Dark Crystal Games - Interview

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Spaceman
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Dark Crystal Games is currently running a Kickstarter for Encased and was interviewed by CSH Picone recently.

CHS: Where did the name Dark Crystal come from? It seems unusual for a Russian company to have an English name.

Slava: Yeah, there is a small story behind it. Basically, we all play a lot of RPGs, including some of the multiplayer ones - World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, EVE Online and many others. When we were thinking about the company name, we really wanted to find something medieval or noble or epic, with fantasy or sci-fi vibes, because we focus on making games with interesting worlds and stories. We were thinking for a while, and then someone proposed Dark Crystal, because Dark Crystal is one of the most famous magical sets of equipment in Lineage 2, and several of us spend a lot of time in this game. So we just added Games at the end, and that was it.


CSH: Tell us a bit about your team? Do you have all bases covered, or will you need to call in outside help for voice acting, localisation, that sort of thing?

Slava: The core team is actually more than 15 members now. Those are split up into code, art and design areas. Since we are indies anyway - some people wear several hats and know how to do multiple things. Our mentors and experts are mostly from the design and writing departments. The game is being developed in Russian (with English in mind) and there are multiple writers and narrative designers which help us to adapt it for an international audience and make it really smooth. Several other indie RPGs from our region were struggling to do this, so I had it in mind from the very beginning. There are also talks with other people who are very experienced and will add high-level project expertise, but we will announce that later.

[...]
Thanks Couchpotato!

More information.
 
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mentioning fallout 2 is a winner for me
https://cronus.darkcrystalgames.com/en/
this unfortunately lets me know of their philosophy and lack of vision.
if someone demands a lolipop from you, which is a trivial thing, you dont have the option to just give it to them ? or ignore them ? thats irrational .
 
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mentioning fallout 2 is a winner for me
https://cronus.darkcrystalgames.com/en/
this unfortunately lets me know of their philosophy and lack of vision.
if someone demands a lolipop from you, which is a trivial thing, you dont have the option to just give it to them ? or ignore them ? thats irrational .

It's not about the lolly, it's about the principle of the thing. I bought it, so it's mine. I'm not about to let some little bullies take it just because they outnumber me. Unless of course, it's my cyanide laced lolly.
 
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Ignore a gang of violent thugs? That's the same choice as fighting them.

Kickstarter is right now over 99% funded, 6 days to go.
 
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It's funded, and I am quite happy it did. I really liked what they've shown in their updates so far.
 
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Art design *really* stands out, both concepts and models.
 
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We were thinking for a while, and then someone proposed Dark Crystal, because Dark Crystal is … most famous … So we just added Games at the end, and that was it.

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Speaking of, Boom Studios has released a dozen comics set in the new Dark Crystal universe
Well that's my sister's Christmas present sorted :biggrin:

And I will just link the Netflix teaser trailer since it doesn't show much
Cool! I never knew about this. I love Dark Crystal, and Jim Henson in general. I think my favourite (and most mature) of his work is The Cube. I think you can find links to the full film floating around on Google. It's pretty old, but well worth a watch if you can get past the poor production values.

https://www.fandor.com/films/the_cube
 
Dark Crystal gave my sister nightmares. She used to freak out if I tried to put it on the VHS.
 
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After re-watching parts of Dark Crystal I noticed that Aughra was virtually identical to Yoda, and even had the same puppeteer Frank Oz (although Billie Whitelaw did Aughra's voice).

But in a Youtube about the extreme similarities between Dark Crystal and Star Wars (the Dark Crystal itself is a khyber crystal?) commentators reminded me that Yoda and Aughra are based on stock archetypes, as both shows are in general (someone remind me to read Joseph Campbell - hero of a thousand faces is not on mobi yet).

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These people must have been given a Cease & Desist by Disney by now. Larian can hide the name in a game, but to put the name on a box cover is going to attract trouble.

But I find this hilarious - better than that Styx: Master of Puppets game a few years back.

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update: The US Patent Office still holds 4 live Trademarks for Dark Crystal for Jim Henson Productions. The logo is dead for some reason but maybe I haven't found the update for it.
 
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