I got to have a chat with, Project Manager on Verge, a space-sim RTS hybrid indevelopment by Polish software house, V-team. Here goes:

KungFu: Tell us a little about the team working on VERGE.Have you any past projects under your belts? How long have you guys beentogether working on this title?

Przemek:We’ve started working on Verge more than 1 year ago, and this was our firststep in the industry. Our experience is based on demo scene existence. Wedid several demos but nothing commercial (there were even games – butnothing for money), you can check our latest demo – “H-life” – from Gravity99 party stuff. We have been playing with computers for about 10years, and all this starting from atari/commmodore levelcomputers.

KungFu: What is the story behind Verge? What character roledoes the player take?

Przemek:Right now project Verge is in big reconstruction. Verge is no longer goingto space sim/shooter. We are right now working on Verge as3D strategy space game. But we want this game also to supportspace-sim/shooter like mode, and some kind of role play (its now underbrain storm). Mainly you’ll control your space tribe in huge galactic story(I know its nothing “special” as words but our idea on story brings somenew points to this old rts game style).

KungFu: Most space-sim fans like to have that Elite styletrading element in their games, will Verge feature any kind of trading?

Przemek: As I said – this is no longer 100% space-sim, its rather a strategy game withsim options – and things like trading are in our plans.

KungFu: Will Verge be mission based or will it be openedended allowing people to choose the route they want to take through thegame?

Przemek: Verge is going to be mission based game, but not this kind like in other strategygames, we are working on having the player do multiplemissions/levels at once, so you control few areas with different problemsand objectives. A free/open story with multiple endings.

KungFu: Verge seems to be packed with all kinds of graphicalfeatures. Will you be taking advantage of any of the new technologies likeT&L; or 3dfx’s t-buffer? I notice Verge will have motion blurring, is thatsoftware driven? What do you think about these new technologies?

Przemek: Our game right now supports T&L;, but not all features. Truth is we still don’thave any GeForce card in our hands and so we cant try and code for itscapabilities. Something about 3dfx and its T-Buffer, hmmm = for us, voodooseries are rather“yesterday” stuff. T-buffer will not give them all glory and power again,after today’s nVidia, Matrox and even S3 cards. T&L; is great thing – andgives us almost rendered quality of 3D objects, full face detail and reallighting (could be better though). We hope nVidia new card (nv 15) willgive one other thing to all this – antialias on full scene with 60 fps (asone of the Riva creators said). I knowthat T-buffer can something like that, but where are other things?About motion blurring – we’ve got right now this effect working, and isz-buffer based, but there are some problem with timing on different cpus.