We interview Norbert Varga from upcoming game Dilogus: The Winds of War

Dilogus: The Winds of War is an upcoming game being developed by Digital Arrow. The game looks promising – built on the Unigine engine, it’s cross platform and runs beautifully on Linux. The graphics are immense, certainly equal to or above the latest games coming out for Windows produced by bigger companies.

Ubuntu Gamer has covered Dilogus: The Winds of War before if you need some more background on the project.

We sat down with Norbert Varga, who works for Digital Arrow handling production and design of the game.

Could you tell our readers a bit more about the company behind Dilogus?

The company behind the project is named Digital Arrow, a small indie studio located in Serbia. While we are small, our members are composed from passion driven, talented, creative people. We are the kind of people who come to work every day with new ideas. Digital Arrow was formed in December 2010 with the aim to produce Dilogus – The Winds of War.

The project was fully started once we teamed up again, and it’s been ongoing ever since. Before Digital Arrow, some of the members had experience with Dilogus as a mod for Crysis back in 2008. Some members of our team work onboard from our headquarters office, while some work remotely through our ‘virtual office’. While many indie projects have problems with working remote, we’ve polished a system that ensures flawless communication.

Our team at the present date counts twenty two people and we most likely won’t expand too much for a while.

What is Dilogus? We know it’s an RPG – but where can we find out more information about the storyline? Do you have screenshots or any trailers?

Dilogus is the universe in which Dilogus: The Winds of War is set. While the two are obviously closely intertwined they are, in actuality, separate things. Dilogus is an incredibly rich world that has been in production for over seven years and there will actually be a novel released in the very near future set in it.

Actually, Dilogus won’t be a traditional RPG. While it will definitely have some of the elements players have come to know and love from RPGs throughout the ages, there will be a much higher emphasis on combat and action. A good place to find information on the game lore, concept art, screenshots and soon even production videos would be our IndieDB page, our Youtube channel, or the community forums. We will also be launching a Dilogus wiki, which will feature in depth information on universe.

The game is not currently at a point where we can share screenshots with the community. We’re still in an early prototype phase (and most of our in-game models are heavy placeholders) and as such there isn’t really anything impressive to see, yet. As soon as we have something cool to show, everyone following our project will get to feast their eyeballs on some nice ingame teasers. It will be very soon, please bare with us.

What is your planned timeframe for release? Will you have a demo to show anytime soon?

Due to the fact that we were in pre-production and concept phase (to ensure the game is properly planned) until recently, it’s almost impossible to pin down a release time frame right now. As for a demo, it would be great to see one within six months, but again, we are still too early in production to set anything in stone.

Do you plan to have a presale?

Definitely.

What price point are you shooting for?

Until we have a nearly completed game it’s very tough to put a price tag on it because the price is heavily influenced by the game’s development costs (obviously). While we are trying our hardest to have it averagely priced with general releases there is a long road of development ahead.

Have you seen the numbers from the Oil Rush pre-sale showing that nearly 90% of the purchases are on Linux? Do you expect Linux to be your primary market?

We have seen the impressive numbers from Oil Rush and we definitely do consider Linux to be a large portion of our community and potential market.

Have you been following Project Bossanova? Will you enter the contest?

We’ve been following project Bossanova for a while now, but as we are not yet in a position to reveal screenshots, we’re hesitant about entering a game where we can’t yet show anything past the concept phase. Another concern of ours is that to enter the contest we would have to release Dilogus: The Winds of War for Linux only, and that’s not something we’re prepared to do. We feel very strongly that system exclusivity is an unfair thing and we want both Linux and Windows users to be able to enjoy it.

Releasing exclusively on Linux would create an interesting paradox on our philosophy of being open and would make us no better than any other Windows exclusive game.

What is going to make Dilogus different from other RPGs? Why should people buy it?

We’ve literally spent years designing a world quite unlike any other. We’ve tried to stray away from classic and clichéd RPG elements and we’ve even tried to include a bit of science fiction. That’s not to say there will be steel clad spaceships but some of the world mechanics have been somewhat influenced by the sci-fi genre. We cannot stress enough that this is NOT a steam punk world.

Dilogus: The Winds of War will be a very unique experience due in part to extremely innovative game play mechanics and because of the way the world is designed. While many RPGs have a very medieval and renaissance feel to them, Dilogus is a fully fleshed out and dynamic world. It can be beautiful and enchanting but it also has its dark and gritty parts.

How is open development working for you?

We began open development because we like to communicate with our fan base and hear what they have to say about what we’re doing. It’s great and it’s working well for us. It helps us as developers and allows the community to have some influence over the game. It would be great to see some larger studios adopting a more open development process as it forges a really strong link with the community.

Do you have any plans to accept official user created content to expand the world within the game?

Dilogus: The Winds of War will most certainly be a modable game and the community will be able to create their own content. An RPG game is not nearly as much fun if people can’t add their own items, armors, create their own little place to play around – especially because the game will feature an open world to play in.

We also definitely plan to include some of this community content in the form of official patches and integrate it into the game if they meet a certain quality criteria. Creative players will effectively be able to help shape the world of Dilogus: The Winds of War past release. All of these official mods will be accessible to people that bought the game in the form free DLC through our online component.

Modding is fun and it’s the best way to get into the game industry. We will make sure people have as much freedom as possible and we are fine tuning our tools so that they are very easy to use.