ACE Team is now tremendously busy with finalising the upcoming punk fantasy PC game 'Zeno Clash', but Andres Bordeu, Co-Founder and Game Designer of ACE Team, kindly agreed to answer few questions.

Zeno Clash is a first-person action PC game set in a punk-fantasy world and emphasizing complex close combat system. The game has been awarded 'Editor's Choice: Best Upcoming Indie' at ModDB's 2008 awards and nominated in 'Excellence in Visual Art' at the Independent Games Festival. A lot of media has expressed that the game is worth checking out just for the art itself.

Andres Bordeu reveals inspirations behind the surrealistic designs; he talks about unique achievements, a possible porting to Xbox 360, DLC, the gameplay and more.



HorrorStyle (HS): What is a story behind ACE team? Does the name "ACE" imply that your ambitions for the first game are no less than ace, similarly like Crytek set for Crysis?

Andres Bordeu: ACE Team has been working as a company for about two years, but the name comes from much earlier. "ACE" are the initials of Andres, Carlos and Edmundo Bordeu- we're all brothers & co-founders of ACE Team (with David Caloguerea). We were making mods with this name several years ago, before we thought about going professional.

As a mod group we built some long term projects for DOOM and Quake 3 until we were contacted by a scouting agency which was interested in our last project as a modding group- The Dark Conjunction. That was the point when we decided that we wanted to turn our time consuming hobby into a profession.

HS: From the very first glance, Zeno Clash strikes the viewer with literally jaw-dropping surrealistic environments, character designs and never before seen weapons. Did you have an inspiration behind this or did it come out naturally?

Andres: For Zeno Clash we were looking for something not seen in the first-person genre. We started looking for sources of inspiration that were not from the video game industry or the blockbuster movies.

We were very interested in the work of illustrator John Blanche . We got acquainted with his work through some adventure books that featured his illustrations (The Crown of the Kings adventure books from Steve Jackson). We also looked at traditional art as a source of inspiration. The paintings of XV century painter Hieronymus Bosch had fantastic creatures and designs that we could refer to.

Another great source of inspiration was The Dark Crystal film from Jim Henson & Frank Oz. The world and the characters featured in that film are absolutely marvelous. Not even the rocks and the plants are real. They were designed to convey the idea that the characters were in a world nothing like our own. But that world also has mountains, woods, deserts and the animals that live there. We wanted to do the same; build a world where everything was immersed in a particular art style.

The direction of the final art style was developed by Edmundo Bordeu, our art director. Edmundo had of ton of his own style to add to the mixture. The end result is something we're very proud of. We're definitely happy with the surreal art style and we'll definitely continue to look at sources of inspiration that are not traditionally seen in video games.


HS: Tell us a little about Zeno Clash as a game. Your development videos strongly focus on fight mechanics, but it looks like you have much deeper vision. How important is the story in the single player mode?

Andres: The story is very important in a single player adventure. People are curious about the strange world and characters we have created, but I guess they also want to finally make sense of what they are seeing. The plot is a big part of our game.

Zeno Clash is an action game, but at many points of the game there are scripted events or in-game cinematics that develop the story and give you more background about the characters.

We also thought it would be great to have raccontos or feature different timelines to tell the story. The idea is that the player is presented with this strange world, that is somewhat of a puzzle, and he has to start connecting the dots to make sense of the events. I always enjoy stories where I have to put the pieces together to appreciate the big picture. I think players will enjoy this as well.

HS: Visuals aside, what other game features are you most proud of?

Andres: The atmosphere, characters and story are so different that a lot of media has expressed that the game is worth checking out just for the art itself. But I think the gameplay mechanics are also very innovative and I think a lot of people will really enjoy the game for its melee combat. I think we have truly reached a complex and entertaining melee combat system, which is rarely attempted in first person shooters. We're very happy with the result.

HS: I understand this game is not about violence, therefore with this in mind how much blood & gore we can expect in Zeno Clash?

Andres: The game does not have excessive gore as it would be inadequate for both the story and the style. Ghat (the protagonist) is in a conflict with his family & it would be inconsistent if the player was to mutilate his brothers and sisters. The game has this 'in-your-face' kind of violence, that naturally comes from fighting characters with your fists and face to face. But the violence is in no way overdone.

HS: The music and voice acting in Zeno Clash teaser trailer are no less striking and memorable than the visuals, who is the composer behind this?

Andres: Our composer is Patricio Meneses. Patricio has worked as producer, composer & music arranger for many music productions under the BMG & Sony Music Labels, as well as TV productions here in Chile, but it is his first time making music for a video game. We're very happy with the outcome of the music. Patricio is a real team player and the level of enthusiasm he has brought to the project is just incredible. I'm sure many people will be very happy with the music.

The voice over work was co-supervised by Antonio Dominguez, another great addition to the team. We worked with pro voice talent from the United States, and some very gifted people over here. I'm sure everyone will agree that we are bringing a very high level of voice acting for an independent studio.

HS: I know that it's too early to ask about other platforms, but I'm sure that console gamers are already jealous. Do you have any plans for porting Zeno Clash on other systems? Orange Box was successfully ported, so maybe you could use the same technology?

Andres: We'd love to port Zeno Clash to the consoles, like the XBox 360. The Source SDK is built so it can work in the 360's environment, so the port wouldn't be very painful. We're currently evaluating the possibility of doing this, but I can't confirm anything yet. We'll definitely consider other platforms in future titles.

HS: Do you have any plans for Steam Achievements? Maybe you have already thought about DLC?

Andres: We're going to have all sorts of achievements; the more common ones based on gameplay mechanics and some really original ones I don't think anyone has done before. But I don't want to spoil anything, so everyone will just have to wait and see :)

We'd definitely like to add DLC if there's a lot of interest from the community. The Challenge/Survival mode would be ideal for this. There's a lot of creative stuff that we could do there, but it's still a little early to say exactly what.

HS: Thank you for your time!

Andres: Thanks to you for the great interview!



The Official Zeno Clash Site: