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Kollisionsabfrage: Mark, you're currently living in Hong Kong - is that right?

Mark Leung: Yeah. I spent my first 12 years in Hong Kong, another 7 years or so in Singapore. 5 years in the states and now I'm back.

KOL: Most people know the name Mark Leung from your short film College Saga, which got about a bazillion views on YouTube. Which impact had the internet fame on your life?

ML: Well, I got myself invited to an internship at a huge marketing firm, and took that. Some facebook fan pages showed up, one of them is "mark leung is a god" - lol. Our side characters got famous too. Friends are telling me they searched their own names on Google and College Saga shows up.

But as for IRL change, not much, since I graduated right after I finished College Saga. Still though, I visited the school once in a while to help out with some projects during my internship, and random people came up to me and shook my hands.

KOL: Which was kind of nice or kind of creepy?

ML: Was nice. I mean they weren't asking for anything, they just wanted to say Hi. Even if College Saga didn't explode though, it would still be a nice memento with all my schoolmates.

KOL: One the internet you can also see you presenting your short film for an audience. Did you get invited to a lot for speaking gigs?

ML: Just once. I did get invited to a few others in the states, but i wouldn't travel that far for that. Anyway, it's been 4 years and the anime convention at Miami still screens College Saga every year.

KOL: It was also screened at anime cons in Germany.

ML: Oh really! Haha. What really surprised me is that it sort of became a fad after College Saga. I've counted at least 20 videos with kids imitating RPGs after that. I'm aware of some RPG parodies before me of course. They actually inspired me to do this. One of them is Ultimate Utopia XXIII.

KOL: How did your game studio Uglysoft come into existance?

ML: I was lucky to have some financial backing from my family. I was able to convince them that parody games, if executed properly, are commercially viable. I found a design lab on the university of Hong Kong that helped me assemble a small team. That's when I founded Uglysoft - in 2007.

KOL: So no multi-million dollar venture capital groups?

ML: It's an eventuality. If the execution is correct, parody games are a possible sub-industry worth billions of dollars - that's what I believe. There are plenty of free flash games out there entertaining millions and millions of people, but good parody games are kind of hard to find. Naughty Bear is a good concept, but the gameplay was horrible. I'm still a fan of their trailers, though. I love Naughty Bear, just not the game itself.

KOL: Your first game has a rather unique look. It combines traditional Final Fantasy mechanics with hilarous live actions cutscenes. Something which gameras haven't seen since the early days of the CD-ROM. Is this the logical next step from your earlier works.?

ML: It seems to be a logical step from my earlier works, but it's not. I wanted to contrast a polished, well-balanced game with experimental storytelling and presentation. I'm aware that my financial backing isn't unlimited, so indie, live-action cutscenes were the logical choice. My budget is about 20 times smaller than a JRPG for consoles. Which is actually not a tiny amount at all.

Next logical step doesn't sound right. Of course, I took great joy in making this game - every waking moment in my past 2 years was about games, - but I'm not trying to fulfill a personal agenda.

Few weeks ago we ran into a display bug that prevented our videos and dialog text from showing, but it still remained fun to play. So if you stripped away the story, you still have a nicely polished game. Of course, i still take great care in ensuring that the story makes sense throughout since it's such a long game.

KOL: Good to hear that gameplay is king. You already had me at Anne Frank vs the trolls. You can imagine Germans are not supposed to laugh at that stuff either.

ML: Haha. I'm a South Park fan. This game will be pretty much an 'equal opportunity offender'. We insult everyone! And yes, gameplay must be king. So much educational software failed because they made a learning experience out of a game, instead of making a game out of a learning experience. My grandparents brought me so much of that bullshit. I told them I'd rather read a book.

KOL: So what can you tell me about the game world of Untitled? It doesn't seem to be your average tolkien-esque fantasy land.

ML: I can tell you proudly that the damage formula is 1.2*(attack^1.45)/(defense^0.5) before randomization within a 10% bracket. Using this formula, the game franchise can last 4 episodes without hitting 8 digit damage values, provided you only show one final value from multi-hit attacks. I hate those games that spam you with numbers when it's obviously one move.

KOL: That is... awesome... I think.

ML: One small gameplay experiment I'm doing is to put western mechanics into a JRPG style game. In JRPG, as you progress, you often learn flashy skills that completely replace previous ones. Like, who would use Bahamut when you've got Zero-Mega-Bahamut?

KOL: Noone! What a preposterous thought!

ML: In WoW, all the skills are useful, that's the way we do it. It's tricky, but it with a lot of tuning it worked. I don't know if the mass-market will like that, though.

KOL: Makes me curious about the final game.

ML: I hope to revive the dying genre of turn-based RPG with this.

KOL: Judging from the trailers the story of ROTB seems to reference a lot of internet pop culture. Is Untitled an alien place for people who never heard of 4chan or will the average player find its way?

ML: Nah. Untitled is based on our real world map. It's actually a tolkien-esque fantasy world - it's necessary as a parody. Our world uses real places, names, all of which hold no relevance to their real life counterparts and locations. Some places may seem real to the less educated though - like Iceland being covered in snow. Hong Kong will be where australia is.

KOL: That makes me wonder what you have in mind for my place.

ML: Haha. Germany doesn't exist. Game worlds usually have under 10 countries.

KOL: Which have one city, only the biggest country has three.

ML: Yep. But there are some original concepts, too. I've reimagined furniture and Feng Shui. In Untitled, furniture is a living artifact, that requires a furniture glove to move. And you can't just climb over it. It simply blocks your way like that chair in College Saga. So you get bizarre things happening like furniture prisons consisting of some chairs and tables surrounding a person.

The chinese like to rearrange furniture to optimize their luck. In Untitled we have Feng Shui shrines - basically a pile of furniture, but it's supposedly meticulously placed by masters, and emits an aura that alters the nature of its surroundings. The game story surrounds Feng Shui shrines, and the furniture serves as temporary blockades.

KOL: To control player advancement?

ML: Exactly. You unlock passages as your furniture glove gains in power. Basic, traditional game mechanics that are proven to work - repackaged into a freak show. So some people who get put off by the minimal animal brutality or weirdass story may find themselves strangely liking the game.

KOL: Brutality by animals or to animals?

ML: Hmm. It's self-defense to kill a kitten I guess. Their licking can be fatal if you don't have much HP left

KOL: Without spoiling anything - is the hero the same Mark Leung from College Saga? Can old fans get their hopes up for more familiar faces?

ML: This game is indeed the spiritual successor of College Saga, but the story of College Saga was written to conclude at the ending, and it shall stay ended. The character of Mark Leung is similar though. He is just as lazy as he is a sarcastic and ruthless asshole - a living contradiction.

KOL: This L. Ron Diculous also has a familiar name.

ML: Hehe. He's a pretty lovable villain. I put a lot of thought on villains in my game. They are all parodies of someone.

KOL: McFunny from the trailers seems to be a huge hit with the crowd, too.

ML: McFunny's design actually makes a huge homage to the Ran Ran Ruu meme. It's a parody of course, of Joker and Ronald, but in battle he behaves like how he does in Ran Ran Ruu. Oftentimes the parody is to give an interesting appearance. They all have consistent motivations.

KOL: Although there a few exceptions from the rule, the big JRPG series are predominantly at home on video game consoles. Why did you choose the Windows PC over other possible platforms like Apple iOS or Xbox Indie Games?

ML: Eventually I would like to move into consoles and mobile phones, but considering the length of the game, it's too long for XBLA, and with no development track record, there's no guarantee my game would be made into a full console game. As for the mobile platform, there weren't stable, user-friendly - very important as a rookie team - and affordable 3D engines around when production commenced. PC was the only choice.

KOL: After the demo and the first episode in 2010, is there already a release plan for the remaining episodes of this new saga?

ML: Now that version 3 of the Unity-Engine has been released, our next project is to make the game for iOS and Android. Our game isn't pretty enough to be on PS3, but we are definitely capable of coming up with an impressive RPG - probably better than all the mobile JRPGs out there right now, i daresay.

As for episode 2, we will commence production in a few months. I want to spend the next few months supporting user feedback. I would eventually like to be running a successful business, but for now, I need to take responsibility in ensuring our first product is up to standards. I'm not too proud of the demo.

KOL: That is an art in itself. Often huge studios get that wrong.

ML: The recent changes were not incorporated, the maps are a bit crowded with monsters, some people have problems reading the text. And the video codec installer gets installed, but not the codec itself.

KOL: Thanks for the interview.

ML: Sure thing.