InterviewTron3K: I am here with Paul Harrington AKA Surlaw, known as creator of Walthros, maintainer of HamsterSpeak and recently made demo for the Village People RPG. Hello Paul.
	Paul Harrington: Hello Interviewtron. How fares your hardware and software?
	InterviewTron3K: It is working nominally. I think the fair question to ask right out would be, why The Village People?
	Paul Harrington: The idea for Village People: The Videogame came in two parts. First, the release of Gato Sucio: Special Edition. I took what was an old game with awful sound and bad jokes, rewrote some of the dialogue, and replaced all of the music with something better and funnier. I ended up choosing The Village People to provide the GS: Special Edition soundtrack for no real reason other than the fact that they're silly. Second, when Fenrir announced that he was hosting a contest based on the theme of love, I decided I wanted in, but I didn't want to do anything romantic or anything crude, so I decided to go with brotherly love, and there's no better representatives than the Village People.
	InterviewTron3K: It's strange that you mention bad jokes. It felt to me when playing Village People RPG that it could have gone down the path of being rather crude humor. But the game seems to take itself a bit seriously and instead takes on a humorous and light tone. Is this your style or was it a conscious decision?
	Paul Harrington: I've made some games in the past (Gato Sucio being a big one) that have had some jokes that always had a tendency to leave me feeling embarrassed years later. With Village People, I went out of my way to avoid anything I'd regret later, and went with the corny, pun-filled humor it ended up with rather than shock humor, which really only works once. People have made enough crude jokes about the Village People over the years that there's nothing funny left there, and there's no point in rehashing stuff that wasn't very funny to begin with. So, instead, you get a semi-serious story covered in puns and confusing pop-culture references.
	InterviewTron3K: The Village People, while seeming simple and innocent from well known songs such as YMCA, are actually quite a complex group with a strange history. Did you do any research into the group when you decided to make this game, and did any of this effect your decisions about the game or its presentation?
	Paul Harrington: My research was mostly just my experience with their songs. They have some really upbeat songs like YMCA or Can't Stop the Music, but they also have ridiculous, fairly dirty ones like Sex Over the Phone and Sleazy. The massive contrast between the two types has always been funny to me, and the characters the guys in the band plays are also funny. I've always thought they would make a great superhero squad, and this is sort of my way of realizing that.
	InterviewTron3K: An interesting thing is that the Village People replaced their members several times, and their official website encourages fans to dress up as the ensemble. In ways many people can make up the group, sort of like the Power Rangers.
	Paul Harrington: Yeah, that's why I went with the generic job names, instead of allowing people to name the characters or using the real men's names.
	InterviewTron3K: Anyway, onto the game itself, why the setting of San Francisco? I think the "Village" refers to Greenwich New York, it has a pretty great song too. Or maybe New York is also in the books?
	Paul Harrington: If there is a second city in the game, it will be New York City. I debated between NYC and San Francisco at first, but chose SF because it has a happier song. Of course, the San Francisco in the game really has nothing in common with the real city, aside from being on the coast.
	InterviewTron3K: I noticed the graphic style of the game resembled NES RPGs such as Final Fantasy  in some ways. The layout and some gameplay has some resemblances of River City Ransom and even Grand Theft Auto. Were these any of your influences into the game, or if not what was there?
	Paul Harrington: Originally, the game was going to use an entirely 8-bit palette, and look a lot more like a Dragon Warrior game than it does now. I kept the simple, NES style for the maps and walkabouts for the most part, but I had fun with colors and ended up using a lot more than I'd intended, and just went with what felt right instead of limiting myself. River City Ransom was definitely an influence on the battle sprites and on the ridiculous things the characters say during battle. As for the theft of cars, Police Chief would never REALLY steal them. He just borrows.
	InterviewTron3K: The enemies in the game are quite enigmatic. So far we've seen Gray Man and Dr. Mu. Some screen shot previews also suggested an enemy "Red Menace" and some others will be present. Is there a particular rhyme or reason to these kidnappers, do they represent something opposing to the Village People?
	Paul Harrington: All of the kidnappers (and their secret leader) are characters from other games I've made. Most of them don't have an overall thematic value, but their BIG BOSS definitely does. I won't be saying who he is.
	InterviewTron3K: There are also a lot of extra elements or easter eggs in this game. I don't know how many of them I've found so far, but there was a rather detailed encounter with the Ninja Turtles. Why is this element so important to the game?
	Paul Harrington: My favorite part of almost any RPG is exploration, and my least favorite is generally random battles. The rather large (for a game at this stage of development) quantity of optional areas/sidequests in this game reflects this. The player is rewarded, whether it be with items, funny dialogue, or (eventually) extra characters, for speaking with everyone and exploring everything. This isn't a game for people who just like battling. I want the city to feel like a huge, living space, so I'm going to try including as many of these side areas as possible.
	InterviewTron3K: One interesting thing is how you're able to accomplish such a different feel from a standard RPG without the use of extensive plotscripting. There are some interesting scripts such as the disco-ball though. Are you planning any other plotscript functions like this, such as mini-games?
	Paul Harrington: I actually started designing an arcade in the city where the player could play several different mini-games based on classic arcade games, but I didn't get very far into scripting them yet. I wanted to try to get other people to help out/contribute games for the San Francisco Arcade, but I haven't been very active in pursuing this yet. Other than that, there may be mini-games involved in the main story at some point, but I don't have any designed yet.
	InterviewTron3K: So far you've relied on community input for "which Village Person will be rescued next." How much do things like the OHR community affect your decision making process? Do you think it's important for a developer to use this, necessarily?
	Paul Harrington: This is the first game I've worked on where I've tried to get the community involved in shaping where it goes, at least a little bit. I have all of the scenarios for each Village Person planned out in my head, but it's hard to decide which I really want to work on at any given time, so getting community input and setting a goal for myself based on that it pretty helpful to getting things organized. I wouldn't say it's important for all games, but it can certainly be helpful for something that doesn't have a tight structure.
	InterviewTron3K: I want to get more into the specifics on this game. For one thing there are a lot of robots present. What's going on with that?
	Paul Harrington: Originally, I wanted the game to be set in a pseudo-future, with helper robots and flying cars and lots of useless, futuristic gadgets. I kept the robots and a few other elements (The YMCA has a Star Trek transporter operated by Robot Butler) but I toned it down a bit. Part of the reason the robots are there is to add some more visual variety to the town, since every NPC is a unique character. I thought about including other types of alien creatures, but ultimately decided to keep 99% of the life forms in the game humanoid, partly to challenge myself since I'm used to making games with casts composed of alien monsters. Also, there was a side plot about Dr. Mu inventing all of these robots and being an honored member of society who turned bad, but I ended up dropping this.
	InterviewTron3K: The challenge level of the game is quite crisp. It is easy enough to lose but it's easy enough to win as well with some effort. How do you create such a balance, and do you intend to make the game more difficult as it goes on?
	Paul Harrington: Balancing the game has been kind of tough, since any given dungeon's battles have to change based on how many characters you have. The way it is now, there's a plotscript in place that changes which formations and enemies you'll encounter dependent on your party size. The enemies you encounter with two or three guys may look the same as the ones you encounter with just one, but their stats are radically different. I spent a very long time making sure everything balanced properly, and I think it works. You never have to level grind, and I actually forced myself through the demo with all characters at level 1 (since bosses give no XP and you can run from normal encounters). It was a difficult but fun challenge.
	InterviewTron3K: So the game is intended to be open ended for now, doing things in whichever order you please? One thing that springs to mind is sometimes loose structures can make a game challenging for a developer to complete. Will you know when you've hit the end point and the game is finished?
	Paul Harrington: Well, the current plan is to have one mission to rescue each Village Person, and then a sequence of two "final dungeons." Once this is all functional, the game will be technically "complete," but there will probably always be something I want to add to the town. I've thought of several hidden characters and optional dungeons (one of which is almost fully planned but hasn't been drawn at all), but it's really hard to say how much I'll end up including. Getting too sidetracked by non-essential content can be bad for a developer, but at the same time, it's extremely fun to work on. I'll probably push my way through the story, and then add side content until it stops being fun to work on.
	InterviewTron3K: Fun to work on and fun to play, that's a good combination. Well, I can't think of any more questions; so is there anything you'd like to share with us about Village People RPG we have not covered?
	Paul Harrington: If all goes according to plan, the whole game may be finished this year, which would make this the shortest amount of time I've spent on any real RPG I've worked on. I want to implement a trophy system that rewards players for doing ridiculous things (such as surviving X number of battles in a Clownsuit, "donating" a certain amount of money to the hospital, etc). I'd also like to see who the first person to defeat the secret boss in the sewer is. As it stands now, he may actually be unbeatable, but I took a good chunk out of him when I planned ahead and fought him during testing. Good luck!
	InterviewTron3K: Thanks Paul. I look forward to the games subsequent releases and/or eventual completion.
	Paul Harrington: Good night Interviewtron. Perhaps one day you will live in San Francisco as well.