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Dear Agustin, how come? On the pages of your own forum you have mentioned 5 horror movies of all time. It just can't be that Evil Dead can be better than Dawn of the Dead! Please, ground your opinion as the Game.EXE staff is shocked! Our Top 5 would look like this:
1. Day of the Dead
2. Dawn of the Dead
3. Dead Alive
4. Evil Dead 2
5. The Thing
How will an independent developer of adventure games comment on our own list?

I'm sorry, there's no way Evil Dead 2 can be better than the first one! Whereas ED2 had the funny characters and comic relief, ED1 had the mood and terror, not to mention the impact of being the first one. And those awesome last ten minutes, without one single dialogue line and weird camera angles, are worth the movie alone! While I love comedy horror, I prefer mood and seriousness (it could be argued to a certain degree the humor present in ED1 but it's definitely much less than ED2). I definitely agree though that Dead Alive should be higher positioned than ED2, but only by a tiny bit. Not only is infinitely more quotable than ED2 ("I kick arse for the Lord!"), it's so hugely bizarre that's hard to believe it was done by the very same guy who later directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. On the other hand, Ash's hand (no pun intended) being substituted by a chainsaw is one of the best gimmicks in movie history.

And I say it just can't be that Day of the Dead can be better than Dawn of the Dead! Dawn has some very interesting characters and storyline, making you actually care what will become of them. Plus, I favor slower pacing in horror movies, and Dawn has tons of it, but in a good way, never becoming boring. My girlfriend who generally makes fun of most horror movies I watch, actually liked it (even better than the remake) and that has to mean something! Admittedly, Day had better make-up and gore, but the story and events themselves were a letdown. In that respect, Dawn is hard to beat. I mean, it's like a dream come true, being locked inside a gigantic mall and surrounded by zombies.

And I can't believe I put Shock Waves above The Thing. It was Shock Waves the movie that supposedly belongs to that elusive, ever-changing 5^th place - which right now is occupied by House by the Cemetery. I'm a sucker for Italian horror movies, and the late Lucio Fulci takes all the prizes! Soap opera acting, meaningless storyline with unbelievable plot twists, an occasional naked lady suffering the mandatory awful fate and, of course, tons of gore. Everything you could possibly ask for.

In case you havn't noticed, I could discuss horror movies for ages.


Scratches is a progressing phenomenon. From the first screenshots to a first teaser, to even more screens and another teaser (which is way too close to be a demo!). More screens after that, which had nothing in common with the previously releases. It might seem that Nucleosys is not going to hide any secrets from the players. What we have is what you see. Is it really so? There is no 100 Mb demo at your web-site, but we don't know if that is a fortuity or you had to stop yourselves from uploading it there...?

Actually, we are hiding many secrets from you! For instance, you barely know anything about the storyline, and that's only changing right now when we're approaching the release date. However I think I know what you mean - we aren't 'afraid' of showing stuff and have the players judging our work, even if it's on early stages. However, there are certain things that we won't show before the game is released because we want have people wondering about them. You will see more material in the next months before the final release and there will be a 100MB demo too (well, the final size is yet to be seen). Still, I don't think we have released that much stuff. True, this thing about releasing playable teasers isn't a common thing to do, but even so the overall amount of information we have released has been carefully selected to avoid possible spoilers. To answer your question, yes, we might have important portions of the game finished, but we won't show them until the game is released. This is a conscious decision as we want to have the game shrouded in a veil of mystery. You have seen the screenshots, read lots of information and played two short demos, but in a way you still know nothing about Scratches. And we love that.

I personally don't like those projects where you are presented with a flashy website but no game content at all. I feel like I'm being cheated. On the other hand, why spend so much time on promotion when you can spend more time in more critical and immediate aspects of the game? I remember once browsing the site of an upcoming freeware adventure (sorry, I can't remember the title) which was lavishly animated in Flash with great graphics and an obvious great deal of work put into it. It was on the 'Status' page where you learned they barely had the story finished. Sadly, the project was never completed and that makes you wonder whether it was a good idea wasting so much time on the website. We chosen the exact opposite, show stuff directly from the game but have a merely functional (and ugly) site. I don't know if that was a good commercial move, but people seem to have liked it and that's enough for us.

Also, we've been careful when disclosing info about the game (ie: publishers). Only one person knows the ending of the story outside Nucleosys, only because it was strictly necessary, and that's our loyal musician. He swore to remain silent - at gunpoint.



Demo versions of adventure games were and will be a an unanswered question. It's too hard to judge an upcoming game by one given puzzle, isn't it? Are you planning to release a stand-alone demo for Scratches? If that is so, we would like to kindly ask you about your view on this sacred process? Do you analyze demo-versions of other adventure games, trying to understand how one should act to roll out a great demo that will please players hungry for adventures?

You're right, it is hard to judge an adventure game by just one puzzle. But I think there are other things players can judge in a demo: the story, the way it is told and how it unfolds, the atmosphere, writing, etc. We are going to release a full-blown or stand-alone demo, with ingame sequences. We didn't analyze other demos though, it just seemed to us that the beginning of Scratches is perfectly suitable to demo - the story and main characters are introduced and players will can a feel of the gameplay, without spoiling much. There will be a couple of surprises right at the beginning though. And of course, the demo will end with a cliffhanger, hopefully having them wondering what will be happening next. Our biggest concern right now is the non-linear nature of the game. Right after the game starts, you can already visit nearly the whole manor, and that constitutes a big problem for a demo! We're probably going to make a few changes, such as having some doors or paths locked.

So thankfully we didn't have to spend much time figuring out how to demo the game. As you said, one has to wonder whether an actual demo influences people's decision to buy the game (it obviously has to do at some extent). I'm tempted to say the 'hardcore' adventure gamer, the one that spends a lot of time on the forums and is always up to date regarding the upcoming games, won't care about a demo as long as the game keeps looking promising or the first reviews have favorable scores. I mean, it probably won't change his/her mind about buying the game. I've seen many people claiming they'd buy Scratches long before the Teaser #2 was released. And I don't think they were bluffing, they were literally asking where the pre-order page was! On the other hand, a good demo might influence the decision of the most casual adventure gamer, the one that regularly visits sites but doesn't follow up a certain game.


What does it feel to be an adventure game(s) developer in Argentina? We do know that Scratches is the FIRST commercial adventure game in your country, but do you feel any competition from other Spanish-speaking developers/games? We know (and love!) Spanish-based developers - Revistronic that have brought Fenimore Fillmore: The Westerner and 3 Skulls of the Toltecs to life (Do you know them? Played these games? May be you're in a constant contact with Hernan Castillo Brian personally?) and Pendulo Studios that is trying to finish Runaway 2 (did you play the original Runaway game, by the way?). Will Nucleosys stand in this row or we will have to add another column to our table, which will be called Adventure Games Developers From Argentina? Don't hesitate to tell us more about you and your country - one of the recent interview with an Irish developer had a two-paged text about Ireland and we have published it with great pleasure!

Competition? Not at all! I happen to be a huge fan of Spanish software (or Spanish stuff, like books, for that matter), even from the days they used to make adventures for the Spectrum. I did play The Westerner, all of Pendulo games and many more - as a matter of fact, I've reviewed several of them (including The Westerner and Runaway) for Just Adventure+. It never crossed my mind 'boycotting' these projects in any way because I simply don't perceive them as competition. I firmly believe there isn't competition in the strict sense of the word among adventures. People might buy a game instead of another one, but if they are interested on a certain adventure that appeals them, they will likely sooner or later buy it. And this is perfectly fine because I think adventure developers should rely on the 'evergreen' status of their games and not try to achieve a hit.

I actually loved Runaway and think it's one of the best adventures released in recent years, and regularly exchange mails with Rafael Latiegui from Pendulo. I also crossed a few words with Hernan Castillo regarding another review of The Westerner. It would make more sense if I perceived the Dark Fall games as competition (independent, first person and also horror/mystery) but that's not even the case. I also happen to love them and have been in touch with Jonathan Boakes too. So I feel there's a good spirit of community between most adventure developers rather than fierce competition, much more than in any other genre. Of course, this is likely a consequence of our niche market status, or at least one of them.

As for the general status of Argentina, we're still in early stages industry-wise. If I can't talk about competition between other countries, the less I can't talk about competition between us in Argentina. Bear in mind there have only been very few games commercially released which have nothing to do with adventures. Even if they did, and provided they were successful, they'd still favor us (more interest generated towards Argentina, hence more interested generated towards Nucleosys). So in a way we're all rooting for each others projects. Most Argentinian developers (about 35 right now) regularly go to meetings and, while we've been only to one of them so far, the consensus is the same: we can't even imagine competing and have to work together as a community if we want to move the industry forward. Analog ally, I believe this is the way things should be in the general adventure games community.



Agustin, what is Valpurgius And I? Please, please, tell us a bit about your first project. We're too excited by its name!

Oh, it all began as an in-joke, during the times I used to post huge amounts of rubbish on the Just Adventure+ forums. There was this person character I talked a lot with (he's still around, though not as much as he used to be) who used to have an avatar of Feeble (from The Feeble Files). I don't know exactly how it all began, but I started joking about doing a game based on him. Since I've been wanting to do an adventure for a long time now, I decided to make a quick experiment in the form of a text adventure. It was the most obvious vehicle as I could concentrate on more immediate aspects of adventures such as story and puzzles and don't worry about graphics. I had absolutely no idea what to do, so I simply imagined a weird situation: you're in some sort of strange planet with no visible buildings or even landmarks in the distance - and your back is itching. And that was the first puzzle: find a way to scratch your back (no reference to Scratches, really!). Obviously, it wasn't going to be that easy as the spot was a tricky one. That was when it occurred to me I could introduce this Stooge character (inspired by the JA+ forumer). If you happen to play the game someday, the seagulls references was a recurring joke on the JA+ forum. It may sound as if this game was only meant to be played by a small group of people, but that's not the case. Those in-jokes are actually very subtle and won't mean anything to anyone who is not familiar with the JA+ old days. All in all, the game was heavily improvised but the ending, which was as weird as the rest of the game, but logical in a sort of scary way, somehow seemed to fit the story as many people liked it. There also was a devious puzzle in which you had to rescue a smelly sock buried under a Victrola - no, I swear wasn't drunk or anything like that.

It has been ages since I last updated my personal site, in which I announced the game years ago, and I don't even know if it's still up and running. I guess the game will have to be hosted in the Nucleosys website if there's interest on it!


Yeah, so we can talk about Scratches at last. Can you share the story of its birth? How did that idea of placing all the 'action' into a Victorian villa appear? Did you decide to limit the locations by the villa itself because of technical limitations and then, once the technologies were mastered, have added the garden, the crypt and even a gloomy chapel? Or you had thought of different decorations from the very beginning of the development?

Well, there were many factors that influenced on the Scratches birth. If I have to start from the very beginning, it all began with a strange dream I had, which I can't absolutely comment as the ending of Scratches is based on it. All I can say it that it involved a basement (I'm not such a strange person, really). Little by little, the story was then built on top of this ending, with new layers and details added over time. You could say Scratches has been on development for many years if you take into account the evoilution of the story. However, the most important layer that ties everything together was only created a mere year ago, barely before the game was announced.

However, the story gets a more complicated than that. While the Scratches idea was lurking around, there were also a couple more, the most developed one aside from Scraches being a Science Fiction game. After we decided with Alejandro Graziani we had the tools (and the motivation) to make a game, we had to decide which project to pick. Scratches seemed to be the most commercially viable one - we had to keep this in mind given it was our first game and we didn't want to take many risks. We wasn't sure how a hard Sci-Fi adventure was going to do in nowadays market (there aren't any parameters, I don't think a single true Sci-Fi adventure was released in that past five years) and the other project was too ambitious. On the other hand, Scratches, being a horror game with a typical setting, had a lot of potential. My only worries was the players assuming it was going to be a boring story given the clich?d premise, but I think that's something of the past and they already know there's more than meet the eye in Scratches. The only problem was that, while it had certain characteristics that allowed it to be built with a minimal budget, it required a great deal of research because of the Victorian setting. And we don't happen to have that many Victorian mansions here in Argentina. So it was a difficult decision - in the end, given it was the most developed idea and leaned towards an economic development, we chosen Scratches. Another big factor that influenced its birth was the success of Dark Fall. I always feel like I have to mention Jonathan Boakes and his game because he was very helpful to us when we approached him and asked a few questions. In a way, the success of Dark Fall was telling us: 'This can be done, it's possible - you're not insane.'

So, back to the original question, the whole villa and locations were designed right from the beginning, regardless our technical limitations - this is what I mean by saying that Scratches leaned towards an economic development. What we did when we began mastering the technologies was jump onto things like 360? panoramic view and better graphics, but the original design remains untouched. The puzzles are a different thing though - there are a few critical ones that were created almost at the same time as the story, but a good portion of them were created and tweaked in later production stages. So, in some cases the puzzles came before the locations, and in other cases the puzzles were built after the locations.



Anyways, Scratches is a 'chamber' adventure game with tightly sealed environments or life signs from Rothbury will penetrate Blackwood mansion with both scary and very funny results? As it can be seen in Peter Jackson's Dead Alive? "Your mother ate my dog!" etc.

Yes, you could say it's a 'chamber' adventure. The choosing of the Rothbury location had a number of reasons. Apart from being a real-life location that favors realism, it happens to be a place with many isolated Victorian houses, one of them being the great home of a late, famous engineer called Lord Armstrong. This house, the Cragside state, happened to be the first one in the world to be lit by hydro electricity. So, while the James Blackwood character intervening in the Scratches story is fictitious, it was in part inspired by this real-life engineer, so it may feel even more real. One of the greatest things that ever happened to us since the Scratches creation was a person that sent us a mail asking where she could gather more information about the murders occurred in Rothbury. I was ecstatic - we thought of creating a whole fictitious series of events with fake websites and newspapers (kind of like in The Blair Witch Project) regarding these gruesome murders but we decided it was going to take a lot effort and dropped it.

There are absolutely no fun elements in Scratches. The website and our mood might give you the wrong impression but seriously, Scratches will be very dark and it only gets worse as the story progresses. I think some subjects may be disturbing too. There might be some sort of comic relief (just to encourage you to keep playing and don't mind the sweating in your forehead) but mostly in Michael Arthate's comments and conversations. But no things such as ladies eating dogs, sorry.


Could you give us a hint as to what we will be dealing with? Casual poltergeists? Peace loving ghost? Or, maybe, something really evil and scary like in Stephen King's 1408? How will you show the ultramundane things to the players - in a serious or a parody-style? Should we prepare ourselves to your Scratches by reading H.P. Lovecraft before going to sleep? By the way, how things are with his works in Argentina? How will your pronounce 'cthulhu' in Spanish?

I'm sorry but I can't reveal what you're dealing with because, simply put, you're not supposed to know. Players will have to find out by themselves. All I can say is, yes, the Victorian house is supposed to be haunted in some way but do not expect your typical ghost story. There won't be scares of the sort of 'what was that shadow in that corner?', more like 'did I really see that shadow?'. In that regard, H.P. Lovecraft is a huge influence as Scratches will be all about atmosphere. So yes, read a lot of Lovecraft - just do not expect slimy tentacles coming out of your fireplace. I'm not sure how to pronounce 'Cthulhu' here, but I guess it wouldn't be that different from the English. Probably 'k-fl?', although most people pronounces it as 'tsulu'.

As for his work, it has been greatly neglected here. The only way to read his stories is buying books imported from Spain, and those usually cost a lot. We've been thinking about putting a line on the box of Scratches acknowledging his influence such as 'Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft' but we decided that might give the wrong impression (he will though appear in our big 'Thank you' list). Usually, people associates Lovecraft with Cthulhu and otherworldly gods and, while a good portion of his works deal with that, Lovecraft is primarily about the atmosphere and sheer horror, which Scratches will largely consist of. Sadly, and while I love anything Lovecraft-based, most games or movies based on his works miss the point and havn't helped to revert this. Take the single best game based on the Cthulhu mythos, Shadow of the Comet, and you'll see it has many action sequences and in-your-face monsters. The truth is, Lovecraft has almost never had his characters meet the monsters, only perceive them dwelling in the shadows. And that is what horror is all about!

Back to the original question, I think the old Hammer horror films starred by eminences such as Vincent Price and Peter Cushing are influences here too. Let's face it, the basic premise is typical old-school horror movie: troubled writer rents creaky Victorian house in order to finish his promising book. However, this is only the basic premise and, once the story evolves, I assure you, you will get lost within its many layers and twists and turns. While there might be players that feel they know the solution to the mystery, you simply can't know for sure what you will find out in the last revealing (and frightening) end sequence, because there are simply too many possibilities. That and the fact you can get two wildly different endings depending on your actions throughout the game.


Teaser #1 and Teaser #2. They are so different! If people takes a look at the first one, it will become apparent they are dealing with a budget adventure game (slide-style movement, childish textures etc). But the second teaser shows what you really can do and SCream engine can offer to the players. Please, tell us about the moment when you decided moving to a new engine? What lead you to this decision? (We really doubt that it has happened due to feedback from gamers after they saw Teaser #1. Low class value game. An adventure game made for a low-priced market and nothing to dream of. And, all of a sudden, a butterfly of Teaser #2 comes out of nowhere from such a weak cocoon! Date of release slips to 2005 but the audience is stunned and shocked at the same time. This seems to be a full-scale commercial adventure game!)

Childish textures? Hey, that first teaser has sentimental value to us! So be nice to it. I think it was during a conversation with Cellar of Rats that the 360? movement subject was brought up. We talked how this could be done and the possibilities (CoR is a former programmer). Switching engines meant a great deal of work, virtually reworking all of the Scratches code. For the record, absolutely nothing of the Teaser #1 code was reused for the new engine. After we analyzed how this improvement would impact the game and if it could be done with our resources, we decided to give it the green light. The real reason is that we want to make the most out of our first project and believe that Scratches has a lot of potential. Since our goal is to have the players involved with the story and atmosphere, the new engine and features were going to help a great deal and it seemed fit to sacrifice some time in exchange of these new looks.

So you're right in assuming the new engine wasn't built after player's feedback. The general consensus after the Teaser #1 was released was "Aw, how cute", "Looks promising!", "Keep up the good work" and stuff like that. Which was greatly appreciated, mind you, anything other than "You guys suck" is more than welcome. So we were surprised after the Teaser #2 was released. In our minds we though it was going to have a huge impact but in reality it was generally received well, although along with a great deal of criticism . We quickly realized what happened - we were slowly moving away from the amateurish effort (or childish as you put it) to a more accomplished project. Obviously, it was going to be judged with different eyes by the adventure community. So the first letdown went away to give space to a more confident feeling, that we seem to be heading in the right direction.



Teaser #1, as we got it, tended to make player acquainted with the prehistory of Scratches. Maybe a player too lazy to read press-releases... But we have been stroked with the one and only puzzle of the teaser, where a lightning strikes and during a short moment of brightness we can notice a key on the table. Awesome! The second Teaser hasn't shown anything like that, though there is lots of gameplay moments in it. Please, tell us, was that lightning strike one of the puzzles that you have been developing for a long, long time? If that is so... you have got a precise feel of puzzles that each and every adventure games' developer should have. Keep up the good work!

The lightning puzzle was cool but surprisingly it came out of nowhere. Just so that you guys know, the Teaser #1 was the result of a lot of experimenting, both in terms of graphics and programming. We came to a point were we had a generous library of modeled objects (the chairs on the right and rear end were the very first objects created by Alejandro!) and then we thought "OK, so what now? Shall we work on the site and announce the game or remain in the dark?". That's when the idea of Teaser #1 was born. It was more or less like this:

- Hey, let's do something nobody has ever done, let's announce the game along with some playable stuff!
- Great idea! What do we do?
- Let's not waste too much time on this and see what we have: chairs, sofas, a Victrola, a lantern... where could we put all this stuff?
- You mean using all of it?
- Sure, why not? You said you were going to start from zero once you mastered your techniques.
- I want a raise!
- Think, think...
- I got it! Let's put all of this garbage inside a room: the attic!!
[angelical chorus on the background]
- Brilliant, that's brilliant, we can just put four walls and throw all that stuff in there. That's pure genious.
- You're cool too!
- Nah, you're the coolest...
- Nah, it's you...
[and goes on for a couple of hours]

So we had the attic, we then put a few teasers of the story in the form of newspaper, letter, etc. and created a couple of effects that were definitely going to be present in the final game, such as the lightnings. The only thing we needed was a puzzle, so that the players would feel some sense of achievement, that they had done something in the teaser. I can't remember how the key puzzle was born, just that it seemed logical using the lightning effect in some way. I don't know if this means anything though. Would have it sounded more impressive if I had told you the whole attic and lighting effect were created keeping that puzzle in mind, which was being developed years ago? Or that it just came out of nowhere once everything was built? I really don't know!

Teaser #2 was a different matter. As you said, since we had much more gameplay, we didn't focus on the puzzle. We also didn't want to use the very same puzzle that will be present in the game (which will be much more complicated). So, much like in the Teaser #1, the puzzle was created after the location, but this time making sense withing the storyline. Once you finish the game, if you replay Teaser #2, you will notice many interesting things that right now won't mean anything to you.

I'm confident that the puzzles in the final game will be very interesting. Some of them, like I said earlier, were built after the locations, much like in the process with the teasers. Others though, are complex puzzles that were designed over time. It will be interesting to know if the players can tell the difference! My overall impression is that the whole game is consistent. There won't be those kind of situations where you have to do something screaming "Solve me, I'm a puzzle". Most problems you meet feel natural and make sense, much like the key puzzle in Teaser #1 (admittedly, the figurine puzzle in Teaser #2 was slightly far-fetched but there won't be stuff like that in the game).


Technical developments didn't stop after the release of Teaser #2. What are you working on these days, if we look at your work from a technological point of view? Or you have pulled all of your forces to puzzles' creation? Should we wait for Teaser #3?

No, we have stopped doing improvements. See, we're supposed to finish the game someday! I actually considered doing a third teaser, basically the remake of the second one, showing the new stuff (such as improved gameplay and better sky effects) but I desisted. I'd rather have the game coming out sooner than putting out yet another teaser. Maybe it would be interesting to know how our audience feels about that!

Still there are some further enhancements since the last teaser and a couple of neat special effects. It should be noted that everything story and/or puzzles related has been designed and 'frozen', meaning there won't be anymore changes - perhaps a few and small tweaks here and there, but the whole game is already scripted and written, meaning the only thing left to do is... finish it!



What problems did you have while changing the perspective in the game to a panoramic view? Is it really possible to make pseudo-3D objects look as if they have a 3rd dimension? We personally think that the recently released Myst IV came very close to that. What do you think of it, by the way?

All of them! The first test we did with the new engine was done with the attic from the Teaser #1. All we did was render the very same location with the new format and move around. It was a disaster. The place was plagued with mistakes, the sort of floating objects, bad textures and so. It quickly became apparent that in order to make use of the new engine a lot of care would have to be put in every single location, for the simple reason that now you can experience them from every possible angle.

As for the style itself, I think this type of movement works fine. However, you won't see any huge improvements in it right now. Without being too technical, I can tell you that in order to have the locations look good you have to use a certain level of detail in the graphics, and to increase the quality would mean to use a much higher detail that will make the game move extremely slow unless it's run on very fast computers. But yes, I think this type of engine has yet a long road to walk and could be drastically improved in the future.

I'm not against or in favor of any format, I think all of them can work great depending on the game content. For instance, there's no way a third-person view would have worked in Scratches, even though sometimes the main character behaves as if it were a character-driven game (you'll see he comments a lot about certain situations, much like in a third-person game). On the other hand, a game like, say, Monkey Island would've been horrible in first-person view.

Not being a huge fan of the Myst saga, I have only played up to Riven. I did see many screenshots from Myst IV and obviously they look fantastic. What I've been keep hearing is that the graphics seem to be very blurred during gameplay but I'm inclined to say that was done on purpose (probably to enhance the dream-like feeling).


While browsing your forum, we have stumbled across a nice post that spoke of 'optional puzzles'. A puzzle involving a trunk was not essential for 'moving forward' in Teaser #1 and in the final version of the game you have promised to create more optional puzzles. Can you give us several examples? We're always hungry for new and creative ideas!

In the case of the Teaser #1, I think it would've been a better move if people couldn't exit the attic until they solved the puzzle (for instance, finding the key to the exit inside the trunk) but it probably would have looked kind of lame, using one key to find another. So we decided to leave it that way. Problem is, there were a lot of people who didn't realize there was a puzzle to solve (although I think that trunk was suspicious enough to make you think something had to be done about it). So I'd say the key/lightning puzzle wasn't totally optional. However, the game will have a couple of truly optional puzzles. I can't give you many examples, but they will mostly fill you in the details of the story. It will work more or less in the following way: once you finish the game, you will be showed with a percentage of how many hints you should've noticed throughout the game (a nod to an old favorite of mine, Maupiti Island). Say, the least you can have to finish the game can be a 90%, but the remaining 10% will be either optional puzzles, certain dialogue options in which you learn important information, or simply looking at something (which means exploring very well). So if players feel they're somehow missing something, they probably need to replay and rethink everything they look, read or hear. I believe the game will have its goal accomplished if people replays it to experience again the whole thing and keep a close eye for any details they could have missed.


How defensible such optional puzzles will be if we look at them through the looking glass of the story? Such puzzles might lead to a non-linear storyline, don't they? Don't you share the opinion that incorporating extra branches of story to a game might be a waste of time as they won't likely be spotted by casual gamers?

Yes, I agree with you, incorporating extra branches can harm the leading storyline, and this could be critical in a game like Scratches. While the plot is very twisty and multi-layered, everything has a reason to be and is all tied together. It would be a pity if casual gamers miss some of these details and never experience or understand the full story. This is one of the reasons why we're being very careful with these two endings. One of them is the original one (hence the easier one to get). The other one was added in later stages of the game, and we did so because it was very surprising that even with such a wildly different ending, everything was still neatly tied together. However, this wasn't the original way Scratches was intending to end, so it will be much harder to get (we still havn't decided how). You could say it's almost an easter egg. Speaking of which, there will be tons of easter eggs in Scratches, we love them!

So, while I don't like games where you can have paths that leads you to different storylines (the primary example of this would be Blade Runner), Scratches does have many underlying details. Whatever you do, you will come across the major and most important ones over the course of the game. The optional puzzles will simply fill the empty spaces and specific questions players might have. They will in no way mean a secondary plot.



Scratches is a good name for a music album in the dark wave genre! Music by a composer called Cellar of Rats, Dark Ambient, 15 years in the underground etc... We would like to know more and you can't blame us for that! Are you using 'old' tracks or have asked Cellar of Rats to do a stand-alone OST for your game? Developers of adventure games usually hire a professional author but you have decided to attract a professional composer. Might seem a bit strange if you ask us. How difficult was it to find the proper 'sound' for Scratches?

To be quite honest with you, it was Cellar of Rats who approached us first. We never intended Scratches to have a full-blown soundtrack. I was going to go for a minimalistic approach with a few music tidbits here and there (ie: a violin stroke is suddenly heard). When CoR showed up and offered to work with us, we thought "Why not, let's give it a shot". So we heard his old material (samples from two of his records) and we were blown away. I instantly pictured Scratches in my head with such a background music and said "This is it, what we were missing". We're trying to achieve a dense atmosphere and CoR's music greatly enhances it.

I'm a firm believer that music is of an utmost importance in games, I'd even go as far as saying it's more important than graphics. I've played games alone for their music. Of course, in a game like Scratches were the atmosphere plays a crucial role, we're putting a lot of care in everything, be it music, graphics, story, etc. If any of those fails, the atmosphere can be broken and we can't afford that (otherwise the scares won't be as effective!).

It was kind of difficult finding the proper sound. CoR modus operandi is unusual but very effective - he lets himself get lost in the screenshots we send him, trying to find a balance within the music and the overall feel of the locations (even colors play an important role). It's a sacred process. Surprisingly, CoR was instantly 'connected' with the project and one of the very first tracks he composed for the game is going to entirely used. However, the whole style of the soundtrack was decided after an amazing exchange of emails (dozens, maybe even hundreds, not kidding here... although the majority was discussion about Lovecraft and sacrificing virgins).The overall idea was that the tracks should have an old movie-like feel to them, with soft cellos and pianos in the beginning, but slowly changing into something worse and evil as the story progresses. You'll see, I think CoR has done a most impressive work. There's a six-page music template written between the two of us detailing how the music should change under certain circumstances and how each location should sound (ie: greenhouse should sound icy and cold given the huge amount of glass present). The result will be a movie-like experience, I can guarantee you that. It might be interesting to know that CoR is doing the soundtrack for an independent horror movie right now, and that will certainly impact on Scratches (and in a good way).


Date of release? Please, be specific and let us mark this date in our calendars! Did you have the chance to find a publisher for your game? When one might expect to see Scratches outside of Spain? There are some active publishers in Russia that like to bring adventure games to the market - have you spoken with any of them? We hope that you won't be distributing your game through Internet, or will you?

We're being very cautious when speaking about a release date. I don't want us to turn into a company that announces a specific date, then pushes back the game a few weeks, announces yet another date and so on. In a way we have already done that so we're being double careful now, mostly because we don't want to give people a wrong impression. Usually, when a game is delayed everyone seems to think the project is jeopardized in some way and they end expecting the worst. In our case, Scratches was delayed a bit because we believe the game has a lot of potential and decided to make the most out of it, hence adding so many new features. So the best we can do right now is work with an estimative date, which is going to be in the first half of 2005. I'm tempted to say the first quarter given the project is doing extremely well right now, but we'll have to wait and see. Once we announce the date, rest assured it will be the definitive one!

Of course, everyone can expect to see Scratches outside Spain (and Argentina for that matter) as it's being developed primarily for the English and Spanish languages. We did speak with some publishers in Russia who are genuinely interested in Scratches but there's nothing for sure yet. As for the method of distribution, we're actually considering selling via Internet in a first stage. Don't panic, we havn't decided anything yet but the idea of self-distributing is tempting. For instance, we're considering adding some bonus materials in the box, such as a piece of newspaper, blueprints of the house and stuff like that, like the feelies in the old Infocom games. That would be tricky to do if we sign with a publisher. Another option would be to produce this Nucleosys version and distribute via a professional distributor. The possibilities are many, but our primary concern right now is finishing the game.



Nucleosys has been recommended to us by Randy Sluganski from Just Adventure. Please, tell us - could Scratches be born without 'help' of this web-site? Do you also think that Just Adventure is the Rome for independent developers of adventure games? Is Randy helping you in finding a publisher?

It would be hard to tell right now where we would be without Randy Sluganski. He has helped us in many ways, but he wasn't involved during the gestation of the project. Once the first teaser was ready, he did support the game and advise us in many ways, some of them being finding a publisher. To say Randy is the Rome of independent developers would mean dismissing other people who is also working hard to carry on the genre, but it can't be denied the impact he and Just Adventure+ have had in the community. And yes, Randy is known to dedicate the same space and effort to independent projects as with commercial paid ones.


Agustin, thank you very much for your time you've spent giving us the answers to the questions that bug us too much. We highly appreciate it! We would like to wish you luck with Scratches and hope that we will get in touch in future!