We recently had the opportunity to interview Ray Gresko, president, CEO, designer, project leader, and programmer for Nihilistic Software. Gresko has been in the game industry for many years, starting out in Microprose's Advanced Technology group where he worked on their core 3D visualization technology, and on titles such as Mig-29, Falcon 4.0, and Top Gun. Later, at LucasArts, he was lead programmer and co-designer on the hit Dark Forces (whose engine was later used for Outlaws). As lead programmer and co-designer on Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, he designed and created technologies that form the basis of the majority of LucasArts' current 3D games development. He's had the opportunity to contribute in this fashion to many other LucasArts titles (including Shadows of the Empire, XWing vs. Tie Fighter, Grim Fandango, DroidWorks, Force Commander, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Mysteries of the Sith, The Phantom Menace, and others that are unannounced).

Gresko is currently working on design, project management, and programming for Nihilistic and Activision's upcoming role-playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption. The guys at Nihilistic have kindly given us a couple exclusive screen shots from Redemption, which is based on the White Wolf Publishing's pen and paper role-playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade.

SE: White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade is very popular for its live action role-playing aspect. Are you trying to capture this element in either the single player or multi-player game?

Ray Gresko: The great thing about this license is that its rules set is minimal but it's background and world setting is enormous, detailed, and familiar. This opens the door for the game itself to be played in various forms, ranging from tabletop dice-rolling to full live-action sessions. It's the focus on interaction, intrigue, and 'true' role-playing of one's personal situation that sets the paper game up as a great live action role-playing experience. With the computer game, there is a similar focus. The game's engine takes care of the rules systems entirely for you, allowing you to focus on playing your role. This is especially true in multiplayer, in which characters can converse at will and have the ability to make their characters perform gestures (like waving, bowing, etc).