Sink Your Teeth Into Nosferatu

by Louis Bedigian

GameZone chats with designer Stephan Ljungqvist and discovers that this is one vampire adventure you’ll want to have some “stake” in.

Deep beneath the depths of a really deep place is a man who likes to dig holes.  His reason for digging so deeply is unknown, but witnesses claim that whenever he stops digging, he fills the hole back up with garbage bags.  Those bags contain something so grotesque, even the creators of Mortal Kombat would be disgusted.

Not too far from the digging man lives a woman who likes to fill jars with things.  Things like toe jam, eyeballs, and elephant ears (the tasty pastry treat, not the animal’s hearing aid).  To acquire her jars, which come in all shapes and sizes, she visits the Wizard Walker.  The Wizard Walker follows in the footsteps of wizards, dedicating his life to casting magic spells.  He obtained his magic wand from a boy who owns a junkyard.  The boy sells garbage bags to retail stores and a man who digs big holes…

Creepy as it may be, these are only a few of the ghoulish souls who haunt our world every Halloween.  I can’t begin to tell you about the Half Horse Head, a man whose head is half of a horse.  And I won’t even consider telling the story of the one who delayed games of flowers, fantasies, and espionage.  Such horror may be too much for weak souls to handle.

If you must be spooked with Halloween, stay away from the evil, trick-or-treat-littered streets and glue yourself to a comfortable desk chair.  Your PC could be running Nosferatu, a dark and creepy first-person shooter.  Its got vampires, great graphics and many unsightly beasts.  It sounds intriguing and it looks intriguing, but where exactly is the game headed?

GameZone Online wanted to know, and we got our answers from Stephan Ljungqvist.  Stephan is the game designer and development team leader of Nosferatu.  In this interview he tells us about the game’s setting, its gameplay, its unique array of weapons, and more.

What is Nosferatu about?

Nosfersau takes place in the year 1912 when a poor yet aristocratic family named the Pattersons as well as a few of their friends set out to the castle of Malachi, which is the residence of a wealthy Romanian Count.  The Count's son is to marry the Paterson's daughter Rebecca.  You are the main character, the bride's brother, who, upon arriving late, realizes the imminent response needed to rescue your captive family who has become prisoners at the Count's mercy.  As family members are found, they are brought to a makeshift sanctuary where they can reward you with necessary weapons from their trunks.  Yet as the game progresses it soon becomes clear that in addition to confronting the Count, the ancient vampire, Lord Malachi must be resurrected and destroyed in order to save all of mankind from eternal destruction.

Nosferatu looks very impressive, but from pictures alone it's hard to tell what kind of a gameplay experience it will provide.  Could you please fill in the blanks?

It is an action driven shock-style horror first person shooter.  As the brother of the bride, your objective is to locate and rescue your family members and friends from within the multi-layered self-constructing labyrinth of lord Malachi's castle.  Along the way you will face ghouls which represent the demonic aspect of the spiritual world, dead yet still in human form, shadow vampires which create their lethal ambushes unheard and unseen from the shadows of the darkness, the ancient race of Desmodiij vampires and "Made" vampires which can be killed by thrusting a wooden stake through their hearts.  Your central goal becomes clear upon the realization that both the count and lord Malachi must be destroyed to save the human race.

The graphics are very impressive.

With the majority of the upcoming first-person shooters going online, what made Idol FX decide to make Nosferatu an offline-only experience?

This is more of a shock-style horror game than a "traditional" FPS, and this vein is traditionally more focused on the single player experience, so it was a natural choice for us to focus on that when developing this game.

Are you using an existing game engine, or was one developed specifically for Nosferatu?

Our Architectural Generator Engine was specifically developed for Nosferatu and will allow the         random generation of geometry for texturing, character spawning and reconstruction of the map layout and architectural design of the castle. 

What kinds of weapons are being planned for Nosferatu's arsenal?

We decided to create a blend of arsenal weapons to choose between, all of which hold various capabilities for the variety of monsters and vampires.  Ancient methods of vampire slaying include the wooden stake, a jeweled chalice filled with holy water, as well as the crucifix used to repel certain monsters due to its symbolism within the Christian faith.  Other methods are the Cane sword which is a steel rapier sheathed within a wooden cane, the manually loaded flintlock gun, the musket which deals a devastating blow to the opponent, a revolver and the deadly powerful machine gun. 

If vampires really exist, our world would probably resemble that of a video game.

Objectively, what will players have to do besides kill vampires?  Are there any puzzles in this game?

Objectively, the design is to extinguish the count as well as the ancient dark Lord Malachi, yet along the way, there will be many obstacles which involve the horrific slaying of many creatures of the dark residing within the castle walls.  The puzzle-solving element stems again from the random architectural engine which contains constructed boundaries of a map grid.  These sections are developed with module rooms which connect to various doors containing your family members, monsters and power-ups every time you start a new game.  Combine that to the needed slaying of vampires lurking around every corner and your end result is a game that adds tension and dramatic suspense every moment of every game.

What can you tell us about the level designs and their environments?

The bone-chilling environment is conducive to the enemies that appear shock style from everywhere from the ceiling to the floor.  The sound effects are orchestrated and designed to keep you on the edge of your seat and the non-linear style gameplay allows players to decide where and when they will explore the castle.

Expect to be spooked in this creepy first-person shooter!

Are voice-overs going to be implemented, or is this a text-only FPS?

The game features silent movie styled text placards, in-game text and voice-overs.

Being a game about vampires, I'm sure that everyone's dying to know how gory it will be.

This game is more about shock-style horror effects, than gore and splatter, so the game will scare you more with sudden surprises than visual blood and gore.

Is there anything else you can tell us about this exciting first-person shooter?

Be prepared to meet the wrath of Malachi through eerie 3D graphics, real time lighting, fog mist, and every other element one would expect in an atmosphere of fright.  Yes, it's scary, mainly due to the excellent sound and element of surprise.  Even being part of the development team, I can't tell where the enemies will appear next.

Thank you for your time.