactly true. We have a name that helps provide purpose. We have a floor plan that helps create layout. We have game code that tells us if a room is filler or not. We have a narrative. We have a final game that recycled many elements. We have a reality and other works from it that served as inspiration. Some people have been very collaborative and offered insight too. We also have a magic 8-ball. In other words; we have many elements that help provide context and enables us to use our other senses when approaching the design of a missing room.
How do you approach missing audio elements?
- We altered the game's sound driver to utilize a more recent version of the official sound driver. We also added support for streaming of audio in new formats. This enables us to add full speech on our limited space budget, without a cost in audio quality. Additional sound effects for weaponry, cutscenes, and surfaces are mastered by an audio engineer. Soundtrack remains mainly of tracks from the source build, but some time has been dedicated to studying the composition of both the source build's tracklist and tracks in other releases to create donor tracks that may be utilized in various contexts.
What about cutscenes?
- The source build featured some cutscenes. Many of these lack timing for voice acting and their proper animation sets. These are all updated to properly match script timing and utilize scene appropriate animation. Additional cutscene animation is made through animation data, which in turn can either be key'd by hand or motion captured. Adding streamed video sequences where required is not a problem.
What is the purpose of the battle colosseum room?
- It is primarly a debug scenario. It can however be utilized for rendering of a room's colission data. This way we can experiment with in-game camera positioning. We can also study AI behavior and do AI testing in a free environment with test obstacles. It also permits flexible testing of weapon behavior, both within and outside of intended scenarios, and make any appropriate adjustments on the fly. Reminds you a lot of Dino Crisis and maybe Mercenaries Mode, does it not?
What type of reference material do you guys have?
- We can not reveal all our sources. We did make sure we had covered all material known to the fans and community since the game's original announcement. For potential conflicting statements present in text form, we have decided to let the most credible sources assume priority. People have been very generous with helping out with the development of this project. Many of whom have wished to remain anonymous. Many are still helping out too and we're always hoping for further assistance from people.
Can we get new zombies, weapons, jetpacks, hook men, Nemesis, Ezio, PepsiMan, Automatic Laser Rifles w/scope, quick scoping, dual wielding, multiplayer, Contra Mode (Probotector for PAL version), you name it!
- Short answer would be no. We will not add anything to the main game that feels inappropriate, anachronical, or like it just doesn't belong in Resident Evil. However, there's a separate Extra menu along with extra content that may present itself to the player if the right conditions are met...
Why THIA, YouTube, Facebook, etc. and not Site X or Y?
- We initially wanted the project and game to remain a secret up until a proper release was nearing completion. Allowing for negotiations regarding certain elements to be done in peace and calm, without any of the scene drama or certain aspects to worry about, and for the creation of a bigger media impact where potential headlines and public interest from multiple shocked communities could gather in one collective event that would help give classic Survival Horror a chance to shine in the spotlight again. Even if just for 15 minutes. So at the time of the initial leak, no website was prepared. This will change at a later date. We chose THIA as we have a personal and professional history with some of its core staff members. Having several times helped coordinate the acquisition and accordingly help prepare the releases of prototypes of previously thought unattainable historical material together before, it felt natural that we would bring our communication to their forums and allow for their staff to see the fruits of their labour and for us to communicate with fans. YouTube and Facebook felt like natural means for reaching out to a more casual and laid back audience.
What do you think of the competition?
- What competition? This is non-profit project. Not ad-driven click-bait. It is helmed by fans of the franchise and the 32-bit part of the retro era. We never set out to raise the bar, break new ground, or accomplish new things. By competition we understand what you are referring to, and we find it tragic that our initial acquisition of the game and the assembling of the team, somehow got turned around from being something intended solely as positive and beneficial event for the Resident Evil, Prototype, Modding, and Retro communities alike, into suddenly becoming the source of countless lies, loss of personal monetary assets, deception, conspiracy theories, misplaced trust, theft, illegal trade of proprietary data, people trying to make monetary profit from our work, people trying to abuse our efforts to gain assets, death threats, arguments, jealousy, hypoc-- I think we've got the message through. However, we do have our eyes set looking at the Behind the Mask project. It most certainly seems to be a good time for fans of classic Survival Horror or Resident Evil on PlayStation these days.
Can we go back to the project? How did recruiting go?
- The initial core of the project has remained the same since before it even became a thing, but any additional assistance recruited has been done entirely "on demand". We've probably received thousands of e-mails, PMs, comments, etc. from people who've wanted to assist. Answering as many of those as possible has been a near fulltime job on its own and we really would've loved to include everyone. Some of these people are so talented that we've even kept their portfolios on hand in case we ever do a different project that might fit their talents or if someone we know could put them to good use. Most recruitment has been "internal", if you may call it that. We did reach out to the Resident Evil community for some assistance, but the results there have been very mixed. A lot of people tend to let their own pride, ego, intentions, or bragging rights get in the way of actually contributing with something useful and evt. did more harm than they've contributed. Regretfully enough. If someone talented weren't recruited, despite applying, it's nothing personal, it's just that the seat was already taken. We don't need too many chefs in the kitchen.
How long will it take?
- Tricky question. "As long as it takes," would be our safest guess. We are not giving up.
You are ruining the RPD! Why!?
- OK? A little dramatic, maybe? I can see where you are coming from. Some of our rooms do appear either a bit too lively or too empty, but that's a problem with the original design too. Just compare the empty hallways of the first floor with Irons' office on the 3rd floor. They are like night and day. The office is one of the oldest rooms, despite going through several revisions, just like the lobby area, and yet it has way more detail and texture work than any of the barebones corridors and hallways. The same goes for how elaborate the designs of the labs are, compared to the early RPD stuff or even the sewers and factory levels.
Can we get X, Y, or Z in the game?
- X is fine, Y might be overkill, Z is out of the question.
