Interviews

Vohaul Strikes Back

INTERVIEW WITH
Frederik Olsen, Project Founder & Co-Lead
Andres Kalle, Lead Writer

CONDUCTED BY
Ryan P. Casey, November 2004

JA: Welcome, and thanks for taking the time to introduce your new game to our readers!

JA: Tell us about Vohaul Strikes Back.

Frederik: The basic plot (from our website) is this: With Space Quest 7 behind his back, Roger Wilco needs a little break, so he and his true love, ambassador Beatrice Wankmeister, decide to spend some quality time on the most romantic planet in the known universe - Romanticon 7. As they are in the middle of a lovely meal at Pie-ery, the only restaurant where every single meal is made of pie, they get interrupted by an apeman. Using sophisticated interrogation methods involving a banana, they find out that the apeman was sent by Vohaul in order to capture Roger. But wait, isn't Vohaul dead? Only physically. A pair of apemen rummaging through the fortress ruins shortly after Space Quest 12 found the disk with Vohaul's mind on it and brought it back to the Space Quest 7 era. With the help of that disk, they resurrected Vohaul in the form of a sentient robot. Before the apeman draws his final breath, they also realise that capturing Roger was only necessary in order to prevent him from ruining a much larger evil plot by Vohaul which, if successful, would once again result in the destruction of the entire universe. Naturally, being the only one to know about it, Roger must now defeat his arch-nemesis once again. And so, his next adventure begins...

JA: What are some the features of Vohaul that you’re proud of?

Frederik: Well, I'm pretty much proud of everything. Being able to help putting such a big game together is pretty cool. But if I have to pick out anything specifically, it has to be the background art. Martin, our background artist, is certainly very talented!

Andres: I agree with Frederik on the background art. Additionally, I’ve also always been quite fond of the story – the locations, the dialogues, the puzzles, the plot twists, etc. It’s great to be able to work with and improve upon all these excellent materials I was given when I joined.

JA: Where did the idea for Vohaul sprout?

Frederik: When I was 14 and a newbie in SQ community. I was into the Terminator movies as well, so I just got this idea of a robot Vohaul. It's pretty much a rip-off, but it allows the return of Vohaul and the apemen. Making up a new villain that the gamers would hate/like as much would've been quite hard, I think.

Andres: I joined the team much later when the basic plot had already been laid down, so I didn’t have much input on this.

JA: What has been difficult for you as an independent developer?

Frederik: The most difficult has been keeping the team together. We're spread all over the globe. For instance, I'm Danish, Andres is Estonian, Pcj is American, Martin is Australian, etc. So it's quite hard maintaining communication and working this way.

Andres: Apart from the communication problems that Frederik mentioned, another difficult thing is getting the team members to carry out their tasks, as well as ensuring that they always have something to do. Not that they should be slaving away all the time, but just so that they wouldn't be sitting idly, not knowing what needs to be done next. This had been the main reason why the production had come to a halt by early 2004. But after I joined and Pcj was elected as the new teamlead, we gave the project a thorough overhaul and things have been pretty much going uphill since then.

JA: What have been some of the best parts of creating the game?

Frederik: It's always been nice to finish something you've been putting a lot of work in. I think all of us feel that, whether it's a script, a background, a piece of music or a string of code.

Andres: I'd say it would have to be the feeling that you get when looking back at the state of the project over half a year ago and seeing the progress we've made since then, having built it into a neatly organized and well-functioning game structure that it is today.

JA: When should we expect to be playing Vohaul Strikes Back?

Frederik: Hard to tell. We've been shifting the release date constantly because of delays. If everything goes well, 2005 is probably a realistic guess, but I can't really say exactly when.

Andres: I’m almost certain it will be somewhere between 2004 and 2057. Almost.

JA: Thanks for talking with Just Adventure!

Frederik: No problem. I just hope that people will like playing the game, because I've enjoyed the 2 years I've been working on it.

Andres: You’re welcome. And to all the readers: Don’t forget to visit our website at http://www.vohaulstrikesback.com and sign up for the mailing list!