IGNPC: Why not continue developing for the Game Boy
Advance, instead of moving to the PC?
Massimiliano Di Monda: Well, after doing a good job with
our first title on Game Boy Color ……Nintendo rejected our request to
became an official Game boy Advance developer as we are too young
and not established in the industry. But probably we’ll put our
hands on the GBA, developing a title for another big company. We’ve
got some projects on the GBA, but can’t talk about it right now,
hope for the near future!
IGNPC: What's your company's background? Have you worked
on other PC projects?
Massimiliano Di Monda: Our company is brand new, but our
staff worked for many years on PC, 4 years on PlayStation and 3
years on Game Boy Color. We worked on two projects on PC in the past
published by Sunsoft, but we used to work for another company as
freelancers… after this experience we decide to leave the old and we
funded Raylight Studios and start working on “GB Rally” on GBC, and
now the PC version. We hope also the PC version will help in selling
the GBC version of the title and we have ideas also on GBA. We would
try to offer a multiplatform product to any interested publisher.
IGNPC: As a member of the Xbox incubation program, what is
expected of you from Microsoft in terms of developing GBRally
3D?
Massimiliano Di Monda:Actually we’re not member of the
incubator program, but I’m filling the form right now. We’re a
member of the independent developer program and once we received the
specs of the Xbox, we payed attention that our demo runs also under
those specifications. But I received some interest from Microsoft
and am sending them the game for evaluation.
IGNPC: How are you planning on competing with games like
Colin McRae and V-Rally?
Massimiliano Di Monda: We’re planning a full interactive
environment for this game. I mean the player will interact with all
the elements on the track damaging, moving or crashing them all!
Aren’t you tired of driving games where the car bounces off walls
like if it was a powerless ball bouncing off an indestructible wall?
The title will be developed in such a way to allow players to
download new tracks, cars, records, new body parts or stickers from
the web when available and build up their own unique car to
challenge other players’ cars!
For these projects we have our own technological weapon, our own
smashing 3D engine "Blue Roses". This is a hybrid engine, what I
mean is that it is very modular and programmed to fit on PC and next
generation consoles such as Xbox, PS2 or GameCube with "little"
changes, as I said before.
IGNPC: Are you trying to make an arcade racer, or more of
a simulation racing game?
Massimiliano Di Monda: Well I think simulation racing
games are much more appreciated from many players, but there are
also players that like the arcade experience….players like me who
love to play Ridge Racer and Sega Rally. So we’ll introduce both the
simulation and the arcade, developing two completely different
driving styles and different game modes, including a Super Arcade
Mode unlockable in the game. In such a way we could appeal both
simulation oriented players as well as Arcade oriented.
IGNPC: How far along is GB Rally 3D in terms of
development?
Massimiliano Di Monda: We built this demo in a couple of
months. We developed this demo also to demonstrate what we can do in
a short time period, I think if we could focus only on games...it
would be great! We’ll continue the development of the title, but
hope in someone to trust us and allow the team to completely focus
on games (our games or their own games).
IGNPC: Do you have any publishers lined up at this time to
pick up the title?
Massimiliano Di Monda: We’re in contact with many
publishers, shhhhhhh...just keep the finger crossed.
IGNPC: What sort of visual flair expect to see on GB Rally
3D? Is this being developed for use with the new GeForce 3 card?
Massimiliano Di Monda: Our engine "Blue Roses" has been
developed considering all existing platforms on the market, so we
have a layered structure to achieve the maximum performance from the
machine you are using (PS2, XBOX, PC ...) simply changing the low
level layer with the specific code.
For PC it will support all next generation 3D video Cards, with a
particular care to the NVIDIA GeForce3.
Our Engine is hungry for polygons and GeForce3 can satisfy it.
With the new hardware features introduced into GeForce3 the Blue
Roses engine now can take a breath, leaving the graphic card a great
part of geometry job before assigned to CPU. Rally will support true
reflections from the ambient scenery, super bump mapping for more
realistic tracks and plenty of special effects like sparks, genetic
particle system, deformable surface, lens flare and more... stay
tuned!
IGNPC: When can we expect to see the game finished?
Massimiliano Di Monda: Q1 2002.
-- Vincent Lopez
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