Some Qs with Reset Developer Theory Interactive

About a month ago, Theory Interactive released the above trailer, both wowing and confusing people the Internet over. As a confused person with an awfully official-sounding e-mail address, our resident Indie enthusiast Kristian Boruff fired off a set of questions to the developers. I chimed in with a few questions of myself and we have a little more of a window into what Reset is all about, though not much of one…

1.) How have things changed for you since you released the trailer? I imagine answering a lot of questions in e-mails is one…

In relation to the project goals, no. In relation to how we have spent our working days, yes, you are correct about the emails. But it’s good to see that there are like minded people out there.

2.) Are you concerned that gamers may develop a skewed or incorrect idea of what Reset is as a game, based on the subtle nature of the debut trailer?

The story and mood are important in the game and the trailer conveys those strongly. Obviously there will be gameplay footage shown before the game is released, so people hopefully will get the whole palette what to expect from the finished game.

3.) Did you develop Praxis in order to make Reset, or did you focus on the tech first and decided to make a game with it later on?

Praxis is made for Reset, but our plans for the tech reach beyond it.

4.) You mention the game revolves around time travel and working with your own actions to solve puzzles. Where did you draw inspiration for those mechanics?

The concept of time travel is something that seems to come and go in different media. There must be some alpha waves or something that we picked up subconsciously. After tinkering around with the idea we soon found out about other games that have touched the subject. Prometeheus UDK mod and The Misadventures of P.B.Winterbottom to name a couple. We didn’t find inspiration from them, since we only found out about them after the idea was laid down, but it was good to check that we we’re not totally lost.

5.) The trailer implies a few themes – resurrection of life, human-like qualities in machinery a la Ghost in the Shell… what themes have you been focusing on throughout the development of the game?

The name Reset actually has meaning on many different levels, but can’t really reveal details on the “spiritual” content of the game at this time.

6.) Has the response to the trailer been mostly what you expected? Has any response surprised you?

We we’re hoping that people would like it of course, but the magnitude of interest just blew us away. It gives us confidence to stay on the path we’ve chosen.