Mimesis Online from Polish Developer Tannhauser Gate, is a role-playing game which transports you to a world where the borders between reality and illusion do not exist. An unimaginable catastrophe on a cosmic scale transformed this world, playing havoc with the natural order of things, twisting everything, even time itself, wiping out civilisation as we know it. For the Universe itself, everything changed and nothing changed - a new order was established, one where entropy rules, without intelligent beings working to hold it back. The beings who survived the catastrophe have tried to rebuild their world, each in their own way. They once again want to enforce on the natural chaos their order, their ways - authority, money, prejudice, cruelty and conviction of their own superiority. Once again, they are showing the unlimited ability of intelligent races to adapt and survive. The forgotten civilisation is waking up and slowly but surely emerging as the "new" civilisation - and how similar it is to the old one.

On a regular basis we will feature a developer's diary made by the Mimesis Online development team. In this diary Derek Handley, one of the staff writers tells us about a missed concert and introduces us to Artur Jaskolski and Marcin Baryski who started the whole story.

Part 4. "Introduce yourself"
For the first time in weeks there was a major topic of conversation at the studio not connected with the Beta Tests in any way - yes, that's right, the Beta Test buzz had competition. What was that topic? The Tool concert. They played an amazing concert in Krakow this week, and some of the team went, and could talk about nothing else when they got back. I was supposed to go myself, but I had to drop out - not that I'm jealous that they could go and I couldn't. No, nothing like that. Not at all.
....Really.
(No, I'm not very convincing, am I?)

Summer has officially begun, but no-one told the weather. Still, the rain keeps us indoors, so we can spend more time working on the game. Silver linings and all that jazz.
Today, I thought it might be nice to start introducing you to some of the members of the Tannhauser Gate team, particularly since they are going to write some of the diary entries in the coming weeks - I thought it might be nice for you to know a bit about the people who are bringing you the game and the gameworld. Actually, one of the things that came as a surprise to the team when we started doing promotional work was that people were asking questions about us - someone even requested a photo. I guess none of the guys had ever expected that someone would want to know something about the people behind a game. Anyway, we've never really answered any such questions, so here goes.
Artur Jaskolski and Marcin Baryski are where the whole story began, so I'll start with them.

First to get here every morning and last to leave at night, Artur Jaskolski (YahsKOOLski - the name is based on the Polish word for birds of the swallow family) is the boss. Well, he's more than that, because he's one of the co-creators, but he got elected to be responsible for the day-to-day running of the studio, and he takes care of all the administrative stuff. It's quite a weight on his shoulders, but someone has to take that side of things on, and as the saying goes, he's the best man for the job. Artur studied architecture here in Wroclaw - that's where he met the founding members of the team. Back when the project was Exodus the movie, Artur focused on animation and special effects, which continued to be his job description after the project changed media and became Mimesis Online. Nowadays he does less computer-based stuff, but a lot of the creature and character animations you'll see are his work. Maybe his most important ongoing contribution is something you won't be all that aware of during gameplay - he's the human rights defender for Mimesis Online.
One of the dangers when you make a sci-fi game with alien races available as player characters is that humans get a bit forgotten in terms of special skills, powers, and stuff like that. If you look at any RPG you can see that there's an element of that. 'Alternity' managed to avoid making humanity the poor cousins, as does the 'D&D' third edition, but during the creative process, you have to be sure to give humanity some of your time and energy. That's especially important because, as any long-term game master will tell you, the bulk of the players will pick humans, and they don't want to later discover that they got the short end of the stick. So Artur looks out for the human race, and makes sure that the upstart aliens don't take all the good skills.
Besides all that work-related stuff, Artur is a regular guy. He has a wicked yet dry wit, and knows when to relax, and when to be the boss. The first RPG character he played in a game I ran was a career-focused security officer on a starship. He showed quite a bloodthirsty streak, and an inventive flair with explosives...but I'm sure that was just an act, not a hidden streak. Right Artur?
Right?

Moving swiftly along...
The second of the co-creators is Marcin (MARcheen - Martin, with a Polish accent) Baryski, in many ways Artur's opposite, yet at the same time they present a united front. Marcin is second in line in terms of responsibility for the game, but stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Artur in terms of creation. Marcin also studied architecture, but I think he missed his calling, because he's more of an artist than a draughtsman. I love watching him doodle - some of the things that come out from his mind then are amazing, and a lot of missions have been born from sketches and things that he's done. He's not the only artist at the studio, but he was the first.
His job description is to be responsible for the creation of the gameworld and the plot, the missions and the rules. That's a hefty chunk of work, so he has a team working with him. Now, a lot of these things get discussed, as I said last time, more openly - it's not just Marcin's team and no-one else, but the responsibility lies with him, and a lot of the ideas come from his corner. Marcin was there from the beginning of the Exodus project, and he puts a lot into the game. He is more of an alien sympathiser than Artur - the Hirudon and the Skirros seem to be his favourites, although he won't admit that on record.
Marcin has a gentler sense of humour than Artur in my opinion, although I have been warned not to judge the book by its cover. He wears his 'heroes' on his sleeve - Herbert, Dick, Lem, et al., and is passionate about what he likes, in a remind-me-not-to-get-into-an-argument-about-that-director-again sort of way. His first RPG character in my game was a telepathic federal intelligence agent - he nearly died trying to get the group out of a sticky situation. Says it all really.

Those two were the ones who brought me on board, which I'm grateful for, because I really like working here. And they're the heart of the project. Which made them the best people to start introductions from.
That's all for this time - out of space and time. Next time, someone else will write to you, so, till we meet again, take care.

Derek.
PS: No names were changed to protect the innocent - you'd need someone innocent to protect. ;)