JR: What would be the perfect moment in your game? Is it creeping undetected among the shadows, stalking a single important target? Sneaking behind enemy lines and dispatching Nazis silently with your blade? What will make the gamer say "Wow, that was great"?
IM: In my opinion – but that’s of course a very subjective one – there is more than just one perfect moment in the game. It just depends on how you define perfect. I really go for those atmospheric scenes in the game where everything regarding the style and atmosphere fits so perfectly together: once it is the design of the landscape and its warm colors and lights in combination with the heart-catching music.
Another time it is the adrenaline you feel when you are sneaking towards an enemy’s back, hoping that you perfectly organized the timing but being afraid that he could turn around any second – you just breathe out when you finally see the blade of your Fairbairn-Sykes Knife rushing into your enemy, always being aware of how close you were to being spotted. Others might also think that the moments when you invented a plan for getting through a difficult situation works out is the perfect moment – it is a question of taste I think.
JR: How important will gunplay be in the game compared with melee combat?
IM: It is definitely of minor importance in comparison to melee combat and that is clear when you remember how you summed up the important criteria of a real stealth game in question 1. Guns definitely cannot have big importance because then the focus on stealth tactics would get lost and therefore, we took that very seriously. So, yes, you have weapons which can be used when you think that in a special situation one tactical shot is more efficient than a silent kill procedure and you are able to estimate the risk resulting from the shot. And yes, you might also use gun power when you get into a situation of trouble and got surprised by somebody, having no chance solving this in stealth-style. But we designed the game in the way that in no other situation the use of guns will rather make sense nor be efficient or more fun.
JR: What other games, films, or books would you say influenced the style and development of Velvet Assassin?
IM: We always had the approach of integrating historical accuracy and artistic elements of the genre of film noir, which was a big influence for us. We were mainly influenced by critical films like Schindler’s List and other war films, while a lot of background knowledge emerged from documentation books and films.
JR: The game is played through a flashback device as the main character lies on her deathbed. How is this device used? Will we see any acknowledgement during gameplay that what we are seeing is a memory? Or does this just frame the story and connect the heroine's adventures? I know that the morphine slow-motion powers are related to this as well, how does the use of morphine in the game fit in?
IM: Velvet Assassin is played from a retro perspective: while Violette is lying comatose in her hospital bed she recalls all her past missions and you as a gamer play through those experiences. But whenever Violette is remembering life-threatening situations within the recalling of her memories (this means you as a gamer get in trouble within the game), her body in the hospital starts shaking from fear and anxiety. To calm her down a nurse injects her with morphine. Violette, in her paralyzed state of mind, cannot differentiate between reality, dream or memory and integrates the donation of the medication into her memories, using it as a method to re-correct her remembrances and prevent herself from an too early end because she is aware that she did not die in that particular situation.
From time to time, when she passes certain places she suddenly gets flashbacks on special situations and feelings which help the gamer to understand more of the background of the story.
The fact that we called this mode Morphine Mode is related to the fact that in WWII morphine was of common use when people were injured. This is also why Violette cannot be suspected of being addicted to morphine but gets this for reasons of medication.
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