Chemical Existence is an ambitious total conversion for Valve’s Half-Life.Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Magnus Blikstad, the projectlead at Red Genesis Entertainment.
Tim: How did Red Genesis start and what made you start work on Chemical Existence?
Magnus: Chemical Existence was started long before the name RedGenesis came around, actually Chemical Existence was started about two years agoand Red Genesis was started only a couple of months ago.
What made me start CE? I don’t know really, I had worked on a rather failed Quake1 TC for awhile that I dropped and I needed a fresh start, the firstincarnations of CE was born (using the quake2 engine at the time) and well…things just progressed from there I guess.
Tim: Chemical Existence is an ambitious Total Conversion for Half-Life, What can we expect from it?
Magnus: Everything is new and fresh. New weapons, new enemies,new textures, new levels. Even though the Half-Life engine is in the bottom, itreally feels like a totally new game.
Tim: Outline the story of ChemicalExistence for us, will it be an important part of the game or just a sideline?
Magnus: The full “intro” or story is on our web site,but the main plot is that you’re Reece Max, you end up in the wrongplace at the wrong time and well… pretty much everything goes wrong.
At first you wont really know what you’re supposed to do except for gettingaway, but later in the game various characters you will meet will direct youtowards larger goals.
So, with that said; I’d like to think that the story line does play a prettyimportant role.
Tim: What kinds of weapons and items can we expect from Chemical Existence?
Magnus: A lots of the weapons are also outlined on our page.But there’s basically two groups or weapons; First the simple"standard" things like pistols and sniper rifles and then you’ll comeacross a few more exotic weapons like plasma rifles and dartguns too.
While all the weapons are pretty much done, The item issue is still pretty muchup in the air. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Tim: Public interest for CE seems to be good. To what, do you think, this can be attributed?
Magnus: Funny you should ask that question. I think its abouttime we started to get some recognition. We have been around for two years andits not until the last month or so people have started to notice us =).
We work hard, so we deserve it.
Tim: What are some of the latest features you have added to CE?
Magnus: It’s mostly tweaking and bug fixing at the moment.Going to try to get a few more of the enemies into the game by the end of theweek.
Tim: Any plans for future Red Genesis projects?
Magnus: No, I try not to think about future projects too much. It takes my and everyone else minds of our current goals.
Tim: Anything you’d like to add?
Magnus: Not really… Just check out our website and, well. Go crazy when we release this thing =).
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