Galleon interview

Meet Captain Rhama, star of Galleon.

Galleon is an action adventure game that has been in development for so long that it joins the likes of Duke Nukem Forever and Doom 3 in the Hall of Infamous Delay. The game, which sees you assuming the role of one Captain Rhama, was originally supposed to be released in late 2000, needless to say it never appeared.

During the last couple of years information regarding the development of Galleon has been very sparse. At the end of 2003, English developer SCi acquired the rights to the game from Interplay and at that point it was made public that Galleon is due out this spring - as an Xbox exclusive title.

Wanting to clarify all of this, we had a chat with Toby Gard, who is the man behind Galleon, as well as the development house Confounding Factor. His career began at Core Design, where he was one of the main forces behind Tomb Raider.

What's taking so long?

I think Mr Rhama need to focus on his legs at the gym.

As mentioned above, Galleon has been in development for a very, very long time. So where is this game that Paul Douglas of Confounding Factor announced would be released three and a half years ago?

- There are several reasons for the delay, but basically it can be attributed to the fact that the game was too ambitious for a team that was too small. When we realized that we needed a larger team, we simply couldn’t afford to hire more developers.

Realistically, a game with so long a development cycle would be canned, but Galleon is just too damn good for that and people have always been able to see that throughout the whole process.

Behind you!

Interplay has been listed as Galleon’s publisher from day one, but they chose to sell their right to the game due to financial difficulties. In connection with this, we learned that the game might become an exclusive Xbox title. But is there any hope of a multi-platform release? And will the game really come out this spring?

- Release dates and platform decisions are in the hands of the publisher, so SCi will have to answer that.

The above statement doesn’t confirm anything, but it is no outright denial either, so non-Xbox owners might still get their hands on the game someday.

Sure – we just need to program it

Galleon – the Duke Nukem Forever of the console world.

Toby Gard gave us the story of the development of Galleon:

- I designed the game based on all the input my team gave me during the first six months of the development phase. At the end of the first year, the entire game was designed right down to the last puzzle – all told, the manuscript took up 40,000 words. From then on, we’ve “just” been working on the actual code.

Gard continued, explaining what the team has done to ensure that the game won’t appear outdated when it hits the streets:

- We redesigned the entire graphical part of the game in the beginning of last year. This included a complete reworking of all the characters and environments of Galleon.

In your face

Watch out, I know Kung Fu.

According to earlier interviews (which are two years old by now), Galleon sports a peculiar, yet cool combat system. We asked Toby for some details, which triggered a veritable torrent of words from the developer:

- Combat in the game is designed to be a melee smorgasbord, Gard explained enthusiastically. You have two attack buttons, which gives you access to a wide array of standard moves, including punches and front and rear kicks. These moves become more powerful if you time them correctly.

If you get hold of an opponent properly, you can throw him at your other enemies. Furthermore, causing a lot of damage in a short time span will earn you different special moves.

It sounds like the best and most entertaining approach is to attack full-on then?

- The fastest and most effective way to get the job done is indeed to sprint in and go medieval on their asses. If you jump into a large group of enemies, for instance, you can perform a sweeping attack, which will take out a few of them or you can grab hold of one and throw him at his mates. The more damage you cause, the more powerful your attacks become. It’s tremendously entertaining.

No naval battles

Evil Armpit Attack!

Seeing that you’re a captain in Galleon, the thought of grand naval battles springs to mind. However, there will sadly be none of that in the game.

- No, Galleon is strictly an island adventure. The storyline is closer to the tales of Sinbad than those of legendary seafarers

Oh well, it was worth a shot. Instead, we asked about the structure of the game and its story.

- In order to immerse players deeper into the storyline, we’ve kept it largely linear, but how you choose to tackle the obstacles within the levels is totally up to you. That said, players will have an influence on the actual ending of the game – and that’s all you’re going to get out of me regarding that part of the game, said Tony, with a smile and a spark in the eye.

Ménage a trois

Is it you, Ariel?

On your journey through Galleon, you’ll be accompanied by Faith and Mihoko, two women with both brains and beauty. How will they influence the flow of the game?

- Faith and Mihoko will join you at certain points in the game. When you travel with them, you can order them to use certain objects or special abilities. Faith is able to use special objects that you can’t use, for instance. However, she’s not as agile as you, so you’ll have to help her getting through the levels, for instance by boosting her up, or catching her when she jumps off ledges, so she doesn’t hurt herself.

With this bit of male egotism over with, we’d like to hear if there would be more companions in the game.

- You’ll be accompanied by more characters, but you will have no direct influence on them. You can’t order them around, they’ll just help you when you need it.

We thank Mr Gard for his time.

Source: Boomtown DK
English version by: Jonatan A. Allin (neonwolf)