Hello everyone! Alan here, Achara Studios. We're the new devs. Buckle up, this is going to be a long one.
Earlier this year, GAMES BOX asked me to pitch a reboot of this game. So we did, and here we are - with this new incarnation of REPO MAN.
We decided to keep the core idea - that this is, in essence, a game about debt collection.
Everything else was thrown out the window, making space for
THE NEW:
We looked at the budgets (*you've got to be realistic about these things*), the human resources and, most importantly, the story - and designed everything from ground up to fit the parameters. After all, there is no greater fuel for creativity than constraints. Here's what we came up with:
THE STORY
This is what we're able to write and deliver with most confidence. It's also the least costly thing - writing is *cheap*, has always been cheap compared to other things in gamedev - so writing, story, lore, dialogue are now at the center of this game. Prepare for human drama, office politics, criminal conspiracy and vast deposits of occult lore to uncover.
ACTION
This is something that can't be delivered in AAA quality without AAA budgets - the costs of developing complex combat and movement systems are huge. So we're scaling down on it, by putting things upside down.
Is there combat? Yes, Arthur can engage in fisticuffs. There's plenty of people who want to beat him up too, especially in the port district of San Alma.
But a debt collector's job isn't at all about beating people up. You're not a thug. You're a clerk. And be sure that low-lifes of San Alma are much better at brawling than you are.
It is possible - if unlikely - to take them head-on and prevail. But it's difficult and usually doesn't pay off at all.
So fist-to-fist combat, in essence, isn't there so that you can beat people up. It's there so they can beat *you* up. Which forces you to sneak, find alternate paths and find ways to strike a truce with the most aggressive NPCs.
You'll get to hit people in the face *to make a point*, and we're making sure it feels *good* when you get to do it - but it shouldn't be your default mode of
NEGOTIATION
We're placing negotiation, persuasion, and deception at the core of this game - because being a repo is, realistically, about striking a deal. It's presented in the form of a collectible card game, where you play your "cards" - notions, emotions and rhetorical skullduggery - against those of your debtor. Everything preceding this part - dialogue, exploration, combat, looting, investigation - affects this final game that awaits at the end of each quest.
Oh, and about the
EXPLORATION
There is a whole city to uncover. It's not vast and empty - we want the exact opposite: a town that's limited, tight and packed with content, one that feels cozy, familiar and *alive*. It doesn't follow the direction set by Skyrim or Rockstar games - the Gothic series is a much closer inspiration for our level design. We're making sure there's something to discover behind every corner, in every nook, and that finding a new shortcut is its own reward.
To sum up - it's a new game, designed from ground up and made into something entirely different. It's an RPG/immersive sim now. It's not about dishing out violence and robbing people in broad daylight.
It's about chatting up the waitress. It's about insinuating yourself into a ball hosted by a secret society. It's about framing the wealthiest woman in town with a murder.
It's about talking a guy into paying his debts in manageable installments, rather than jumping and exploding against the cobblestones 10 stories below.
Hope you're coming along for the ride!
--
Alan Padziński
ACHARA STUDIOS
PS. We've already got A TON of questions about the world of this game. I'll tell y'all about it in the next update!
PPS. I'll take your questions in the comments or the Steam forum.
