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We caught up with the CEO & co-founder of Epictellers to learn more about this space-based RPG which is full of humour and quirky characters and situations.
"Hi Gamereactor friends, this is Day 2 at the BCN Game Fest, formerly known as the IndieDevDay and I'm taking a look at an RPG called Starfinder Afterlight and I was looking forward to this one and I'm late, so sorry about that But this is, I was wrong, I thought it was more action RPG-ish, but it's an RPG in space with some quirky, interesting additions Yeah, I mean, you need to think of it like, what we call it, a computer RPG or party-based RPG So you have a party, you need to interact with them, they have their own moral standards So maybe you need to convince them to join your party, they could be annoyed by your actions and then decide to leave the party Or even you could romance them, if something happens, right?
So it's about taking that kind of Guardians of the Galaxy feeling of going crazy in the space and save the galaxy, that's the feeling I like the reference and I've seen this cutscene which is animated So what can you tell me is going on in this world with these characters?
What is sort of the setting and where does the story start?
Okay, without spoiling much, what happens is that you witness a terrible event called the Afterlight, that's the name of the game And then when you see that, you somehow go back and you still have time to avoid it Like in time Well, you go You go back, you go back And then you need to find a new crew, you need to recruit that crew, a bit like Firefly for example You need to get this kind of misfits, this ragtag crew And you get them, you recruit them, then you follow the steps of the captain that you used to have, which is Captain Khali And then you need to find what she did and when you meet her, if you do, there will be some answers And let's see how you can avoid this terrible fate for the galaxy What is sort of the length or the scope of the campaign, of the story you are aiming for?
We are aiming for a campaign that can be finished between 40 to 60 hours But our goal is that there is a high replayable value Because we are doing a lot of content and allow the player to really do whatever they want They could not pick their characters, they could decide a different crew, he could play solo He could play, I don't know, maybe with the mercenaries or something that they can create their own party So there is so many ways to play the game You mean co-op as well?
Not co-op No, it's just the party you choose Exactly, the party you choose So giving so many options for the players make that we have to do a lot more content than 40-60 hours But when you play through, it should feel a bit like your own adventure And when you compare to your friends, it should feel like a different thing Oh, what happened to you? What happened to me? I decided this Oh, then this thing changed Because there is some branching narrative The branching narrative is very important for us So let's see how far we can get there, but we are totally invested in doing that Very interesting The status of the project, as I see, it's pretty much finished, what is left to do?
The status is, it's not a vertical, you're bringing a demo here What would you say is left to do?
And then the release window that we can expect Okay, so right now we finished Vertical Slice, we are in production right now What we have right now is a pre-alpha, which is a way to show A bit of how the systems work, all the systems are in place We are just building content non-stop CRPGs, our games, are very content-heavy We need to put a lot of characters, storylines, more voices That's why we do the Kickstarter, to try to bring more quality More playable races, playable classes We just announced the Technomancer, which is a fantastic class We always wanted to add, but we couldn't have enough resources for it So we are happy that probably we'll give more options for the people to play the game In a different way, which is what we want And the Kickstarter, you smashed it, was very, very successful So then everything looks bright for a release in when, more or less?
So we were very focused that creating more content because of the Kickstarter Would not jeopardize the release date So what we have done is that all the new races, all the new classes Will be as a free DLC pack for the Kickstarter backers So, yeah, in this way we can just make sure that we still ship on 27 Which is our release window And then we will give all this expanded content for free for everybody that joins the Kickstarter Fantastic. Anything quirky or crazy that you want to tell me about the story Or about the characters, or about how the game plays that we didn't touch on?
Actually, there is not much that is not quirky I mean, the game is a bit crazy Right now, there are so many stories and so many things that are a bit crazy Like as I said with Guardians of the Galaxy You see that it's not really a comedy movie But a lot of crazy things happen Like you board a living ship and you do crazy things in that movie So we get inspired in that way that there are very deep And let's say complex motifs and themes in the game Like, I don't know, for example, the free will Lu-323 is an android, she needs to know if she's doing things because of her programming And then you ask yourself those kind of questions which are deep and important But also, you have a small larva which is annoying And then you put, I mean, you know, she's fantastic She's going around the spaceship doing crazy things And stealing food from people and annoying people and stuff like that And she's fantastic, she's very cute So you have all those lighthearted moments with, you know, more deep moments And this is the concept we are looking at in this game Fantastic, looking forward to playing Starfinder I will try and play the demo And then, otherwise, see you around 2027 Thanks so much Good luck with the project and enjoy the show Thanks so much"
