„Incubatorgames“ is a developerteam from Toronto. They tell their own story with “Trudy`s Mechanicals”. Find it out more on our interview with the CEO Radek Koncewicz.
Why did you decide to design your game ‘Trudy’s Mechanicals’ in a steampunk-like setting?
When we were first discussing ideas for a new project, we wanted to limit its size and scope. Setting a game aboard an airship seemed like a good start, and once that was in place, making that ship a Steampunk dirigible just seemed like a perfect fit! The Steampunk aesthetic was universally liked, and there were plenty of Steampunk conventions we were eager to explore.
Did the work of the author ‘Jules Verne’ have an inspiratial influence on your decision, if that would be the case, what would it be especially?
Jules Verne has been more of an inspiration on the Steampunk genre as a whole rather than Trudy’s Mechanicals specifically. Instead, we took cues from more recent works such as China Mieville’s Bas-Lag series, or Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan. However, one aspect of Jules Verne’s work that is present in our game is the idea of treating various wondrous but incorrect scientific theories as if they were true, e.g., the Recapitulation Theory, an idea that the embryo morphs through the various stages of evolution during the gestation period. Even during Jules Verne’s time the theory of Hollow Earth was widely discredited, yet he wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth under the premise that it was correct. This approach of treating fiction as fact proved too tantalizing for us not to pursue.
To return to the setting itself, does the fictive world, in wich your story takes place, have a specific historical background, or more precisely, does it have an own historical setting?
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This might be the world of Trudies mechaniclas, Quelle: Incubatorgames
Whether Trudy`s Mechanicals has any links to our Earthly history or whether it’s its own unique setting is something we’re keeping under wraps. However, we can reveal that a major element of the setting is the idea of lethally polluted world. One often-ignored element of Steampunk is just how much smog could be produced given the prevalence of coal-burning contraptions, and the answer in our case is a lot. So much so that it forced a group of people to board an airship in order to sail above the toxic clouds. Another element we homed in on is a slightly different ethnic composition. Steampunk is deeply rooted in Victoriana, but we decided to forego British traditions and conventions in favour of Slavic ones to bring a slightly different flavour to the genre.
The released artworks of ‘Trudy’s Mechanicles’ are all designed in a drawn, animated look with steampunk influence.Will this way of design endure until the final release of the game, or will it be overworked at some point?
As mentioned above, we wanted to introduce something different to the world of Steampunk, and one of those things is a more twisted, fairy-tale aesthetic. It’s something we’ve been focusing on for a while, and we’re doing our best to make sure the game reflects our simultaneously beautiful and grotesque concept art.
Will ‘Trudy’s Mechanicles be set as an open-world game, or does it follow a straight storyline?
We wanted to tell a very specific story with Trudy’s Mechanicals, so the game follows a fairly linear path. With that said, it also contains a lot of optional content for those interesting in the setting and willing to explore it on their own.
Will it appear as an single-,or multiplayergame, or even as an singleadd on- multiplayergame?
Trudy’s Mechanicals is a single-player game, but we have plans to expand on it with ports and potential multiplayer — similar to that of XCOM: Enemy Unknown — if it proves popular enough.
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Trudys Mechanicals Gameplay; Quelle: Incubatorgames
It’s barely known about the main storyquest, may i ask you to give us a short summary on it?
In Trudy`s Mechanicals, the ship has been up in the sky for uncounted years, and this has had a great impact on life aboard it. Every single resource is precious and rationed, every open space is used to grow food, every single individual is indentured to their profession. These dire conditions have forced many people make great sacrifices, the biggest ones being altering their bodies in order to perform their jobs more efficiently. These are the Mechanicals, half-man half-machine labourers who find themselves on the lowest rung of society’s ladder. The protagonist of the game is one of them, and he discovers a set of blueprints for an ancient printing press that lets him distribute a seditious newspaper. The character is partly modelled after Jean-Paul Marat of the French Revolution, and the game’s storyline largely parallels that historic time.
Is there a reallife story behind the team of ‘Trudy’s Mechanicles’ onhow you got to know each other and decided to group up?
We had a passion for video games since an early age, learning to program on our old Atari 800XL and Commodore64 computers. That interest stuck, and eventually three of us found ourselves working at Capybara Games on various projects such as Critter Crunch and Heroes of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. We moved on after a while, often working at other video game studios, but we stayed in touch and eventually decided to start our own company. Our reasoning was that despite being young we had plenty of experience, and it was about as good a time as any to try it out on our own.
Incubator Games has now been around for just over five years, and during that time we’ve built tools and gathered funds by mostly working on contract projects. About a year ago we finally reached a point where we could hire more people and move full-steam (no pun intended) on Trudy’s Mechanicals, so we’re happy to be finally focusing on the project!
How and on what does the crew spend its freetime?
I think that’s different for every person on the team, although I suspect that a large proportion of us — and of people around the globe — tend to curl up with our significant others to watch Game of Thrones now that the fifth season has finally started!
How many cups of coffee were consumed estimatedly during thedevelopment of ‘Trudy’s Mechanicles’?
There’s been surprisingly little coffee drinking on the team, but copious amounts of tea. Thousands of tea bags, in fact. Perhaps we’ve been channeling Trudy’s Slavic setting?
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Trudys Mechanicals Jugpot; Quelle: Incubatorgames
Are you yourselves videogamers, and if so, what kind of games are you playing, or do you like the most?
We’re definitely gamers, but our tastes vary quite a bit. For example, here are some of the games we discussed playing last week:
- Cities: Skylines
- League of Legends
- Pillars of Eternity
- The Order: 1886
- Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
- GTA V
- Sunless Sea
- Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin
- Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments
- Black Mesa
- Shadow of Mordor
- Desktop Dungeons
- Nosgoth
And these are just the ones I remember off the top of my head! Granted it’s good to stay on top of what our industry has to offer, but this can’t all be excused as just “research.” We clearly have an affinity for playing videogames, and hopefully that will be evident when Trudy’s Mechanicals is released!
co writer Varina Sengenberger
