A couple of days ago we published the first part of an interview made by the guys at Drinkingcoffeecola. Our champion, Rochard‘s Lead Level Designer Samuli V., was challenged with some unusually tricky questions.

Let’s see how that story continues…

Sony’s ads on PSN have described Rochard as an “anti-hero”. Personally, I don’t see how the term fits. He’s an unlikely hero perhaps, but not an anti-hero. How do you feel about this ad campaign?

We decided to play a bit with the words when making this ad. John Rochard is not your usual hero, he is your ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation. His daily work around anti-gravity machines oppose his down-to-earth character. Just like his appearance might oppose many people’s perception of the mighty hero that sets out to face the gravest threats in order to protect the people he cares for.

In the gaming world of space marines and elite warriors, John represents very much the polar opposite by remaining a regular, chubby dude. He’s the antithesis to pop culture’s portrayal of heroism, hence his anti-hero title.

John Rochard seems to be a person of Southern US origin. How did your team come to choose this characterization, and how did you (since you’re based in Finland) characterize him in your own country? Is he still Southern to Finnish gamers?

Finland is such a northern country (no, there are no polar bears walking around) that we wanted to contradict that with something that is very far from us, but still similar in a sense. Only a few decades ago Finland was heavily dependent on agriculture just as the southern US states, and we wanted to pay homage to that.

Read it ’till the end from this link.

We really love it when people ask us about our choices on Rochard, because as you can imagine we really enjoy talking about them, even when the questions are brutally honest.

Today, we are proud to point you to one of most challenging interviews we have given until now. The one answering is Samuli V., our Lead Level Designer and all around epic guy.

Here a sneak peek.

So Samuli, Rochard is Recoil’s first title… What can you tell us about the team that put it together? Who are the people of Recoil Games? 

Recoil Games is led by Samuli Syvähuoko, who in the past has been involved in creation of such companies as Remedy Entertainment, Futuremark and Fathammer. The Rochard project was directed by Kalle Kaivola, our producer who previously worked in press and TV, and Creative Director Burt Kane of Futuremark fame. Most of the remaining team members have backgrounds in many leading Finnish game development studios, including Remedy, Bugbear, Farmind, Housemarque and Frozenbyte.

Most of the guards have a very effeminate voice, and talk about getting pedicures and such. What’s behind this, or where did these characterizations come from? 

These guys are very passionate about their personal well being and care highly for their appearance, but have taken a bit of an over-the-top turn for the effeminate at that. It’s a bit of a jab at the artificially caring environment instated in over-managed work environments. Another take on not creating the standard burly videogame characters, but trying to reach for something very different instead. Obviously they are a comic relief, and should be treated as such.

For the whole piece, just head to Drinkingcoffeecola. We don’t doubt you’ll enjoy it.

Hello there, astro-miners. A bit unexpectedly, the second entry on our backstage series is not the direct continuation of the video about Rochard’s soundtrack you appreciated so much. But dry your tears, that’s coming too… just wait a few extra days.

What we have on offer today is instead a detailed overview of the features of the Unity engine and how they have been used to put the game together. We are therefore proud to welcome Rochard’s Producer Kalle Kaivola on the mic, and let him raise the curtain on the technology under the hood.

Press play and see for yourself!

The other day we asked on our Facebook page if you had any question for Recoil’s development team. We received a few entries, so it’s about time for us to give some answers!

Not all is related to Rochard, but we are cool with that, as we don’t mind just chatting from time to time…

Any plans to release Rochard to other platforms (Xbox, PC, iOS…) as well? As you know, Unity3D makes this pretty easy.

Yes, working with Unity we could theoretically port the game or expand the IP on other platforms without rebuilding all from scratches. As for any real plans, we have to keep our mouth shut for the time being, but as we said in some of the interviews out there, we have big plans for the Rochard IP.

How did you select which voice actor to fit with which character in the game?

We did a lot of casting. The funny thing is that some members of the team didn’t know about the involvement of Jon St. John as the voice of John Rochard. Some just thought he had a spectacular voice, and realized he was “Mr. Duke Nukem” only afterwards.

What programming language did you use and was it hard?

We used C# for most of the programming. Then we assembled the various parts of the game using Unity 3D. It’s a very flexible environment, and it allows easy portings between different platforms. You can read a long in-depth interview about Rochard and Unity here.

How can I become a tester?

Well, the world is your oyster! If you don’t know were to start from, EDGE hosts a good archive of gaming-related jobs. Check it out!

As for Recoil, we will push out job announcements as soon as we have open positions, so stay tuned.

Yesterday we concluded our first competition in collaboration with Poets of the Fall (those guys just rock!). Our grand prizes were copies of Rochard‘s OST signed both by POTF and Rochard‘s Development Team… Now it’s time to know who are the winners!

But before the names, we need to make a little addition: thanks to your overwhelming feedback and the huge amount of comments we received over such a short period of time, we decided to throw on the table another copy of the OST.

Enough with the teasing. The right length was 2164 seconds, and the winners are:

Benjamin G. – 2167 seconds

Nicole G. – 2165 seconds

Simon S. ‎ – 2161 seconds

Alex D. ‎- 2160 seconds

Nemanja R. – ‎2160 seconds

Steffen S. -  ‎2160 seconds

If you see yourself mentioned above, expect a message on Facebook from someone in our Team. If for some reason you don’t get the message within 24h, send your details anyway to press@recoilgames.com.

Congrats again on Recoil’s behalf to our lucky winners, and thanks to all the others for taking part in the competition!