1. Thank you for your time. Can you tell please introduce yourself, your team and your current project you are working on?

My name is Maxim Romako. I'm a leading game designer of Studio 4 team at Akella. We are working on the PT Boats: Knights of the Sea project. It's a naval action simulator with tactical planning elements that plunges a gamer into the World War II sea battles.

2. Tell us a bit more about PT Boats. From what I've heard, it's a naval action simulator. There haven't been many naval simulator games, and this one certainly has some unique ideas, like the "mosquito fleet" that the player commands.

It is a game about war, its key actors are torpedo boats, the so-called «mosquito fleet» - warships with small displacement: trawlers, boats, patrol ships. These fast and maneuverable ships were widely used during the World War II. During multiple missions a gamer can freely switch between two modes: to take control of all the ships simultaneously or to operate one boat. In a tactical mode the gamer supervises a battle: defines the behavior of a squadron, gives orders to each of the ships to make maneuvers, etc. Thus there's always an opportunity to jump to the deck of any boat - to stand behind a steering wheel; to fire from machine guns at air targets; to launch torpedoes to hit enemy ships.

3. Are you able to control airplanes or submarines like in Battlestations Midway for example? Or is it based just on boats?

The gamer can also operate cruisers, destroyers and submarines. You'll see airplanes in the game - however they will be controlled by AI and act depending on the situation and whether they are allies or enemies.

4. Battlestations Midway was really a disappointment to me because it was too arcade, and the controls were really hard to master and annoying most of the time. Silent Hunter is a nice simulator but can be sometime very hard. Which of these two games look more alike to PT Boats. Is your game somewhere in the middle? Have you learnt from some of the mistakes of previous naval sim titles?

Well, I would rather say that PT Boats is somewhere in the middle. We are trying to make a realistic game with rather simple and understandable control system.

5. How is the experience of designing a game for DirectX 10. Is it easy or hard for the developers? Does the game look much better on it? Do you get enough support from Microsoft and/or Ati/Nvidia?

The game has been initially designed for DX9 and is completely redesigned to fully work with both DX9 and DX10. In this connection we've applied a bunch of exclusive technologies, such as rendering of the ocean, a system of particles, post-effects, etc. These all result in some obvious differences - those of video and speed performance. We hold numerous consultations with leading engineers of video cards' manufacturers (special gratitude to the engineers of NVIDIA Corporation).

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6. Tell us a bit more about the story in PT Boats. I know that the action takes place in World War II, but nothing else...

Game events take place in three basic battlefields: the Baltic, Black, and Northern seas. We've designed six episodes. Each episode comprises up to five, six missions. In each mission the gamer will have an opportunity to act for one of the warring parties: German, Russian, and British. The in-game missions are based off real events of the World War II; however they do not bear any direct historical or geographical reference.

7. What types of missions will PT Boats have and what will the missions involve?

There will be various types of missions: attack and defense of escorts and transport routes, search and destruction of submarines, attack and defense of ground constructions such as air stations, supply bases, coastal batteries.

8. Will the ships, airplanes and submarines look like the real models that were used in World War II?

All the game models are based on authentic photographs, engineering and working drawings of 1940-1945.

9. Will there be real damage, explosions, torpedo camera or any other "special effects" like that?

We have made realistic damage visualization like fire on the board, explosions, and units deformation. The rotating camera allows players to view the game unit at different angles.

10. When will we be able to play PT Boats? Will there be an editor for missions/scenarios available?

The game is slated for Q4 2007.

11. Thank you! Any final thought you would like to share with our readers?

Thanks for the chance to give a more detailed description of what we're doing. We completely realize that the game has been cooking for quite a while already and a lot of naval sim fans are looking forward to finally tasting it but we would really love to make that good enough to cater to the needs of various categories of gamers - from casual to most professional ones. Please be patient for some more time and we'll do our best not to disappoint you.

We've also added a few exclusive screenshots in our PT Boats gallery. Check them out!