1 / / Firstly, the 'About' secton of the NeoPong website mentions the company's clear intention to "recreate the experience and entertainment of the original 8-bit and 16-bit era" - which is certainly an exciting prospect. Would you care to elaborate further on this?

Charles Galyon: We believe that in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras there was more focus on gameplay and interesting content rather than flashy content. Obviously there were graphic limitations, so the developers had to work harder to get more out of the hardware, the result was that they relied on design to make a fun game rather than on looks. In our games we're sticking to that mentality and trying to deliver a game that emphasizes enjoyable gameplay and content in addition to looking good.

2 / / As the console market has moved towards more realism / 3D polygon based software with huge production costs, the traditional scrolling shoot 'em up has almost disappeared. While the GBA allows somewhat of a resurgence of older 2D genres ( scrolling beat em up's for example ), what do you think future technology holds for the fate of these classic and enjoyable gaming experiences?

I think that 3D graphics astounded the audience for a while and those were often enough to sell a game. However, the graphics playing field is finally levelling off as everyone is developing or gaining access to efficient 3D engines and the talent pool is growing. In essence, 3D is so common and done so well that consumers are beginning to look at more than just the graphics. With that I believe we'll see a resurgence of "old-school" games and a new breath of creativity. On the whole, it can only be good for the industry.

3 / / Now onto the subject of World Reborn! How long has the game been in development for? Has development been smooth?

World Reborn required about a year to develop. This is a rather long time for a GBA title, on average, but World Reborn isn't your average GBA title! As you're aware, World Reborn has a lot of features unique to the genre and with such innovations comes the difficulty of working them into the genre smoothly. Additionally World Reborn was our first title as a company, so there was some time spent learning to work effectively as a team. Finally we had familiarize ourselves with the GBA hardware. With all of our experience and developed technology we're much better equipped now, which I think will be evident in our next title...

4 / / World Reborn is slated for a Q1 release and will be published by Destination Software Inc. How soon will we be playing the finished product?

World Reborn has been completed and now is passing through the necessary inspections and checks to get to the store shelves. We hope that it will go through quickly and pass with flying colors! However, at this time our publisher, DSI Games ( www.dsigames.com ), will need to be contacted for more information on that.

5 / / "World Reborn" is a very slick title! Who came up with the name and what significance does it have to the game's storyline?

"World Reborn" refers to the revival of the world by the efforts of humans, the sort of reclaiming and rebuilding implicit in the overthrow of the Biotech. The original title was going to be "Meifumado: World Reborn", however we felt that would be somewhat difficult to pronounce, so we shortened it to "World Reborn." We're pretty happy with that.

6 / / The game seems to add considerable depth to the traditional shooter style of gameplay by incorporating RPG elements ( level up, cutscenes, path selection ) and the ability to combine different pilots with various ships. Would you like to explain how / why you came up with these ideas and what role they play in the game?

Originally I was designing an RPG before I started designing World Reborn. However, at the time an RPG was a bit too much to bite off, so I started brainstorming and came up with the idea to do a shooter game. Since an RPG was still fresh in my mind, I started thinking of a shooter along the lines of an RPG and, over time, those culminated in the creation of the leveling system, the selectable party of pilots, the plot lines and the different directions to travel in. Depending on your choices you'll encounter different characters, experience a different story and have a different combination of ships and pilots by the end of the game. Each pilot and ship has a unique strength and weakness, so you can choose whatever best suits your style. The ships use different weapon styles and all have unique abilities that can be used in a pinch. You'll find that it presents you with a unique experience as you venture through, so replaying the game is definitely a good idea if you want to experience it all.

7 / / What main influences were at play from conception to realization? What Shoot 'Em Ups are some of the NeoPong staff most fond of? When watching the videos I get flashbacks of some awesome Amiga shooters!

Wow... well, that's a heavy question. We played just about every shooter ever made when creating World Reborn. We wanted to get a feel for what we liked, what we thought would work well in our game and what sorts of things were really annoying. I'm hard-pressed to think of a shooter we didn't play. Some of those that most stand-out to me as major influences, though, are Aeroblasters, Blazing Star and R-Type Leo. Those had a lot of innovations and great gameplay. We frequently found ourselves thinking of them while working on World Reborn. As for our favorite shooters... well, there's a lot we came to like, but amongst us I would say the following really stand out: Gokyouji Parodius, Blazing Star, R-Type Leo, Aeroblasters, Ikaruga and R-Type 3.

8 / / The NeoPong website lists the game as a "Space Platform Shooter" - Does this mean there are run / jump sections as well? ;)

No, unfortunately our 2D platformer engine hadn't been developed at that time and we weren't really up to the task of reinventing Blaster Master. The most accurate and common description I've seen of our game is "Shooter RPG."

9 / / World Reborn 's action takes place in horizontal scrolling areas. Perhaps the GBA's rectangular screen dimensions are not accommodating for vertical scrolling style shooters? What are your thoughts on this?

I've seen some vertical scrolling shooters on the GBA, so it can definitely be done. The player, however, may feel that his space is a bit limited since the screen is decidedly more horizontal than vertical. Making highly detailed sprites, allowing ample room for maneuvering and making intense, high speed action is a complicated process and needs a lot of screen real estate, perhaps that's the reason for the small number of vertical shooters on the GBA?

10 / / Progress will be recorded via a password save function. Is there any reason why battery-backup was not included?

In short, the reason for the password is cost. A battery-backup cart requires a good bit more money and since this is our first title that's a little hard to come by. However, with the ever improving marvels of technology we'll not likely have to suffer a password system again. We took extra measures to ease the pain of a password system. So the passwords are fairly short for all of the data they store.

11 / / World Reborn will be a very exciting game for basically anyone to enjoy. But how will World Reborn appeal to the more Ikaruga-style shooter fans - the gamers who try to 'one-credit' finish games or simply compete for highscores? Will there there any adjustable difficulty levels, highscore tables or time attack modes in WR?

Oh yes, World Reborn has difficulty levels and I think that even the hardcore shooter fans will find the hard mode challenging. World Reborn allows an increasing health bar, so the player can take more hits before crashing, this is essentially in place of lives. Once your health runs out, you'll have to restart the level. The points you earn during the level are your experience points and you'll need those to level up. So there is actually a direct pay-off to getting a high score.

12 / / Will World Reborn contain any aspect of connectable multiplay? Was it ever considered, or even possible to achieve at all?

We considered implementing a mutliplayer mode for World Reborn, however at the time it would have required a considerable rewrite and just wasn't feasible. We hope to offer more multiplayer connectivity in all of our future titles.

13 / / The second downloadable video is accompanied by a very melodic upbeat electronic song. Is this song from the actual game, what can we expect music-wise from WR?

The music in World Reborn was composed by Eric Stamm, our extremely talented musician. The song in the movie to which you refer is indeed one of the songs featured in the game (though the banjo song is not). All of the music in the game is electronic and carries a strong melody. Personally I think the music compliments the game beautifully and is a pleasure to listen to. World Reborn features a fairly diverse sound track that is integrated with the moods set by the story.

14 / / After World Reborn... what's next? Any hints?

I don't want to give away too much yet, but as I mentioned earlier I was originally working on an RPG before working on World Reborn. We ceased development because at the time we needed to develop some technology and techniques to really do it right, however now we've developed that. In all of our projects we aim to bring something new and unique to the genre and our next project is no exception to that philosophy. I'd like to encourage everyone to check our website in a couple of weeks to get involved with this next project. We're going to be offering a chance for community involvement and it's going to be a very, very interesting project.

15 / / Lastly, I want to kindly thank you for your precious time and let you know how excited I am about World Reborn! Please finish with your final words!

We appreciate your interest and look forward to the public reception of World Reborn. I think everyone will enjoy it and I'd like to invite everyone to come to our website in a couple of weeks to see what we're up to and get involved. Gaming, afterall, is about gamers!