Siggi Kögl
Producer of The Real Neverending Story

By Randy Sluganski
December 2, 1998

Who are the discreet monsters®?

discreet monsters® is a young game developer team with 35 team members. The company was founded in 1996 by myself with a team of five members (designers, software developers) and received DM 4,5 million venture capital backing in 1997, establishing a solid base from which to launch itself into the interactive entertainment marketplace as well as into the game-developer business. discreet monsters® will start with the completion of MonsterEngine®--a revolutionary design tool that will enable the creation of complex and varied 3D real-time worlds, comprising both indoor and outdoor areas--before tackling the production of TRNS in a serious way. Since October 1997, discreet monsters® has worked exclusively on the development/production of TRNS and plans to publish The Real Neverending Story in an English and German version by autumn 1999. Furthermore, TRNS will be localised by so-called "republishers" in approximately 15 languages worldwide. We are planing to develop TRNS I, II and III. Besides that, we are planning to develop a maximum of two more trilogies/games. On the other hand, we will increase our technology to a new media platform for interactive media.

What will be most exciting about The Real Never Ending Story?

A new experience of 3D real-time gaming, with a smooth transition between indoor and outdoor areas. Furthermore, a new experience of a very rich and original story--based on the novel of Michael Ende (it has nothing to do with the film/movie)--as well as absolute new ways of active dialog. The gamer is inside the story, not outside like a viewer. The gamer takes part in the story within the gameplay.

Is this an official Neverending Story game? Is the film company involved in any way?

discreet monsters® got their rights directly from the family of Michael Ende and occupy the absolute pole position in this area. These rights concern exclusive, international rights without being obliged to any conditions. It's up to discreet monsters® how TRNS will be realized; the licensor has no right to a say in this matter. Beside the rights for CD-ROM, discreet monsters® made sure of all rights of all known interactive and electronic media in the same way.

Was Michael Ende involved in any way?

Michael Ende died a few years back. But when we presented our concept to the family of Michael Ende, they were so impressed they joked that the ghost of Michael Ende has been involved in this concept (and that's no joke!). They based their opinion on the fact that our concept comes quite close to Michael Ende's concept for computer games that he worked on in the last three years of his life. It is said that he devoted himself exclusively on computer games during his last three years of his life.

Can you give the readers an insight into the scenario to the game?

Save Fantasia! The world of Fantasia is in mortal danger of total destruction by the Nothing. It can only be saved by a new name, which a human must give to the Childlike Empress by means of the Snake Amulet Auryn. Chosen as the Saver by the Childlike Empress, you arrive at Fantasia--yet not alone: the devilish Unknown, which is able to take any shape, has come with you--to destroy Fantasia. So you have to watch helplessly as the Unknown take your shape and rob Auryn violently from the Childlike Empress's chambers. The Centaur Cairon, medicus at the Ivory Tower, will witness this crime and accuse you of the theft. Condemned into the deepest dungeons of the Ivory Tower, you soon receive visions of the Childlike Empress: "You have to be brave in Fantasia. Follow Auryn--and believe in what you see--what you really see." If you succeed in escaping from the dungeons, you will take up the hunt for Auryn ... to save Fantasia from the unknown horror.

Objectives and some puzzles examples?

The objectives develop and are intensified during the gameplay/story, since the player-character's status within Fantasia will change at numerous occasions. There are several plot-points turning the player-character's current situation in Fantasia upside-down--for instance: being transformed from saviour to someone who has to prove his own innocence. Nevertheless, all through the gameplay the player-character has the same objective, which means saving Fantasia, getting the Auryn back and giving the Childlike Empress a new name. The plot thickens, adding to this fundamental quest of the player-character and at the same time creating identification through change and development of the social status. The main plot is woven from numerous sub-plots and sub-missions. All eventually point to the same direction, though.

The puzzles consist of different categories--some of them are the well-known combinatory puzzles of assembling different objects, although we avoid doing puzzles that don't have anything to do with the story and/or the characters within the story. We have put much emphasis on developing the social skills of the gamer. Social skills within Fantasia, of course. Like having the right attitude, which in itself is changing from situation to situation. Much of the effort has to be put on communicating; thus, we have invented an emotionally driven dialogue-system, where the important thing is not what you say, but mostly how you say it. Telling a non-player-character that you are not interested in what he or she knows might trigger the character to tell you exactly what you need to hear. This is only one brief example. Some of the dialogues are quite extensive and those we call dialogue-puzzles, where you literally have to drag the truth out of that individual and you really get immersed into a intriguing conversation. It is important to say that we have not been trying to stretch out the game play by endless puzzles that keeps the game player solving them for ages!

Is the game linear, or are there many random factors?

The game is not linear, although it doesn't branch out into different games and outcomes. We have structured it according to a theory of our own, which we call "elastic story streaming," and we think that the name implies what it is about. The gamer has all possibilities to move around freely in the different worlds of Fantasia, although there is something coming to him/her. It is not based on branching, linking different events to each other, but is actually a kind of "object-based" structure, where there is a set of preconditions that are triggered in different ways, namely space, time and conditional. The game is set and the gamer can snoop around in different sequences and everyone will have a unique personal experience of the game, since these three factors of time, space and conditional events are complementing each other and making it virtually impossible to have the same walkthrough twice. Random-triggered events are of course a part of this object-oriented structure.

Is TRNS also an action/adventure game?

In TRNS there will be quite a good part of action. But here action takes part in a different kind than gamers are used to. You can, for example, fight, but fighting is never the best method to progress. To use your fantasy is always the best method to succeed. For us action is mainly important to bring the adequate speed into the game play. Of course the player will have full control of his actions! To understand that the action sequences don't interrupt the game play or disturb the flow, you have to understand that our concept isn't a conventional adventure that needs to break up the puzzle solving with "traditional" action sequences. Our concept from the start was to create a real-time game adventure that is significantly different from anything else out there. Often action is part of a puzzle; there is no real separation between action sequences and puzzle sequences. When action is coming up, it is totally integrated in the story and the gameplay.

What can you tell us about the dialogue and the music for TRNS?

We have developed a unique and new system: our emotion-based dialog system with "buzzing" interface. To give a short explanation, emotion-based means that it's not so important what you say, it is very important how you say something. So you don't ever have to remember what exactly a character did say, the thing you have to do is to act in the right way, to get the information or item you need. The buzzing interface gives you a quicker response time and offers a vast range of possibilities with which to have dialogs with NPCs. Buzzing means that the thoughts of the player character appear and disappear in one line. The player "buzzes" them and the character will formulate the sentence to complete this thought. So we avoid those boring multiple-choice menus.

Due to our innovations within the field of dialogue-interfacing, we do not need to separate between action and communication. A multi-optional popping up of "thoughts" that can be "buzzed" (that is: we catch a thought by a simple stroke on the space bar of the keyboard and the player-character formulates the line), enables us not only to keep fighting, moving and talking at the same time, but it also gives us the opportunity to imply that there is a subtext to what the player-character has just said. A subtext can mean that the player-character has been lying or has something else in mind while saying his/her line.

The music will be original--not at all Disney-like, much more interesting and experimental (surprise, surprise).

Thank you for your time, Mr. Kögl. I hope the JA readers enjoyed this conversation. I know many of them are looking forward to your game.

Thank you. We will keep the JA readers informed as to the progress of The Real Neverending Story.