A few days ago, Evie had the opportunity to have a chat with Martin Pichlmair the guy that has wrote and made most of a great new game currently in Steam Early Access Secrets of Rætikon.

 

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and what you did with this game?

My name is Martin Pichlmair and I’ve written the story, co-designed the gameplay and programmed a lot of the tools we’re using for Secrets of Rætikon.

 

2. What is this game can you describe it to us?

Secrets of Rætikon is an aerial action exploration game set in an open world. You play a bird-like human that flies through the savage mountains of the Alps in order to reveal the secrets of this place. There are enemies and there are puzzles and there are challenges. How you overcome all these obstacles is totally up to you.

 

3. You said you were wanting to add more animals to the game, what animals are they?

I can’t talk about this right now. We’ve designed more than 10 more animals so far but it depends on a lot of factors how many of those we will be able to put in the game. Maybe none, maybe 3. We’ll see.

 

4. What inspired you to create such a game with this kind of design?

Felix once came into the office and shared that he’s had a dream about flight. Soon we started comparing how each of us dreams of flying. Then we set out to build prototypes of games where you glide and fly.

 

5. What are your aims for the steam workshop?

Our lofty goal is to have a vibrant community on Steam. You can build your own levels or even build a game that is not connected to Secrets of Rætikon in the editor that comes with the game. We’re super curious what users will come up with. We hope to turn some players into creators, into collaborators.

 

6. What plans for the future do you have for the game?

We originally conceived Secrets of Rætikon as a trilogy of games. The current game is the first chapter and pretty much its own game by now. The second chapter would play higher on the mountain. If and when we make the second chapter wholly depends on the success of Secrets of Rætikon.

 

7. Are you planning to make any more games like this with similar design and genre?

To be honest all of us want to make something different next. Some aspects of SoR – like the physics simulation – are key ingredients for Broken Rules games. Let’s see what else we can make out of awkward physics. Maybe a slapstick robot spy game?

 

8. Now that Microsoft and Sony allow self publishing will you be releasing this game on the next generation of consoles?

We are registered Sony and Nintendo developers, so these two consoles are possible future platforms. We’ll wait until the Alpha is over, of course.

 

9. I see your game is DRM free, do you see this as a selling point?

Actually we think DRM is evil. Service always trumps restrictions. Steam is not successful because of DRM but because it offers supreme service to the players. So, yes, we see it as a selling point.

 

10. Also I see that this game runs on Linux how is it to develop for?

If you anyway go for Mac and Windows adding one more platform is not such a hassle. We want to be prepared for SteamOS, of course.

 

11. And we must ask that with steam OS been a modded version of Linux, have you had any chance to get any hands on with this?

No we didn’t have a chance to test it (yet). We’d love to, though.

 

12. Lastly we must say that the game looks amazing and wish you much success as it’s great to see new and interesting ideas, not just another 1st person shooter. But if you had a team of 1000 and an unlimited budget what game would you like to make?

Sorry - I’ve tried to come up with a witty answer but in fact I’m currently solely thinking about Secrets of Rætikon. If I had a thousand people I’d just have them make this game as good as possible. If I had unlimited resources the best I could think of is making an MMORPG where you can test out different models of how a society can organize itself and an individual can live. A political simulation of sorts.

 

Secrets of Rætikon early access is out now and currently available on Steam!