Tell me a little about your background... (How old are you, do you have families, where do you live, and how you became involved in software development.)

Who Were Those Masked Men?

When I was a kid the local radio stations would still air the old time radio shows – you know the ones I mean: the ones that pre-date television. My favorite was hearing The Lone Ranger. Every episode he would, “With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto...” ride in to save the day. I can still hear the William Tell Overture playing in my head… Just about every episode would end with the recently rescued damsel in distress asking, “Who was that masked man?”

That’s what I want to explore today. Who were “the masked men” that worked so diligently to develop such a wonderful game – and then provide such great support for it after its release? The men I am referring to are Sylon and Stewe, the developers at Redshift that brought us the wonderful game Legacy.

Despite their very busy schedule performing post-release bug fixes and assisting people stuck in the game via online forums (Both on PDArcade and Clié Source), both of the developers at Redshift, took the time to answer a few of my questions. I’d like to personally thank Stewe and Sylon for a wonderful product and the opportunity for all of us to get to know them a little better.

Tell me a little about your background... (How old are you, do you have families, where do you live, and how you became involved in software development.)

Redshift: We both born in 1975 (in Hungary), and just trying to build our own independent life, with no boss, no rules, no full-time job. We have about 10-15 year experience in our profession (Stewe: programming mostly in Windows enviromnent, Sylon: graphic artist and writer in fantasy genre). While Stewe has left his full-time job at 1st Nov 2003, to live for and from games on PDA, Sylon never had a really stable job. :)

We are like fire and water (or water and fire, just a matter of viewpoint :), both in living, thinking, taste and anything else, but luckily have one common point: we love the good-old role playing and strategy games, and we want to make a living from what we love to make. What Stewe can't do, Sylon does well - what Sylon can't do, Stewe does well. So the harmony is perfect. (Yes, we have disputes many times, but luckily these are just helping to make the actual program better and better.)

Is it true that, as it says on your web site, that you have never met in real life?

Stewe: absolutely true! We live at (not more than) 200 km (120 miles) from each other. We're simply able to handle everything via email and phone. Of course when we'll have to meet in the future, that won't be a huge task :) Less than 2 hours in a car... direct highway between our cities. You could ask now: why...? I don't know. It was a good omen in the past, and we want to keep it.

Sylon: to be honest, we are just too lazy to do this. :)

Whose idea was it to develop Legacy?

Stewe: my favorite genre is RPG, and played a lot in the past with Eye of the Beholder, Black Crypt, Dungeon Master, Might & Magic, and so on. I always had a plan to develop a game like them...

Sylon: me too. So this was a common idea. I started to do one back in 1995, but I had nobody to help me (we met with Stewe only in 2001 via the internet), and the development just dragged on. Finally, in 1998 I must realize that the PC platform just too far in progress for these old-style games, so I left the whole project, and started to do something else creative (painting fantasy book covers and writing an epic fantasy novel). But luckily, I can now restart the whole thing again, with the good-old works, ideas and style. I just don't like nowadays' 3D-accelerated, blurred and confused rpg-s on the PC, but found a great new platform (PDA) what is perfect to make really enjoyable games on it, with simple, but smooth gameplay and clean, detailed graphics. When I saw how low is the average of the games' quality here (and how low is the "big" games' number), mostly in spite of the platform's abilities, I just gave a shout: Oh man, this is our platform!

Was either one of you responsible for a particular aspect of the game such as game engine, graphic design, creating maps and quests? If so, what time and effort was made to fulfill your objective? (things like software used, etc...)

Stewe: the roles in our "group" are strong ones:

- no boss

- Stewe: developer

- Sylon: artist

So the aspects you mentioned could be easily linked:

- game engine: Stewe

- graphic design: Sylon

- creating maps, quests and storyline: mostly: Sylon, a few maps and helping in our script engine: Stewe

The whole developing time was a half year. (Dragonfire we created within 2 months...) Partially including the Redshift engine (and the Legacy World Creator); now we can compile a single game to PC, Palm, PocketPC, Symbian. But we couldn't release all the versions at the same time: we have to optimize these versions at last stage, on every device families.

Software: Visual Studio .NET, because the first version always the PC one. I use Visual Studio for the PPC version and the Symbian versions, and various tools for the Palm version.

Sylon: yep, Stewe just said everything important. Software I use: for the graphics I use only the good-old DOS-based Deluxe Paint (fixed 256 colours palette with true pixelizing techniques, yeah), and for the map design, I use Stewe's brilliant Legacy World Creator. That's all.

I have to hand it to you - the puzzles and traps in the game are by far superior to any that I have run into in any RPG. Whose devious mind came up with these ingenious levels and can we expect more to come?

Stewe: mostly Sylon :) He's the artist, and you know artists... devious minds!! Beware! Okay, I have to confess: the final maps are mine, because of the tons of scripts are involved. Or.. David... do you mean the final maps ? :)

Sylon: I think if somebody played with those good-old rpgs on C-64, Atari, Amiga or PC platforms, he/she has nothing to afraid of... And if nowadays' girls and boys just don't know that feeling - well, this is the right time to get the experience! :)

Can you tell us a little about the situation surrounding your development of Civilization.

Stewe: I can't say too much, the state is simple: we can't reach a satisfying agreement. Our share would be *very* low (very few percents), much below our costs. We would need more months to develop the Palm and PPC version (as you know, the Nokia Communicator version was finished back in 2002, just we had to remove it because of the copyright owner). BTW I don't think any developer companies could port the original Civ with all the complex rules for that share... but it's Atari's business now.

Sylon: I think it's better that I don't say anything about this issue... I just disappointed in big companies for a lifetime. A half year of work (including the programming everything from scratch, redraw all the graphics for today's expectations, testing and testing), and it's for nothing... Argh. But everybody learns from his/her experiences: no more deals with companies in the future, just making our independent games. Like Legacy. :)

What are the future plans for your company? Any more new games on the drawing board.

Stewe: we always have many ideas! Many. A few of them:

- of course: Civilization, if we can make an agreement (not so much chance for it)

- if not: Civilization-like game, completely rewritten, put to different time/design/aspects/rules ... what about a Civilization-like game in fantasy environment where you can take a walk in your cities with the Legacy's engine ? And investigate your armies standing at the border ?

- a Settlers-like game, I have a complete plan in my mind <- this is my dream after Legacy

- Dragonfire 2 with an engine like Diablo

Sylon: yeah, that's correct. My "dream" is a more complex rpg, and a Heroes of Might & Magic-like fantasy-strategy on the PDA. But hey, don't forget our closest release: the Legacy Mission Pack, which continues the storyline, and includes the World Creator, so after that everybody can make his/her own maps and quests for Legacy. We start to develop it right on 1st of January, 2004.

What is your favorite book, song, and movie?

Stewe: book: Lord of the Rings, song: Rap songs (all), movie: Lord of the Rings :)

Sylon: well, I don't have "one" favourite book, song or movie - but I'm a big fan of the sci-fi/fantasy genre from my childhood. Music: mostly I listen ambient, ethereal and psychedelic music - it inspires me a lot during drawing or writing.

What PDA related web sites do you visit the most?

Redshift: Pda247, ClieSource, PDArcade, Handango

Other than the two of you, how many others were involved in developing this game?

Redshift: in the developing stage, we can count only 2 persons. Sylon & Stewe. At the end, a music artist was involved, of course.

And an important thing: we would to thank all the people who helped us testing the game on various devices. Without them... there wouldn’t be Legacy.

So: Thank you!

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Redshift: Just a note: We'll be back! :) You'll hear from Redshift again at the next hq game during 2004... We just _love_ this platform.

Thanks again to Stewe and Sylon for taking the time to share a little bit about themselves. I wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors and look forward with great anticipation the release of their mission pack in early 2004.