First off, thank you for taking the time to answer a few of my questions. – You're welcome!

Q: What is the story behind Sin?

A: Here is the story behind Sin:

Ten years ago in 2087, the city of Freeport was on the verge of collapse. The inefficient and under manned police forces were losing in the long, hard battle against crime. The city needed help, but the overburdened government could no longer cope with maintaining peace on the streets. The government proposed a bill giving individual corporations the right to form their own police/security forces and they in turn would provide protection for the companies and citizens of the cities. This bill was passed and a new order of law enforcement was birthed.

Several well respected sec-forces were established and one hard hitting group calling themselves HARDCORPS helped lead the way in crime prevention and elimination. The chaos slowly subsides as the sec-forces bring peace and order back to the city.

Colonel John Blade, the owner of HARDCORPS, is currently trying to track down the source of a drug distributed on the streets called "U4". This highly addictive drug has been around for some time, but lately strange things have been happening to its users. It is up to Blade to find out what is happening; figure out who or what is behind the weird problems now plaguing the streets; and put a stop to it.

This elaborate puzzle eventually leads back the mysterious Elexis Sinclair. A brilliant biochemist who is attempting to push the evolution of mankind ahead by a thousand generations and she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

As for some screen shots, I'd love to get you some, but right now I'm running around with my hair on fire and flames shooting out of my ass trying to coordinate some last minute press stuff. If you can wait a few days. I'll get you some as soon as possible and I'd like you to just remind again in a few days if that's OK. If you are in a rush, I'll have to bail otherwise.

Q: The one thing that everybody wants to know, when will Sin be out?

A: Sin is slated for a first quarter release in 1998. That's the date, so everyone make a note of it. J

Q: What will make Sin more fun then the many other first person games such as Unreal, Quake 2 and Half-Life?

A: We are taking our own unique tack on how the game will unfold, such as creating an in depth story that is tied in with the game play. We are pushing the limits of technology every step of the way; with the 16 bit textures, skeletal animation system, detailed and realistic environments, interactive level integration, and for good measures, the kitchen sink. We have been pouring ourselves into this project and we feel we have the best game and level design on the planet right now, so be prepared to be blown away!

Q: What is the coolest feature that Sin has?

A: The attention to detail and interactivity that we've added in is one the coolest thing that we've done so far.

Q: Have you removed anything from Sin that you originally started with?

A: No drastic changes, there were some characters that we had to leave out of the original design since we had so many to begin with, but otherwise we've kept pretty close to what we wanted. In doing so, we've kept a pretty tight focus on this baby and everyone makes sure that each piece of this elaborate puzzle is ready when it needs to be. Don't get me wrong though, it not like everything goes perfectly at each stage. We've had to shift things around but there is always a good reason for the switch based on the order in which technology is implemented or the dependency on other items. Juggling is now my hobby. J

Q: How many levels will be in Sin?

A: The game is broken into six distinct missions and we expect to have at least 24 levels total in the game along with 10 to 12 unique deathmatch levels. The number of levels per mission is varied based upon what we are trying to have you accomplish during those missions.

Q: Will they be joined together with a specific objective or will they be separate?

A: Sin is based around missions rather than the individual levels. There are six distinct missions in the game, each akin to a chapter in a book, with each one tied into the story line that was created. We are very excited by all of the cool and unique possible twists and turns that we have created in this game.

Q: How many enemies will be included in Sin?

A: We've slated anywhere from 20 to 30 unique enemies in the game, but as we finish levels and start integrating them with the story line we keep finding new ones that love to creep in. We all sit down and watch as someone plays the levels and go, "Hey, you know what would be really cool right here…", so as we mold the game play and begin to put the finishing touches in, we will probably need to add in a few more.

Q: How many polygons does the average character have?

A: Billions and billions and billions of polygons. Oops, sorry dreaming there. ;) Actually we are working with about 500 to 700 polygons per character.

Q: How many frames of animation does each character have?

A: Well, since we've switched over to a new skeletal animation system, we have virtually an unlimited number of animations. That's not to say that we'll have a hundred per character, but we want our characters to have a much more diverse range of animations. Most likely we'll sit down with each character and select a range of unique and distinguishing characteristics and implement those on top of the standard set that every character will have. This allows us to truly vary what you'll see from each character as you play.

Q: What kind of hardware support will Sin have (Direct 3D, MMX, OpenGL, Glide)?

A: We'll support anything that will enable us to keep up a good frame rate and also looks good. As we've seen so far, OpenGL and Glide are great. MMX is not as promising right now, but future chip technology sure seems promising. Direct 3D would be too much of hassle to add support for and doesn't really offer us anything that would warrant the effort (we don't really feel like beta testing MS's API while we develop our game).

Q: If someone is getting 30 frames per second on Quake what can they expect from Sin at the same graphic settings?

A: With the additional features that we've added in, like the 16 bit textures and the more detailed level design, we suspect a 15 to 20 percent decrease in the frame rate with Sin. But, we'll have options to turn off a lot of the extra goodies to help improve the frame rate.

Q: Will modem support be included?

A: Modem-to-modem support may be there, but it will have the same inherent problems that Quake had. This is due to the client/server model that Quake used for network support and changing that would require re-engineering the entire way the network code works.

Since we are using Quake technology (once it comes out, we will upgrade our code base to Quake 2), we'll inherit all of the diverse support that Quake offers. From network to modem support on down the line. If there are good tools in place, why reinvent them. That's not to say that we'll be following close in the Quake pattern. We want to use the foundation tools of the engine and then on top of that change as much as we feel necessary to create a unique environment unto ourselves.

Q: Will there be a type of Sin World for playing on the net?

A: That's what we're shooting for.

Q: How many people can play in a multiplayer game at any one time?

A: At least 32, but we'll be making attempts to increase that amount by the time we release. Since the Quake 2 code base contains a completely reworked network layer, we can't be sure of any improvements that we make until we see it.

Q: How fast must someone's Internet connection have to be to get a good 16-player game going in Sin?

A: I would suspect that an ISDN would be the bare minimum that anyone would want to have to be competitive in that intense of a game.

Q: Will you be able to see what weapon the enemies are carrying in a multiplay?

A: Yes, that is one of the cool things that we are striving for. By using the new skeletal animation system we'll be able to switch out the weapon models that you see the characters carrying.

Q: Will the CD be needed to play the game or will we be able to put in our own music CD's?

A: Undecided at this time, but we're looking into what would be the coolest way to do music and sound for the game and we have not finalized which option we're going to use yet. Most likely you'll be able to play any CD you want. Our biggest hurdle will be the size of the game. At this point, it looks like Sin will take up more than 200 megs of disk space. We don't really feel good about shoving that much data onto a person's hard drive, so we'll probably make the game able to play directly from CD, with an additional option for a full installation.

Q: Will you be including crosshairs as an option?

A: Yes. We've got some other crazy ideas, but we're going to try some of these out and see if they fly first before I go spouting off about what they are. I keep getting smacked in the back of the head when I do that. J

Q: Is there anything that you would like to say in conclusion about Sin?

A: We're all very excited about what we are going to do with Sin. We are pouring our hearts, souls, minds, and time into this project to make sure that it is everything that it can be. We look forward to watching everyone's eyes bulge out of their sockets when they pick it up. Keep your eyes on us baby! J

---Dave