We recently announced the new title in The Life and Suffering universe — The Life and Suffering of Prince Jerian. The other day, its developers also held a Q&A session with players, where they answered questions regarding the second installment's development. We have collected them within this article and would like to share the resulting interview with you!
The questions were answered by: Theodore — Studio Founder, Chip — Lead Game Designer, and Maxim — Editor-in-Chief.
Theodore: Maxim, you delve deeper into the text than anyone else: you feel, perceive, and edit, polishing it up to perfection. So, I'd like to ask: when compared to part one, has anything changed in the way we write, what intonations we convey, how deeply we immerse ourselves into the hero's journey? Did you catch much change in all these aspects?
Maxim: Theodore and Chip are less familiar with the game than I am because they dwell in higher domains, while I work directly with the embodiment of the text, so it's what I know best. We had an ambitious task to make the text complex compared to part one. This is a dangerous path, since rising complexity reduces accessibility. That's something we can't sacrifice, but we still sought creative growth in terms of maturity. We want to ask more mature questions, make the text less adolescent, but rich and manifold, with greater emphasis on halftones and psychologism. It's clear that we can't play around too much, as we'd like to sell over 1,000 copies and not make a niche product. The project needs to remain accessible, so we set a task for ourselves, among other things, to implement literary embellishments and work with halftones in dialogues, highlighting the psychology behind various in-game situations. I hope that this ambition works out. Guess we'll find out upon reading the reviews.
Players: The second game will follow Prince Jerian. Can you tell us why him? Why was he chosen to be the protagonist, and why did you decide to look at the game's world through the eyes of the crown heir of the Empire? What was your personal interest with this decision and, perhaps, the interest of the game design studio as a whole?
Theodore: Actually, it's important to me that we look for new heroes. I spoke about this before, so it's a hackneyed phrase... But what is a new hero? A new hero is a character that finds themselves under new circumstances and engaged in new activities. That is, playing an unexplored role and providing an angle from which we had never glimpsed the situation in the Blessed Arknian Empire before. I looked for a character who was far removed from Sir Brante's social status and immersed in another sort of life altogether. Someone who'd experience the same era and universe in an entirely different manner. Someone who'd see the big picture hitherto witnessed by Sir Brante from the other side. Therefore, we decided to make the big leap to the opposite end of the social ladder. This allowed us to explore a truly alien world — one made up of Arknians and their politics, where the protagonist would have to solve uniquely different problems and overcome obstacles that Sir Brante would hardly know, seldom see, and perhaps never even think about. The chance to draw such a picture, to see the events unfold like this in our game, pretty much forced us to find this character. It was important that we'd avoid retreading old ground as much as possible, so we had to make a sharp turn towards a significantly different world. And well — the world of Prince Jerian is radically different from that of Sir Brante, untying our hands when it comes to telling and showing a lot of new things.
Players: Will Sir Brante's and Prince Jerian’s paths intersect? Will there be references to the previous title?
Theodore: Of course, it was important for us to make the games' world seem coherent and consistent. Sir Brante's life left its mark on history, and we shall not close our eyes to what he did and the events he took part in, as well as those that were, perhaps, only mentioned in passing somewhere in the first game. It could happen that more will be revealed about them through the eyes of Prince Jerian. We are putting a lot of effort into keeping our universe whole and seamless.
Players: So, we have worlds that are intertwined. From the prince's side, we'll see some events that players may already be familiar with, only from the other, Sir Brante's side. And what about the mechanics and interaction between the titles from the game design point of view? To what extent will they remain the same? What will be changed? Will there be an option to keep or transfer a certain story branch to the new story?
Chip: Some of the core concepts will remain the same, in the vein of the familiar "read-choose-suffer" gameplay. It'll still be the same game where, when making decisions, you'll have to simultaneously think about how they may affect the narrative and advance the plot, as well as keep track of a number of changing stats. However, we're, of course, implementing changes, starting with minor things and details. Firstly, assuming the role of Prince Jerian, you'll play as a ruler, so there will more be emphasis on managing your Empire. We tried to do a bit of this with Brante, but realized that it felt out of place by the end of the game. With Jerian, we're putting much more emphasis on strategic gameplay, so you will have to rule the Empire and influence its fate. Secondly, a rather significant gameplay difference is related to revised resource management. In the original game, resources were our main limiting element. I'm talking, for instance, about the character's energy reserve, where running out would render you incapable of taking decisive action. But now, in-game resources will serve to unlock additional options, enabling you to bypass certain obstacles, which you wouldn't be able to overcome with just your skills, character connections, or something like that. In theory, this should make the game feel a little less mean.
Theodore: I feel that our game design has changed quite a bit with our protagonist assuming a new position as a member of the ruling class. For example, what Chip said at the end, when he mentioned that we're implementing a softer resource management system that will allow you to overcome obstacles thanks to your privileged position, is partly compensated by the fact that we're trying to limit our royal hero with the need to think more about consequences. If Sir Brante was often limited by simply being unprepared for a certain situation — whether he didn't have enough strength left or lacked the required skills — Jerian can often do a lot at a specific point in time, but our idea is that he should be limited by his doubts about the future and what his choice can lead to over a prolonged period of time, making every decision that much more difficult. We're shifting the player's responsibility from the present into the future, which seems to me as an interesting and significant gameplay alteration. Of course, this won't apply to every dilemma and might not always be the case.
Players: Will it be possible to transfer the events of the first game into the new one or find their results reflected in it?
Chip: There will be no data transfer, as these are two stories that run in parallel, but are set in completely different areas. There will be points of intersection, echoes of Sir Brante's actions or the events that Sir Brante witnessed. For example, at the moment when Brante came to the capital in the first game, we once saw Prince Jerian in the square — this will probably be the point of the closest contact between the two character. It will be possible to find echoes of what happened in the first title, and we tried as much as possible to take the fans' desire to feel that these games are parts of a shared universe into account. For this purpose, we carefully combed through the original, making sure to avoid any contradictions and adding as many intersections as possible. Some things that would remain undisclosed in the first game may be touched upon in the second, revealing a deeper meaning behind them or throwing new light on familiar happenings. What was mentioned in passing during Sir Brante's adventure could serve as the basis for a separate plot line in Prince Jerian's story. Characters that we only glanced in the past could even become secondary protagonists in their own right. There will be many intersections, but we are not implementing a direct data transfer, as it would entail too many variables that we would need to be tracked and accounted for.
Players: "There will be no changes made to the in-game calculator" — what prompted you to change your opinion on this?
Chip: I don't think anything has changed there.
Theodore: I think we can give a more general answer here, but we first need a precise understanding of what a "calculator" even is in this case. Will we have a system of strict checks that may render certain options impossible to be picked? Of course, we'll have — there is no way around it, as our game's concept wouldn't work without it. If we don't impose restrictions, there'd be nothing to achieve, no proverbial "suffering." In this sense, the calculator will be the same, but we are working with a softer, less restrictive model of it. Not because we abandoned some of the principles that the first game adhered to, but because we're dealing with a new character and a different set of circumstances, so all sorts of other events may happen to him, which should be reflected in the game's mechanics.
Chip: The calculator will be there, though it will be somewhat different.
Players: From the narrative and storytelling point of view, what makes this hero attractive for flashing out The Life and Suffering world? How interesting and important will his role be?
Maxim: For one thing, we know that our hero is a prince. As we were looking for the right way to express this and his point of view, we had to deal with the task of, on the one hand, making him seem somewhat independent of the player and endowed with his own background, and on the other — keeping him flexible enough for the player to easily assume his role, since players tend to associate themselves with their protagonist. This was, perhaps, one of the most important and difficult challenges we faced, and one where the results of how well it has been accomplished are still difficult to assess. It does seem to me, though, that we have found just the right middle ground where, on the one hand, our hero, at the player's behest, can become different throughout his journey and radically so, including when it comes to his personality. Indeed, some of the new mechanics are tied not only and not so much to the skills that Prince Jerian has, but to what kind of person he is and the essence of his character. This will set the tone for his very thoughts and reflect the limitations that he'll have to face. Where before we might've lacked physical strength, now we risk running into an obstacle that the prince could physically overcome, but that would contradict what he is, what the player made him when crafting Jerian's life. So he will be quite flexible but, at the same time, separate from the player and burdened by his heritage, culture, and background. Who and what the prince is will emerge at the intersection of all these factors.
Theodore: Our hero is an Arknian, and through him, we'll gain the opportunity to look into the rather deep, distinctive, and defining fate of the world shaped by the Arknian culture. Most of our game will be dedicated to Arknians: our hero will have access to the highest offices in the Empire, holding great power, and thus we can shed light on the life of the elites, as well as their point of view on what's happening in their realm. Obviously, it will be different and diverge from that of Sir Brante's and those who surrounded him. Our new hero is linked to the very gods of this world — the Tempests have a special relationship with the Twins, and the topic of this unique connection will also be showcased in our game, allowing us to delve much deeper into its religious and historical themes.
Players: How else are the main characters similar to and different from each other?
Maxim: I won't go into details, since their social and racial differences have already been stated several times. These set a very big shift in focus... And we've deliberately adopted this radical change. It determines a lot — if not everything — about our new title. As for their personalities, it was previously mentioned, the player will be able to mold his character and, to an extent, forge his destiny alongside Jerian himself.
Theodore: In many ways, Sir Brante had to fight for his place in this world, and only after conquering many hardships did he gain a little bit of influence over it, at least as much as his personal strength allowed him. Jerian is a totally different story: he was given the power to influence the world in many different ways by birthright... but he also has to fight a different kind of battle. I understand it as the battle for the future of his world. That is a cardinal difference between the two protagonists — with Jerian, as someone who's been given more from the start, he also bears a grave responsibility. To link the prince's fate with that of the entire world, to merge them into something inseparable and intertwined, was another one of our tasks, so that Jerian's battle for his true self would also be the battle for everyone's future. Chip can tell you how and why we decided to model Jerian's character and emphasize it via gameplay.
Chip: If we're talking models, then for Brante it was a set of skills and social connections, while Jerian has another dimension to him, which Maxim already spoke about, namely — the character's personality. Internal values that our hero can possess and take them to the extreme. You'll be able to make certain values pivotal for him and go through the entire story relying solely on them. This radicalization may occur inside Jerian's soul when he makes certain decisions in his personal or political life. As a result, he can end up a fence sitter, or radicalize towards one of the sides in a particular conflict, becoming a supporter and propagator of certain values and beliefs. This will affect the game, because, once radicalized, more actions will become available to Jerian, but it will also grow more and more difficult to act against his credo and established traits.
Players: Will the path system be the same as in Sir Brante or different?
Chip: No, it won't be the same as in Sir Brante. With Jerian, we've adopted a different approach to how we structure our script. There will be many more dynamic plot lines, creating a unique experience with every playthrough, but there won't be such a clear, obvious division into three paths as in the first game. In the original, having selected one of the available routes, you were deprived of the chance to see what could've happened if you made a different choice, unless you restarted the game. Now we have gone down a different road, writing a more complex narrative overall, where, being on one side of the story and making certain decisions, many more pathways of different lengths will open up or be closed off to you, ultimately forming a more complicated scenario than the three very specific ones you could follow in part one.
Theodore: I'd illustrate this new logic to our script writing in the idea that we're trying to make the Empire itself and Jerian's environment into another actor for our game. If, in the first game, the main character himself could live 3 different lives, then in the new one, our prince will be able to create numerous quite different versions of the Empire and mold it into a very different country every time you play the game. Accordingly, our hero will find himself in different circumstances, even if his life will always remain that of a prince, but he may end up an heir to very different Empires as determined by the player's decisions.
Players: How does the Empire, the protagonist, and all other things fit into the script, and why does it need all this?
Maxim: As Chip said, there won't several distinct paths that you choose once and then stick with till the end, but a greater number of smaller branches and minor events, availability of which will be determined by, on the one hand, the current state of the Empire, wrought on by Jerian's decisions, and on the other — by his relationships with other key characters. Most of these branches will not be mandatory and can be skipped: regarding some of them, the prince may refuse to "look into the wrong doors," while others he may never even learn about due to some previously made choices. This will be the key to the new game's replayability, as the gameplay experience will be altered by the deepening character relationships — some bonds may cause an outright espionage campaign, while others lead to tender romantic drama. If we envision the plot as a tree, then these paths, branching off from the main "trunk," will be its most interesting and inventive part. Depending on variables, such as the state of the Empire and Jerian's dynamic relationship with others, there will be ample opportunities for experimentation and varied types of action.
Players: Will the chronology remain the same? Will the events last as long as they did in Sir Brante? Will there be more or fewer of them?
Maxim: In terms of the main events' chronology that the game covers, it will be denser and more compressed. For the most part, we're going to focus on what happens during the protagonist's adulthood, glancing over his childhood and youth. In terms of the volume of text, it seems to me that there will be a little more of it than before. And as for the amount of information, the density of descriptions, the longevity of the in-game scenes, and the number of characters that take part in them — well, the game has become noticeably more complex. We often have to make an effort to prevent ourselves from going into unnecessary detail, with the understanding that we can't raise the game's entry threshold too much. People will play this for entertainment, so we don't want them to be forced to keep track of individual characters' psychological portraits, pinning their images on some blackboard and drawing connecting lines in red crayon… But yeah, overall, the new game will be larger, denser, and more complex.
Chip: As for in-universe time, you'll be playing in exactly the same period. Maybe start a little later than the previous title, but not significantly so. Regarding the volume, in my opinion, the game will become larger, although not too much longer. You can count on approximately the same experience when it comes to overall playtime. In terms of text density and narration, we tried to maintain more or less the same balance with volumes and scene intervals as was features in the first game.
Theodore: As I see it, we've invested a lot of resources in non-linearity and text coherence. We now have the opportunity to write fewer contradictory plot pieces and describe the story in a way where previous choices not only affect the player's path globally, but also change certain details during specific scenes. We've spent a little more resources to support this non-linearity, and to grow the smaller "sprouts" at various points of the protagonist's long life. Sprouts of individual plot lines, I mean. There will be many spots where you can expect things to go slightly different during repeated playthroughs. Overall, they may be shorter arcs than what you were used to in Sir Brante, but there will be significantly more of them.
Maxim: Theodore revealed one of the powerful new features of our upcoming title, and that is a level of variability when it comes to individual scenes. In the first game, a scene always remained the same — not a single page could be changed, but now we have the tools to modify them depending on relationships, stats, and previously made choices. Scenes will adapt to reflect these parameters, allowing us to make the text more coherent and even insert Easter eggs where appropriate.
Players: Will the game start at Prince Jerian's birth or a certain other age?
Chip: The new game won't start at Jerian's birth, but during his childhood. The first few scenes, you'll be played as an Arknian kid.
Players: How will the Empire management portion of the gameplay be structured? Will there be familiar narration-based events or some strategy-game mechanics (a tech tree, resource gathering, etc.)?
Chip: It will largely be done via traditional gameplay, when the player finds themselves in a scene, makes a choice among the available options, thus altering the Empire's present conditions. In addition to that, there will be a special mechanic of deeds that Jerian will need to devote an entire year to. It was first developed for Sir Brante's game, but now migrated to the new title. There will be a separate menu for such activities where you can choose what to spend the next year on, including the options to develop some long-term projects that shall affect the Empire upon their completion. It will be possible to manage the Empire through this interface and, most importantly, this method will give the player more agency in the whole process. Instead of constantly getting into situations that are forced on you in one way or the other, as Jerian, you will be able to make your own decisions on what to do next and which direction your Empire should be reformed towards.
Players: Will there be a "communist" ending?
Chip: In a sense. There will be an Empire stat called "Equality." There's an estate that wants to equalize everyone and promotes what we would call communist ideas. In some way, it will be possible to pursue this goal and adopt corresponding reforms.
Theodore: It's important that we keep the games' world within logical limits. While it'd be possible to move the world towards equality, it would, of course, be impossible to bring the Marxists' classic dream to life there, as the Empire itself still occupies a fairly early stage of forming a complex society. It can, however, be nudged in this direction to some extent.
Maxim: It'd be impossible to bring the dream of the communist ideologists to life in the Arknian Empire, but it is possible to reach a sort of communist ending.
Players: An idea was floated around to make separate story branches for a soldier or a magician Brante in the first game. Will there be something like that in the new one?
Maxim: Prince Jerian will remain a royal heir throughout most of the game, so it'd be difficult to change his occupation. This is one of the cornerstones of the game's concept: while the prince is a powerful individual, he's not quite a free man who can decide his own fate — the entire world is trying to tell him what he should be and must do, as it's not only Jerian who's dictating his will to the realm. That said, there will be a fair share of magic and military affairs in the second title.
Players: The player had 4 lives when playing as Sir Brante. Will it be the same for the prince? If so, how will his deaths affect gameplay?
Theodore: There will be a slightly different system in place, since, according to the game's reality, those who hold great power immediately find true death when they're killed and ascend to the top of the Shining Pillar. Therefore, Jerian can probably die, but that would spell game over for the player's current run. The prince also has other problems to keep him occupied: the royal heir needs to watch his sanity in this cruel world, where everyone wants something from him and where he'll need to make difficult decisions that might go against him core beliefs. Therefore, there will be another system in place, related to Jerian's sanity, and if he ever loses it, then that would be the end of his personality. So yeah, we're implementing a slightly different system this time around.
Players: Will we hear anything about Flavius? Will he weave a web of intrigue or become our ally?
Maxim: Oh, we know a lot about Flavius. It's nice that the players remember about him, as he became the subject of many heated debates during our internal meetings. Flavius will be there, but whether he shall weave a web of intrigue or become Jerian's ally will depend, among other things, on how the prince develops their relationship. I personally hope that many of you will like what we did with this character.
Theodore: Flavius is important because he reveals another facet of the game's world: he holds completely different views on what's allowed and appropriate for Arknians or even for the Tempests, the imperial family themselves. Therefore, he'll try to convey his ideas to Jerian and all the players who'd listen to him.
Chip: According to Igor, Flavius is the main contender for the protagonist role in the all fan fiction, fan art, and other creativity expressed by the game's fans.
Players: Will we learn more about other races and states that preceded the Imperial hegemony?
Chip: We'll touch a little more upon the La-Tari, who were already revealed in the first game. We might even mention another race that existed before the Arknians destroyed or subjugated them, but I make no promises — the editorial jury is still out on whether we'll have the time to showcase said race in the final cut of the story, but the idea was there.
Maxim: We plan to systematically look back to the past, but not dive too deeply into those events, since our focus must remain on the present. Although, we do want to showcase the key moments that shaped the Empire as it currently is, so we shall eventually reveal more of the world's history, including other sentient races and epochs that preceded the Empire.
Players: What stage of development are we at, and what about the release date?
Theodore: There is a projected release date, but we can't reveal it right now: we need to make sure that the game is finished, polished up, and the text is all verified, and those things take both time and effort. I wouldn't even pinpoint a particular quarter right now, but I'm almost certain that we'll finish the game within a year. Unfortunately, things rarely go that smoothly in the real world, but I hope that we'll manage to do it all in the next 12 months or, God willing, sooner.
Players: Will Jerian have an opportunity to anger the gods or be sent to the foot of the Pillar?
Theodore: I previously said that Jerian and all the Tempests have a special relationship with the gods, so he has a certain debt to the Twins, as well as to the Empire. We leave it to the player to decide how exactly they will understand the essence of this debt and what conclusions they will draw from it. Jerian's religious decisions and spiritual life raise important questions that the player will have to answer, and there will be consequences for every single one. You may be able to anger the god or avoid their wrath.
Maxim: And don't you worry — Jerian will also have opportunities to disappoint his parents and anger his grandfather!
Players: Won't Jerian's problems look like "suffering from success" when compared to the tough and unforgiving path that Sir Brante had to walk?
Theodore: An important question indeed, as this is partly our ambition for the game. It's important for us to show the suffering and powerlessness of the powerful. Prince Jerian holds a lot of power, but that doesn't render his suffering inferior in strength, intensity, or significance when compared to what Sir Brante had to go through. I hope that we'll be able to convey this, as it's a problem and a challenge that we must overcome.
Players What will the protagonist's Arknian blood affect? We've learned in the first game that Arknians are stronger, smarter, and more resourceful than humans.
Theodore: The Arknians rely heavily on their ancestors and their connection to them. Our hero will also be able to call upon his bloodline. Moreover, it's important to reiterate, that in his veins runs the blood of his world's rulers, and that will always be an important plot point.
Players: What happens when Jerian dies? With Sir Brante, we decided on behalf of the gods where the hero would go — up or down. Will we also be able to decide this in the new game?
Theodore: There are many aspects to this question. Prince Jerian and all the Tempests have a special relationship with the gods, and this will be revealed in the game, so I won't spoil it now. Besides, the scene you are talking about is a special case in which the player, their character, and the gods are in many ways intertwined, and our new game will also have a special occasion like that. Who and how will be intertwined there, however, as well as what decision you will be making, shall remain a mystery for now. Know that this experience of self-reflection and judgment is still important to us, and there will definitely be something like that in the new title.
Players: How many hours will one playthrough last?
Theodore: We can't give an exact answer to this question, as we haven't finished the game yet. I know for sure that a playthrough will last no less, and most likely — longer than a playthrough of Sir Brante. There will be no less content in it, but more, and, accordingly, the amount of time you will be playing for shall reflect that.
Maxim: And it also depends on the player's reading speed.