FOCUS Online: Mr Riegert, Anno 1800 has recently been in the trade. In the development of the game they were significantly involved. How does one become a game developer?
Dirk Riegert: I am since 2002 in the development of the game and came in as a newcomer in the industry. My career with the current developers are not so good compare. A friend has recruited me at that time because the industry was just emerging. Nowadays, there are many different training opportunities, which are addressed in a very objective on the development of the game can move.
FOCUS Online: you are a Senior Creative Director for Anno 1800. What is your role there?
Riegert: the task of The Senior Creative Director is comparable with that of a film Director in the Film. He keeps to the game’s development the red thread in the eye. What we do for a game? How is it supposed to feel? What emotions to evoke a game? What Look should it have? In these aspects, a lot of people work in the Background for many years, and the Creative Director keeps the Overview.
FOCUS Online: How do you work everyday?
Riegert: The changes, depending on what phase of the project we are. In the pre-production is thought of everything first, because the Team is very small. This Phase can last for a very long time and as it is involved in the creative direction very strongly. The second Phase, production, is the longest Phase. Since many people are working on it, what has come up with a small group. In the last Phase, post-production, the Creative Director again interesting. Now all the building blocks are there and we can put the Puzzle together.
FOCUS Online: you provide the creative Vision for Anno 1800. Like looks in the finished game?
Riegert: Anno 1800 runs through the entire 19th century. Century. The players play one after the industrial development, Railways, telegraphy, heavy industry, and electricity. We found this a nice time, because on the one hand, romantic-brings-murky emotions, but also a lot of exciting themes and Settings. The emergence of the labour movement, for example, or the Revolution of 1848. Building games benefit from such backgrounds – we want to program a game, which is dry or theoretical, but a that is fun.
FOCUS Online: How did you get the idea to make a Anno in the Industrial Revolution?
Riegert: The two last tracks played both of them in the future. According to Anno 2205 we had at Ubisoft Blue Byte, Mainz, the feeling that we would like to make a game with a historic setting. But it should not be the Renaissance or the middle ages, as in the previous Anno-Games. We wanted to make something New and the idea of a Anno game in the industrial Revolution, haunted even more by the corridors of the developer studios.
click here to read: class struggle and imperialism: “Anno 1800” is the new Genre-reference
FOCUS Online: the age of industrialization, you have said it yourself, a romantic age. Think about slavery or the culture war. How do you make the decision of what aspects of the historical Settings in a game?
Riegert: This is a balancing thing. In Anno 1503, we asked ourselves about the question of whether it is appropriate, the whaling in the game. From the point of view of the contemporaries of the 16th century. Century, whaling was certainly a little problematic. Today we have another look at it. In addition to moral issues, the question of how an idea is with the game mechanics unite, but also always? The topic of slavery, for instance, can game mechanically difficult to implement and morally anyway. How could we have slaves in the game mechanics? As a commodity, as people in the 19th century. Century were considered?
FOCUS Online: So slavery plays in Anno 1800 no role?
Riegert: But. We wanted to leave the issue in any case under the table. It will take place but, rather, in the narrative of the game, not the game mechanics. There are, for example, a freed slave as a character in the game. The building after its liberation, a life of its own and a private little Empire. This figure is the fair treatment of its people is very important, and you also pay attention to the players on how to deal with its population and responds accordingly.
FOCUS Online: Anno 1800 is ready-to – play your games after release.
Riegert: no. I am working since three years with Anno 1800. During the development up to the finished product, I played it often. Now it is time for something new.
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