General News - New Sci-Fi Game Based on Stanislaw Lem

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GamePressure reports on the development of a new science fiction game based on the literature of Stanislaw Lem.

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Retrofuturism and Atom Punk

"Lem never entered the era of digitization in his books. We still have giant computing machines that download information using punch cards. No flat screens - just heavy, cathode-ray tubes and oscilloscopes. We're closely following the same trail. People explore space, but no one's ever heard of mobile phones," says Michal Galek.

Piotr Mierzwa (hardsurface artist) is designing one of the robots we'll meet in the game.
Indeed, all the displays I saw in the game were old, convex CRTs, and the gadgets I used resembled devices used in the 50s or 60s. Lem imagined the future that derived directly from the present. That's why today, his approach is defined as retrofuturism. Consequently, all the devices in the game are analog. The creators emphasize they devote a lot of time to properly designing the machines - "We wonder how the device should look in order to evoke the analog era. A touch-screen, wireless tablet would be a show-stopper for us."

You can imagine the problems such an approach creates. Just take the map, for instance - Lem had no interactive maps, nor modern UIs that would display points of interest. Things ought to be quite similar in Project I - about the only aid we will get during exploration will be an absolutely regular map, and we'll have to mark navigational points manually. Let's remember - you are a scientists on an alien planet. Your main job is exploration, and that just can't be easy without digital systems. Doesn't such a concept curb creativity? "These limitations create the impression of integrity of the entire game. It requires some effort, but once we finally implement, we get massive satisfaction from creating something that challenges the regular approach; something original," explains Marek Markuszewski.

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