Интервью с Jujubee

1. Let's start with simple stuff. Tell us about yourself. Your site says that the company was founded by Arkadiusz Duch, Michal Stepien and Igor Zielinski (who were once employed in other famous studios), but there's alot more on photos in your blog. So, tell us about your team, previous projects, your work before Jujubee, your life before game design in general, and how/why did things turn out like this. Pretty much anything you think would be interesting.

As you said we are a company that consists of many talented people. Jujubee was founded by former crew members of CD Projekt Red, Infinite Dreams and Traveller's Tales, but in our studio you will also find people from many other known companies. We had the opportunity to work on various interesting projects - including The Witcher and The Witcher 2, LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman or for example Sky Force. Jujubee is not a big studio yet, but we are constantly growing and we hope that by the end of the year the team will consist of 20 people in house. And if you ask us what was our life before game design, I would say demoscene. It is an unformal subculture that gathers talented people interested in doing some creative stuff on computers. Actually in general demosceners are performing the same tasks as game developers - writing code, composing music, creating graphics and so on, but it's a non-commercial community, focused mainly on artistic expression and on the pure pleasure of creating something new.

2. Now, when our readers had the pleasure of learning a little more about you, tell us, please, specifically about KURSK: expected genre (First Person Perspective Adventure & Survival Game - It sounds complicated), expected gameplay, where did the idea come from, why did you use an actual submarine (not a generic one or something abstract alltogether)... And so on.

Well as I already mentioned above we are not a big studio, but our team is very talented and has a lot of experience in the industry. This is why we were thinking about a project that would allow us to do something of AAA quality, but we needed to take into consideration that our resources are a bit limited. So we made the decision to focus mainly on one big, but closed location in the game. This way it is possible to put a lot of efforts to make this location look amazing and this is exactly how we came up with the idea to make a game about a submarine. But we didn't want to make just another game, we wanted to do something that would have be meaningful and would tell an important story. And with a real story you are able to achieve this goal - your game can be deep and can give players something to think about. This is also why there are many movies based on true events. When you know that the story is true, you are more connected to it and you want to learn from it. There were already movies about other real submarines, like K-19 for example, but we wanted to tell a story that no one told before and this is how we came up with KURSK.

3. From the very beginning some fraction of Russian gamers noted how they think you step onto some pretty slippery grounds. The 2000's events are still fresh in people's memory (or maybe were refreshed consciously just for this occasion). How do you feel about possible (and probably highly unfair) criticism from all the kinds of politically passionate people out there? Like, it'll emerge for sure: with topic like this it's de facto impossible to say something and not raise a conflict of some sort.

We knew that KURSK is an interesting topic but we didn’t expect such a reaction from the Russian community and especially from Russian media. For us it is really sad that our game became a political topic because we are not interested in politics and we are trying to do something mature and serious. On the other hand these sentiments are quite understandable, because this tragic event was very painful for Russians and we understand that. I think that when the game will be out people will see that with KURSK we wanted to do a serious and respectful title, without offending anyone.

4. Why did you chose to make a First Person Perspective Adventure & Survival game even though you (I mean the team) didn't work with this genre before? Portable racing and turn-based strategies are about as far from what we can see in the trailer as you could get.

Well, first of all KURSK will be a game that doesn't hold to just one genre. Yes, we are calling it an adventure and survival game, but we are doing it just because players are expecting us to define the genre. But if you look at games like Heavy Rain it is hard to define them and the same goes with KURSK. Our main goal is to tell an interesting story and to offer great gameplay mechanics, but this game will be something more than just an adventure or survival game. We want to achieve a cinematic experience and to create something special and unique. And you are right, in Jujubee we have been working mainly on mobile games including racers or turn-based strategies, but as I said before we also had the opportunity to work on much bigger games like The Witcher franchise, so we do have the experience and the knowledge how to make much bigger games.

5. When should we expect new info about your project?

We will be present at Gamescom 2015 in Cologne, so we might reveal more info there, but if you want to see some gameplay, screenshots and more stuff from the game, you will need to wait til next year I'm afraid. We don't want to show something that isn't of top quality or is work in progress. So yeah, I think the first quarter of 2016 will be the right moment to show something new.

6. Have you heard of IMGN.PRO game Kholat that was released recently? With a similar enough theme in mind (actually not that similar, but yeah, on a global scale two games inevitably will be placed really close just because of 'geography'), what do you think of it?

Yes I did, but to be 100% honest with you I heard about this game after we have announced KURSK already. Kholat is for sure an interesting project, but for me it's a concept very similar to Dear Esther. There's no real gameplay in Kholat, you are walking around, looking for clues, gathering some data about the expedition, but that's about it. And about the atmosphere of course. KURSK will be totally different, mainly because it will be a normal game, with gameplay mechanics, challenges and so on. It will be much more similar to Heavy Rain than to Kholat, even though it doesn't mean that KURSK will be like Heavy Rain. But you get the point. It will be a proper game focused on the story and by "game" we don't mean an interactive novel or something like that.

7. Did you experience (or are expecting to experience/are experiencing) any problems during development? Like, alot of equally good, yet different plot ideas when you need to choose only one, or, well, legal issues with Russian government while collecting data?

We don't think there will be any legal issues because we are not doing anything illegal. You don't need to have permission to write a book or make a film about an event and you don't need to have permission to make a game about it. Of course we are fully aware that we need to be respectful in what we are doing and we don't want to offend anyone. We won't be using real names of sailors and we don't want to show them in bad light. We just think that the time has come for games to tell real stories because times are changing and many young people are not reading books or watching films. They prefer to play games and I don't blame them because games give you more freedom and allow you to be much more connected to the plot, the story, your character and so on. I think that some people are against such games simply because they don't understand the industry and they think that games are pure entertainment and made to have fun. But this is far from truth and games can be serious and created for mature audiences. I believe that while KURSK will be one of the first "real-life" games, 10 years form now there will be many similar titles on the market and it won't shock anyone.

8. Should we expect horror elements? Supernatural, or more realistic? How would 'survival' work and who would hinder protagonist's survival, actually?

No, no, we don't want anything supernatural to be included in the game, we want KURSK to be realistic, respectful and deep. This will be a mature game with a serious story and paranormal stuff would destroy this concept and would be bad for the game - at least in my opinion. In the case of survival elements you will simply try to save your life after the explosion, you will be looking for air and oxygene, you will be diving in the water, closing compartments of the sumbarine, running away from the water and the fire, walking with a torch - in general you will try to survive.

9. Will you use not just the submarine name, but names of actual people? Of course it would bring the necessity and hassle of getting their agreement?

As I said above we don't have plans to use real names. It will be a game inspired by true events but because we don't want to offend anyone and we feel it would be inappropriate. So no real names in the game.

10. Will there be a version for mobile devices?

We don't have such plans at this point, besides it will be a game with a big focus on high-end graphics and sound, so mobile devices are technically unable to offer such quality. This is why we are taking into consideration only personal computers and home consoles.

11. Last generic question: what do you think about the indie-style development? Could it become the way to make games, or would you rather say it'll return to the hobbyish state it originally was in?

I think that the industry is now totally different than just a few years ago. There will be very small games made by indie studios and there will always be room for such products. But you know, small titles are not something new. For example I don't see a real difference between Flash or shareware games and indie games. In my opinion the revolution is somewhere else. In digital distribution. You know, in the past you mainly had these small games or high-budgets blockbusters. There was almost nothing in between. If you didn't have the money to make another Call of Duty, you was not able find a publisher. Simply because traditional distribution, the cost of manufacturing all these boxes and pressing all these DVDs can be enormous. But in the era of digital distribution you don't need to have millions of customers to make profit, thus you can make smaller games with smaller budgets that offer you the same high level of quality as Triple-A titles. And you can self-publish. In the case of digital distribution you are just a few clicks away from your customers, you don't need to press disks, you don't need to spend a lot of money just to put your games to stores. This is a new and amazing reality, because now it's much easier to make more ambitious or niche products. There's no turning back and I think mid-budget games are going to be much more popular in a few years from now.