GameGossip: Restricted Area has been described as an action-RPG. Action-RPGs, such as Diablo and Dungeon Siege, have been known for their simple point and click interfaces and emphasis on action over the RPG elements. Other, more traditional RPGs have often had much more complicated interfaces, and concentrated more on exploration and character building. Restricted Area seems to want to take the best of both worlds - what have you done to combine these elements and appease fans of both types of games?
Jan Beuck: While Action-RPGs consist of Action and RPG elemtents, the action often doesn´t really feel like action and the RPG parts don´t really feel like RPG. To fix this we had to ask us the question: What is action (in a computer game)? In my opinion action means you have direct control over your character and are able to decide about the denouement of a battle with your quickness and reaction. It´s NOT action if your character attacks the enemies automatically or if only the values decide about the end of the battle - that´s more something like a hidden turn-based combat.

The key to archive more action feeling are therefore the controls: While most action-RPGs, for example Diablo 2, use a matrix of small squares (you can think of it as a chessboard), we decided that we need pixel-perfect movement and collision, which results in high precision and the possibility to include shooter-like sliding at walls and the possibility to make side-steps with the keyboard arrow buttons... In total it creates a new, much more direct feeling...