The Roots Interview, Part 1
Brian 'Dhruin' Turner, 2004-05-24

Piotr: Hi, my name is Piotr Krzywonosiuk; I'm a Business and Operations Manager at Tannhauser Gate. Tannhauser Gate was founded in 1998. We're based in Wroclaw, Poland. Our first project was a MMOG Mimesis Online, released back in January 2002. At the moment our team consists of 27 programmers, artists and management staff working to bring The Roots for PC and Xbox.

Piotr: The Roots will take you for a journey through a fantasy world on the brink of a mighty conflict that could shatter the world itself. It is a story about a man's struggle against the forces of destiny and ancient gods, where the world's harmony is maintained by the mystical Trees of the Elements. However, an inexpressible evil slowly starts to destroy these magical Trees, leaving doubt as to the fate of the world.

The gameplay combines action and role-playing elements. We wanted to avoid commonly known and repetitive schemes and thus we sought for a few innovative solutions. One of them is the battle system. Every encounter or skirmish will take place in a specially designed arena where a turn-based game play is enriched with features that give additional control over each character in a party. That sort of fight gives a feel of real-time combating and will be a breath of fresh air to turn based RPGs.

Beside the combat system, one of the unique features is the zeppelin race, which is one of the mini games seen in The Roots. Obviously this game is still under development and we are working on several features which we hope to give the player a pleasant surprise.

Piotr: Without revealing too much, I can say that the story focuses on mystical Trees of Elements, which are there to maintain the harmony of Lorath. An ancient evil awakes and slowly starts to destroy the Trees. The entire world is in danger. Player will take on the role of Yan, the main hero, who sets out on a journey to find out the origin of this evil and to defeat it.

The game world is ruled by primeval gods who play with its fate and inhabitants. An ancient prophecy reveals how, if peace cannot be maintained, chaos and death will rule across the land, also this prophecy tells of a great battle between beings of good and evil. Due to this prophecy, Yan is thrown into a whirlwind of adventures, meeting on his way both sincere friends and fierce foes.

As in the game's name, the roots refer to the background. As already mentioned The Trees of the Elements play a vital role in the game. They prevent some really nasty demons from escaping - the Trees tie them with their roots. Apart from that, the game's name refers to some of the elementary virtues, which Yan follows in his life. These are honour, commitment and respect for tradition as well as the history of the world where he lives. Those are his roots which influence Yan's actions during the journey.

Piotr: The game world is fairly large and, in our opinion, as versatile as possible. There is a lot to explore: forests, mountains, desert, graveyards, catacombs etc. Each location features suitable architecture what allows you to really feel its unique culture. There are a few unusual locations in the game as well, for example flying isles, demonical abysses or the fortress from the beyond…

The inquisitive gamer who take the time and effort to explore the land of Lorath will be rewarded with the chance to uncover cool items, gain extra experience. Also, The Roots will feature many side quests giving the gamer the chance to win some great prizes.

Piotr: As you progress through the game by winning battles and completing quests, it will become possible to develop certain skills for the main characters. Consequently, it will be up to the player whether they want their characters to specialize in close quarters fighting, ranged fighting or magic.

Certain skills can be improved as you use them (practice makes perfect!), or can be learned from one of the main Non Playing Characters you will encounter throughout the game. Of course, earning experience allows a character to gain some new skills as well. In addition to that, some skills can be acquired or boosted thanks to the powerful artefacts which the player will have to find throughout the game.

There is not a class system in The Roots. Basically the skills can be divided into the following groups: offensive and defensive, magical and combat, affecting one target or many targets, active and passive, temporarily affecting the environment (i.e. make day turn into night or vice versa), etc. We wanted to make the game as accessible as possible - sparing to the players the confusion that is often caused by having to deal with tons of mysterious statistics. Consequently, the player will need to watch their health and mana points as well as their characters' attack/defence skills. Another feature the player will have to watch is the character's Action Points (AP). AP are needed to launch combo attack which will increase in strength and power as the characters level improves.

Piotr: Apart from Yan there are seven more characters to be played. They will come and go on different stages of the game's story to help Yan out. Well, perhaps not all of them will be devoted to the cause with all their heart… Of course, I would hate to spoil the surprise, so I won't tell you any more!

Anyway, the party will consist of, at most, three characters at any one time. Party members will follow Yan during terrain exploration, but the player will be able to take full control over them during battles in arenas. It is a vital part of The Roots gameplay to utilize the party member's skills effectively - Yan will not succeed trying to save the world by himself... Party members will be able to support each other during combat; each character will have there own speciality, and it is only with utilising each one to its full potential, and finding ways to make the characters work as a team, that the player will be able to defeat the toughest enemies found in the game.

Piotr: The Roots has quite a linear storyline, which is full of sudden plot twist and surprises that will make this an adventure to remember. Most of the time, the player is given some freedom to devise his own strategy and approach, which we hope will help creating a relatively unique experience for the player.

Piotr: The plot in The Roots is quite complex and multi-threaded. Players will meet many NPCs whose emotions will depend on the overall context of the story line. It was important for us to make sure that the NPCs will contribute to building the atmosphere in the game and we think that the moods and emotion visualisation system will do well at this task. Additionally, the faces of Yan and his party members are displayed in the user's interface panel during exploration mode and combat. Thanks to this we are able to visualize their emotions too. Therefore players will notice that the characters will sometimes express happiness, giggle, astonishment, terror, anger, relief, sadness, tiredness and many more emotions depending on the situation.