CVG: For those who may not have heard of Galleon before, could you give us a quick overview of the game, outlining its genre, the plot, and the main character and his objectives?

Gard: Galleon is a third-person adventure game with a strong emphasis on having an engaging and exciting storyline. You play the character of Rhama Sabrier, the captain of a small ship in a mythical world based loosely around the world of the buccaneers in the 1700's. Captain Sabrier is an explorer who sails the forbidden seas looking for adventure. The game is played on the islands he discovers and takes the form of mini-adventures. Each island has its own sub-plot, and the game as a whole is tied together by one main story.

From a gameplay point of view Galleon has a very advanced control system that allows Rhama to explore, leap, tumble, climb and fight his way through environments in a very free-form way. The game is filled with exciting set-pieces, huge sword fights, puzzles, acrobatics, romance and, most importantly, absolutely vast monsters to fight.

CVG: Unfortunately Galleon's been heavily delayed. What have been some of the major reasons for the hold-up?

Gard: I put it all down to two things: the game is very ambitious, and our team is far too small. We are only 14 and really we should be 100 or so.

CVG: In connection to the above question, how has overcoming these hold-ups changed the game, whether that be in terms of content, look or actual gameplay?

Gard: Well, hopefully not too much. I mean, we could have cut it back drastically and brought it out earlier, but instead we stuck with it, hoping to make something really good by the end. I feel pretty confident that we have achieved what we set out to do. It just took longer than expected.

CVG: What other major changes have you made to Galleon over the past few months?

Gard: We've been upping the poly count on characters because they look too "90's".

CVG: Much has been made of Galleon's visual style and character movement. How much time and effort has actually gone into animating the characters in the game?

Gard: An enormous amount. Rhama's physical ability is just unheard of in a game. In most games the complex environments you move around are only there for show. If you see a complex looking archway or statue in a room, it is invariably surrounded by an invisible box that your character bounces off. In Galleon it is never like that. Rhama moves correctly over everything, so whatever you see, regardless of what it is, you can clamber over it, climb on it, vault over it, or whatever. This means that you can explore every inch of the world using Rhama's almost supernatural agility.

The control system to achieve this is quite innovative. Instead of directly controlling the character, you instead control the camera. You turn the camera to face where you want to go, and then by applying forward pressure to the analogue controller you tell Rhama how fast you want him to head in that direction, and whether or not to move unsafely. Rhama then moves that way, sensitively adapting to whatever he encounters. This all happens completely seamlessly and very intuitively, keeping the controls easy to learn but full of hidden depth. The upshot is that he looks like a real person moving around in very complex areas, but despite the fluidity of his movement he is still ultra-responsive.

CVG: What can you tell us about the work you've done in bringing personality to the characters in the title?

Gard: We have put a lot of effort into the story, giving the characters the opportunity to do something that you very rarely see in games - the chance to be actors. The story does not dwell on massive back stories that frankly would just bore the player, and our cut scenes are invariably action- or character-based, brief and to the point. Plus the characters are very likeable.

CVG: You've said that Galleon will be the game you always wanted the original Tomb Raider to be. Could you clarify what is meant by this statement? How near do you think you are to achieving this goal?

Gard: The core concept of Tomb Raider was to make a real-time interactive Hollywood film. Galleon is much, much more filmic than Tomb Raider was, but I have to say that I still haven't got to exactly where I want to go yet.

Source: CVG