I just had a quick interview with Eunice Chou, Business Development Manager, and Vincent Dehaut, Partner in charge of Marketing and Legal Affairs from Studio Archcraft about their game, Project Exile.

The interview after the break…

Edgar: So tell me a little bit about Archcraft.
Eunice: Well, we’re an indie studio, based in Montreal with members based in the U.S., the UK, Japan and Germany.

Edgar: Did you guys encounter any problems with all your team being apart?
Vincent: Not as much as you’d expect, actually. Just minor stuff like contracts taking forever to get mailed, that sort of stuff.

Edgar: How did Studio Archcraft get started?
Vincent: Well, it started back in 2001 or so - Me, a programmer friend and one of his artist friends decided that talking about going into game design wouldn’t get us anywhere if we didn’t start. At the time, the GBA was coming out and it seemed like it was a good opportunity for a start - up, so we began work on a game design. Anyway, we took our time to do the core design. We were still in school (I was in business school) back then, so it took a bit of time. We really started to build the game in 2003.

Edgar: What is Project Exile?
Vincent: Well, it’s pretty obvious that we were inspired by the great RPG’s of the SNES era. Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, etc. The core team was made up of hardcore RPG fans, and we thought we could do something as good or better.

Eunice: The story was written with a focus on adding meaning to the character’s lives/ordeals, adding a feeling of discovery for the player and really adding a lot of depth to the story and the world.

Vincent: And we also wanted to add a bit more strategy over Chrono Trigger’s system.

Edgar: So the game started as a GBA project, but it’s being ported over to the DS. How far were you in the game development when you decided to switch to the DS.
Vincent: Porting over to the DS is mostly a business decision - the DS obviously will be on the market for a longer duration. But it also gives us a lot of freedom design-wise.

As to how far along we were… I’m not a fan of giving meaningless figures, so I’ll put it in words instead. We were far along in development that it wasn’t an easy choice. Thankfully, our engines are extremely robust, and they won’t require that much adaptation. I’d say that it’s mostly the finishing work that remains to be done, and of course changing some data to adapt to the DS capabilities. We’re going to take the opportunity to use the DS hardware however.

Edgar: Talking about the DS capabilities, how do you intend on using the two screens, and what other features will you be using?
Vincent: Basically, we’re going to use as much of the DS hardware as possible. The two screens will definitely be used. We’re not sure what we’ll put on the touchscreen and what will go on the non-touch screen. We are planning on using the touch function on the touchscreen, but what we’ll use it for depends on how what we put on the touchscreen.

Edgar: Why make the move when the DS can easily run GBA games?
Vincent: Why make the move? That one is easy - we want to ensure our game is as nice to play as possible.

Eunice: The DS tech is interesting and the GBA is at the end of its life cycle. We had design limitations with the GBA and the DS gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of memory/screen space limitations.

Edgar: When can we expect Project Exile?
Eunice: We’re aiming to complete the game by Q1 2007 and we’re currently talking with publishers.

Vincent: But the publishing date also depends on our publishers.

Edgar: What games are you currently playing?
Eunice: Oblivion, Jade Empire, Super Mario DS, all the RPGs on the DS! (for research, of course)

Vincent: I’m mostly playing some older games on my PS2 (Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 lately). I’m not playing that much though… perhaps two hours since E3?

Edgar: There aren’t many RPG’s on the DS yet…
Eunice: The current lack of RPG’s on the lineup is one of the reasons we really wanted to bring this game to the DS.

Edgar: Alright, Thanks for your time guys. It was nice talking to you.

Studio Archcraft Official Page

After our interview they told me that they will update their news page more often and that they will have a forum on the page over the next few days.