GI.n: What would you say to someone who has never tried an Adventure game?

Maciej Miasik: Well, if you tried many types of games and found them too fast or difficult for your reflexes, too brainless in their basic gameplay, too complicated with their interfaces, then maybe you should try adventure. Those games rely on your mental skills, they don't dictate your pace in the game and let you enjoy interesting stories and explore fantastic locations.

GI.n:People have been saying Adventure games are dead yet you seem to be thriving in the genre. What are you doing right?

Maciej Miasik: Those people usually don't give a damn about the adventures and they would see all the games to be their preferred genre. The adventures are still being developed, they sell quite well, and they have their own audience, quite different from those targeted by hardcore gaming magazines. They simply don't get the same kind and level of publicity the latest shooters have, well maybe with the exception of Myst series. This may suggest that nobody is interested in adventures any longer, but not everything you read in the press is actually true.

We are simply developing new adventures, offering fans of the genre new stories to experience, new worlds to explore, new challenges to overcome. All in the high quality product.

GI.n: Are you using the V-Cruise engine from the 'Mysterious Journey' series?

Maciej Miasik: No. We decided to move the genre forward with new technology tools and for Mysterious Journey II development we decided to use real-time 3D rendered graphics instead of pre-rendered images used in previous titles.

We licensed a very good 3D engine - Jupiter - from Touchdown Entertainment, used in creating the excellent "No One Lives Forever II" shooter. This is the great piece of technology for the first person perspective games we are developing. They look like first person shooters after all, but you don't shoot in them - just manipulate various objects in the game.

GI.n: Gorgeous graphics are a big part of your titles and are second only to story in the Adventure field. Tell us about your art team and the game's graphics if you would.

Maciej Miasik: The graphics were and still are the hallmark of our work. We are very proud of our art team. It took us several years to gather so many talented artists, many of them with very strange professional backgrounds, sometimes very far from the fine arts. All are very passionate about their jobs and they create incredible things.

The way the adventures are played helps everyone enjoying the wonderful settings where the "action" takes place. You are not attacked by any alien creatures or enemy soldiers; nothing pushes you from the narrow ledges. You, the player, are in control, not the game. If you wish to take a look around, listen to sounds and just rest for a while, you are free to do this in the adventure.

The players explore the virtual worlds, because the exploration is the important part of the adventure gameplay - you search for clues, items, active objects and other human or non-human characters. More beautiful locations are, more enjoyable the exploration is. Also the imaginative worlds waiting behind same obstacle, puzzle, are very important driving factors of the gameplay. We want people to solve the puzzles and discover new things waiting in the next location.

GI.n: Plot is paramount. What was your inspiration for this story? Was it a collaboration or the work of a single individual? And what do you find most compelling about your story?

Maciej Miasik: Sentinel is our third game developed in cooperation with award-winning Australian science-fiction writer, Terry Dowling. Its story is based on Terry's short story "The Dormeuse and the Ichneumon" mixed with some elements taken from his other works. We are very glad that we can work with such great author. Thanks to that we are able in enrich usually clichй laden game stories with pieces of great writing.

GI.n: The Built-In Hint System seems like a good idea. Can you elaborate on this option? How extensive is it?

Maciej Miasik: This is a two level system. The First level, which is always active, is comprised of the two indicators(arrow-like three dimensional objects occasionally displayed in the center of the screen) helping the player to locate active objects: puzzles, buttons, anything that can be used in the game. The purpose of this is to eliminate so called "pixel hunting" when players methodically click on everything on the screen looking for some hidden hot spot which activates something and allows them to progress through the game. The challenge in our games comes in a form of puzzles; they are to be solved not looked for.

Another level of hints, optionally activated, and working only on first four levels (the first half of the game) will appear as simple text messages offering the players subtle hints in particular locations. The intention behind this is to help the players progress through game and learn how our puzzles usually work. But later, players are on their own.

GI.n: Could you tell us about some of the available worlds in the game? What sort of exotic locales and beautiful settings will we be exploring?

Maciej Miasik: The game starts in Tomb 35, in a large cave with ancient looking building and structures carved in the rock. But this is a high-tech tomb, totally holographic reality, which is able to transfer any explorer into various virtual locations, usually representing something that tomb's occupant valued. When the player enters one of 7 teleport portals, he is taken to one of fascinating worlds. You can visit volcanoes of Corrabanti, floating sky-engines of Maru, undersea gardens of Goda and others, all waiting for the explorers.

Sentinel isn't a usual, Indiana-Jones-or-Lara-Croft-like game of tomb robbing. Or rather the Tanstan tombs are far from usual ancient civilization tombs.

GI.n: Non-linear gameplay is the current trend in games and Sentinel says it offers this free choice path. How difficult is it to implement this style of gameplay in a story-based game and just how much choice does a player really have in Sentinel?

Maciej Miasik: Yes, it's very difficult to combine the storytelling with non-linear gameplay. It usually doesn't work well. We had to resort to a clever trick to combine the linear story with non-linear gameplay, all thanks to high-tech of the tomb.

At the start, after solving the very first, very easy puzzle, the player can enter one of three worlds. He can always return to the tomb and enter any other available world, if the one chosen first doesn't suit him at that moment. Solving all puzzles in one location is rewarded with a special crystal which, when taken back to the tomb, opens another new world for exploration, widening the player's choice. This allows the players to freely choose the order of exploration and puzzle solving, yet it provides them with an incentive to complete the puzzles in order to open new areas.

The only exception of that rule is the final world, which is only open after solving all puzzles in remaining worlds.

GI.n: Give us an example of one of the cool puzzles we'll find in the game. We' re not looking for spoilers here - just teasers ;)

Maciej Miasik: Well, our games have "bad" reputation of being very challenging, in another words, with very difficult and demanding puzzles, often math based. Sentinel is slightly different. It offers many less demanding puzzles, often based on finding associations between various elements, or observing actions of some machinery and combining those observations with other clues in order to reach some goal.

For example, in undersea structures of Goda, there is a spiral ramp connecting several levels. The passage through the ramp is interrupted by a series of open drawbridges and there are additional similar drawbridges not connected to the ramp. Each drawbridge can be controlled from the panel placed in the central elevator. Unfortunately the elevator needs to be moved to a particular level in order to control the bridges there and it's impossible to leave the elevator on any level besides the topmost and bottommost ones. You can only observe the current arrangement from the topmost level. The player can spend ages traveling between the levels and manipulating drawbridge, or he can listen to the sound of drawbridge being lowered or raised. The latter seems to be quite easy, but the elevator rotates while traveling adding some spice to the entire mix.