A HUGE thanks to Mike Rosser, Assistant Designer on Evil Genius for taking the time to answer all these questions - it must have taken ages. All questions come from forum members, to whom I am indebted for their help in compiling some interesting talking points. The answers come in the order they were posted online - i.e. there is no real order at all, but it makes good reading nevertheless. Please note too, that the questions have been left in the original format they were on the forums, so the style changes regularly... but anyway, enjoy!

[JM]Are they still on schedule for a 3Q 2004 release?

[MR] Yes. Barring unforeseen circumstances, there will be no slippage.

[JM]I remember Demis always talking about a board game called "Junta" being a major influence while designing Republic. I'm just curious if there is a similar (ie. Not video game related) main inspiration for Evil Genius.

[MR]No, there is no comparable influence for Evil Genius in the realm of Board Games. Main influences were films such as Fu Manchu, Austin Powers, Bond, MI, Enter the Dragon and Flash Gordon.

[JM] How heavily will EG draw upon Dungeon Keeper and NOLF, and how much will be original gameplay and ideas?

[MR] Evil Genius doesn’t draw directly upon either game really. Dungeon Keeper is the obvious game influence, but the similarities begin and end with the fact that in both games you’re the villain whose goal it is to carve out a base and defend it. In terms of how Evil Genius actually plays, it’s a totally different experience to Dungeon Keeper. NOLF wasn’t a direct influence at all, we just happen to use the same sort of campy, colourful artistic style to evoke the Sixties/Seventies ambience.

[JM]Will the game have an online feature?

[MR]Currently we’re concentrating on making a great single-player experience.

[JM]Can you wage war on other countries?

[MR]You perform various evil deeds in different regions of the world. These deeds raise your heat levels with the alliance who control that particularly region, and the higher your heat levels, the more dangerous the agents sent by that alliance will be. So, you could effectively wage war on the USA by sending lots of minions to US-controlled regions and performing evil deeds, but they’d respond by sending vicious assault soldiers to your island.

[JM]Will the character in game look like that of Republic, or like cartoon characters?

[MR]Evil Genius is a considerably different game to Republic, and the characters reflect this. The Evil Genius style is lighter, more colourful and fun; just like the game.

[JM]Can you ally and attack a specific country?

[MR]The world is divided up into 5 global defence alliances, each of which is divided further up into 4 regions that you send your minions to in order to perform evil deeds. You can’t ally with alliances or regions, you can only earn their relative antipathy by reducing your heat levels there.

[JM]Can you ally with terrorist organisations?

[MR]No. You are the only Evil Genius around. You may have to assert your supremacy over members of the criminal underworld at some stages, but you’ll never ally with terrorists.

[JM]What are some of the weapons?

[MR]You can provide your minions with a number of weapons, from handguns to rifles to flamethrowers.

[JM]What are some of the ways you can make money?

[MR]Your primary method of getting money is by sending minions out to world regions and telling them to steal; they’ll periodically bring back briefcases of cash to the strongroom. Some regions are wealthier than others, so it’ll be up to you to experiment and find the best global sources of revenue. We’re also toying with other methods of cash generation, such as the casino, but nothing has been decided yet in that respect.

[JM]How about some more details on the "style point" system I've heard mentioned? Is that still in the game, and what sort of benefits do you get for doing things "stylishly"?

[MR]There are no "style" points as such in the game. Getting a trap combo (i.e. blowing an agent with the wind trap into a firepit, and then spewing him out of that and straight into the piranha tank) is the nearest thing to this - the reward for trap combos is currently cash. Henchmen also get "Evil Points" for doing things like killing people, or using a special ability; when they get enough Evil Points, they can learn new abilities.

[JM]Randomness or variance in each new game, to enhance replayability?

[MR]With a game like Evil Genius, it’s not really necessary for us to do anything in particular to enhance replayability. The game will play differently depending on the tactics you employ - if you’re aggressive, you’ll get resources quickly, but you’ll also have to deal with more agents (and more dangerous agents at that); if you’re cautious, you should be able to build up an impressive base without agents crawling all over it, but you may have to be more patient. In addition, there is an element of variance in the secondary objectives - these are things that the player doesn’t have to do to progress, but they will be rewarded for if they do. These objectives will only be triggered if certain criteria are met, depending on how the game is being played. So two players may experience totally different secondary objectives.

[JM]Are you going to have a better communication with your publisher this time around? Can we look forward to release dates or are they speculation?

[MR]We have great communication with our publisher, the team have delivered milestones on time throughout the project so we are confident that we will stick to the release date.

[JM]Can we actually use the Doomsday Device (TM)? There was a thread about this on the official forums and I don't think anyone knew the answer.

[MR]The climax of the game will be the Doomsday Device countdown, when you must prevent the hordes of agents from sabotaging the launch. So yes, assuming you do that successfully, you will see the Doomsday Device being launched, and the results of its payload.

[JM]Will the game be easy to moderate the game, such as create your own henchmen/main character like in "Freedom Force"?

[MR]No, you won’t be able to customise your henchmen or avatar. We want to give the player a choice of well-balanced (in terms of stats and abilities) and well-realised (in terms of art direction) characters.

[JM]Will the room sizes be preset, or can you create them ala Dungeon Keeper 2 style?

[MR]Rooms are built on a tile-based system, so you choose the exact dimensions and shape of each room.

[JM]If a room gets blown up by commandos do simply refurbish it or do you have to buy a whole new room?

[MR]Saboteurs can only destroy objects, not rooms.

[JM]Will there be a huge vault near our office? Will we actually be able to see our money on the shelves, depending on how much we have. (I guess there is a better chance of them being gold bars, but still...)

[MR]Money is stored in the strong room. You can see your gold supply here - the more you have, the larger the gold pile will grow. Conversely, the more you spend, the more it will dwindle. You can build the strong room as big as you want to, and place it wherever you have space in the base, but be warned - minions need to access it to buy furniture and dynamite, so if you hide it behind wave after wave of traps, you will systematically destroy your minion population (still, there’s plenty more where they came from).

[JM]Situation: "James Bond" has just blown most of my rooms to bits, killed my henchmen, and is about to barge into my office to assassinate me, or arrest me. Is there a way to escape (with a giant rocket, for example) and start on a new island, with the same amount of money, but half your "fame"-rating, for example?

[MR]It’s an idea we considered, but no - we decided it wasn’t necessary, as the game is pretty forgiving really. If your base gets decimated, the agents will most likely leave the island, with their job well done, and your heat will eventually erode back down to manageable levels, and you can start rebuilding. You’ll never be in a position where you’ve run out of resources, and can’t possibly make a comeback. However if your Evil Genius is assassinated, it’s game over.

[JM]How many sidemissions (like shrinking the Eiffel Tower) will there be (approximately)?

[MR]There are about 100 evil deeds to perform on the world domination map.

[JM]Do we have to pay the minions and henchmen only once, or do we have to keep paying them after a certain amount of time?

[MR]The only time you’ll pay for minions is if you want construction workers quickly, in which case you’ll pay a premium. If you’re happy with gradual recruitment (one every 60 seconds), you won’t pay anything. You don’t have to pay for training at all. You also don’t pay for henchmen - at periodic notoriety levels, you’ll be able to recruit one of a selection of henchmen by performing the relevant evil deed on the world domination map. Minions are essentially expendable, so money matters are only really important in terms of base expansion.

[JM]Roughly how many different types of traps are there? E.G. moving, killing, and capturing...

[MR]There are about 30 different traps in the game. All of them do some sort of damage on their own, but some come into their own as linking components in trap combos.

[JM]How about regular traps such as Claymores, and punji stake pits. Or maybe Splinter Cell ones such as Wall mines and turrets. What about cameras?

[MR]There’s a rather deadly proximity mine. The traps are many and varied, and allied with the henchmen's special abilities; you should have a fairly expansive arsenal to defend your evil lair with. Cameras are part of the surveillance network, which is separate from the traps system (although there’s a camera-like motion sensor that triggers traps if an agent wanders into its field of view).

[JM]On the trap theme, can there be sentry turrets? What about robotic henchmen or trained evil henchmen apes? Perhaps something along the lines of a cage that drops from the ceiling?

[MR]There are sentry turrets, as well as gas traps that drop from the ceiling onto unwary agents. No robotic henchmen, alas - it’s something we really wanted, but it would have placed undue pressure on the animators. No simian henchmen either, although it is possible to capture indigenous monkeys and press them into your service...

[JM]Are henchmen going to conform to official guidelines and only attack heroes one at a time even if they massively outnumber them?

[MR]While that would be admittedly amusing at first, it’d soon get tiresome when the super-agents are pummelling you relentlessly ;). They do follow some conventions however, firing endlessly without reloading weapons, being shot repeatedly but still fighting on, and having outlandish special abilities.

[JM]Are there going to be femme fatales?

[MR]Yes indeed. You can be a femme fatale yourself if you wish, by selecting Alexis to be your Evil Genius. There are also femme fatale henchmen and super-agents.

[JM]Do you get to dispose (messily) of henchmen who have failed you? Piranha tanks, false floored lifts, Fiery death chairs, etc...

[MR]No, I’m afraid not - it’s a nice idea, but it opens up a lot of complications... what if the player kills all their henchmen, and so on. You can of course dispose of minions in any way you wan.t The only way henchmen can die is if they are killed by super-agents - all other attacks will just render them unconscious for a while.

[JM]Will there be a bottomless pit?

[MR]There’s a fire pit that’s pretty deep, but I wouldn’t want to go on record as saying it’s actually bottomless ;)

[JM]Will there be moon bases? How about just space bases in general? What about time machines?

[MR]Bases on the moon and underwater would be fantastic, but it would require a scary amount of art time to do settings as radically different as that. We’re only going to have island bases for Evil Genius, although we do have two different island landscapes. No time machines, but a cloning machine isn’t out of the question...

[JM]Can you corrupt good guys and make them work for you?

[MR]You can reduce their loyalty to make them temporarily abandon their mission, but they’ll act like tourists if that happens, they won’t actually work for you. There’s one point in the game where you’ll have the opportunity to turn an important character into one of your subjects, however...

[JM]I'd also like to know more about the non-evil parts of the game, like the resorts and stuff.

[MR]Tourists are just on the island to have fun, but they may well stumble upon your base - if they do, they’ll panic if they see anything disturbing, and that’ll raise your heat if they escape home. You can keep tourists busy with the hotel - if you build a big enough hotel, with enough attractions, you can keep the tourists corralled up day and night, and thereby reduce the impact they have on the running of your base.

[JM]Why the heck can the good guys just walk in through your front door?

[MR]They can’t, if you set the door security high enough. Of course, it wouldn’t be a very challenging game if the agents never got in, so they’ll eventually manage to bypass the door once they’ve examined the security system. They might also slip in if your own minions accidentally let them in. That’s why it’s important to have a variety of base defence systems.

[JM]What rooms will there be that are different from those in Dungeon Keeper. For example, will there be more than just the treasury, training rooms etc?

[MR]There are 16 different rooms you can build, including the hotel rooms. We don’t want to spoil too much by revealing them all, as we think that unlocking new stuff is all part of the fun of the game. I should also mention at this point that building one huge room of each type isn’t necessarily the best way to go, strategically speaking. For instance, the armoury is used for gun-racks, surveillance and holding cells, but if you put them all in one big room, you’re missing out on a lot of nuances. It might be better to build a small armoury near the barracks, say, and put gun racks in there, so that it’s easily accessible when you want minions to arm themselves. The holding cells are very damning evidence, so a separate armoury buried in the heart of the base might be appropriate for them.

[JM]Reading the Gamespy review, it was suggested that ordinary people may accidentally stumble across your base, how would that be resolved? i.e. could you kill them too, or have to do some sort of cover-up?

[MR]You can kill tourists if you want, but you’ll have to deal with the body bags, as usual. Alternatively, you could reduce their intelligence (perhaps with the brainwasher machine, or with a spin-doctor) to make them forget the evidence they’ve seen. If they haven’t seen anything incriminating yet, some henchman have a special ability that lets you lead them away from danger zones.

[JM]Finally, will you be able to do the classic "press a button and the room changes" thing to alter an innocent looking room into your main headquarters?

[MR]That’s definitely going into the top ten on the list of things to do for Evil Genius 2 alongside multiplayer, (starts counting on fingers) a moon base, more traps, more henchmen,...(gets dragged off stage left) ...more interrogation devices, more super agents, more.. (muffled voice and sounds of a struggle)

Narrators’ voice: "Evil Genius will be on the shelves in the autumn of this year. Opinions vary on the release date of Evil Genius 2..."

Once again - thanks to Mike for his excellant work with these answers.