About Nucleosys and Scratches

[Agustin]

Hello everybody!

My name is Agustin and I'm the co-founder of Nucleosys, a young company aiming to produce hopefully many adventure games in the future. Our upcoming horror game Scratches has been in production for over two years. It is a point-and-click, first-person adventure and has an old-school feel to it. The plot is as classic as it gets: in a style reminiscent of 70's horror movies, you play the role of a writer, Michael Arthate, that arrives to a newly acquired Victorian mansion to finish work on his new book. He slowly becomes very interested on the past of house and the people that used to live in there - the Blackwood family - a past that happens to involve a murder and some odd happenings. Nothing inside Blackwood manor is what it seems though, and the plot quickly turns into a rollercoaster of twists and turns sooner than you can say "strange noises in the basement".

Scratches is a very atmospheric game influenced by the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and those brilliant Hammer Horror films. It is expected to be a challenging and fun adventure - puzzles won't be there to get in the way but to help in moving the story forward. It is also expected to be a very scary journey ;D There is a cinematic feel to the game which is greatly in part to the outstanding soundtrack created by Cellar of Rats. The composer will be around so you can bug him with questions as well (just watch out for the tentacles).

Working on this game has been a tremendous experience, if a bit painful and stressing, but everything is coming to an end very soon!

There have been actually quite some materials released during production, the most recent being:

Demo: http://www.nucleosys.com/files/scratches-demo-en.exe
Trailer: http://www.nucleosys.com/files/scratches-trailer-en.wmv


The following are older, short demos (or "interactive teasers" as we liked to call them) featuring gameplay not to be found in the final game. The first teaser is almost a curiosity by now, as is very old and not representative of the game at all:

Second Teaser: http://www.nucleosys.com/files/scratches-t2.exe
First Teaser: http://www.nucleosys.com/files/Scratches_Teaser.exe


So there you go! That should be enough to get you started... hope you have fun with us! We are nice, if a bit strange, group of people :-X

[CoR]

The composer will be around so you can bug him with questions as well (just watch out for the tentacles).

Yah, well, that would be me... Forgot them tentacles, tho'.

;D

[Tomsess]

Hi. We are a small Hungarian adventure website http://www.adventuregames.hu and want to ask some questions about your prepairing games. Sorry for my english!

[chris156]

Hello!

I'm a beta tester of Scratches. I'm just here to keep Agustin and Cellar of Rats company ;D

Ich spreche auch Deutsch!

[Agustin]

Ask away Tomsess! Our English isn't that hot either :

Look, our groupies are here too ;D

[imported_Lego]

Glad you guys could make it. I'm a poster over at the Nucleosys site and really looking forward to this game.

[Tomsess]

When will be Scratches released?
What is the main storyline?
How can you write the basic feeling of the game?

[Agustin]

"When will be Scratches released?"

Scratches is about to be completed in a few days and is due out in some European countries in January. Hopefully, the English version will be released by then too (can't confirm this yet).

[Pendulo Studios]

I just want to say that it's really great that Scratches is a reality now. The game looks terrific and I wish you guys a lot of success with it.

[Hidden Sanctum]

So how much did Scratches cost to develope?

[chris156]

How can you write the basic feeling of the game?

One word Tomsess: k�s�rtetj�rta!

[Agustin]

"What is the main storyline?"

You play the role of a horror writer, Michael Arthate, that arrives to his newly acquired Victorian home. Some of it is in poor conditions but the place is worth a fortune! Michael should finish work on his new wook but little by little becomes intrigued by the strange past surrounding the house. This involve a vicious murder, occurred during odd circumstances, and "something else". If you want to know what that is, you'll have to solve the clues I posted

[Agustin]

"How can you write the basic feeling of the game?"

Oppresive, bleak, dark, atmospheric puts it rather well!

[Agustin]

Glad you could stop by Mr. Pendulo Studios!! ;D
Wish you the best with Runaway 2!!

"So how much did Scratches cost to develope?"

It's a bit hard to determine but it was developed in a shoestring budget. If you disregard our wages (which we didn't have) you could estimate some general costs and software licenses in about U$2000

With our wages, it'd sum up to about U$12,000. These are numbers from the top of my head though!

[PolloDiablo]

Another betatester reporting for duty

[Hidden Sanctum]

Pretty awesome I'd say! I think it shows just how far creativity and determination can go.

As a beta tester, I've been blown away by the attention to detail and commitment to quality. Do you have any long range plans for the Scream engine you guys developed? Licensing? It seems incredibly stable so far.

[Agustin]

One thing's for sure about SCream: it'll be free for non-commercial projects! As for licensing, we're not sure yet. Chances are each case will be treated separately (ie: very friendly costs for indies).

I can't confirm this but there has been a lot of interest on the engine and how it works... and we're considering going opensource. It would be a first for adventure game engines! (I think?)

[imported_Lego]

Well thanks guys for answering my questions. Time for me to go now (you're going to make me late for class).

[Agustin]

Well thanks guys for answering my questions. Time for me to go now (you're going to make me late for class).

Aaah pity... just when we were about to reveal what's down in the basement

[PolloDiablo]

Hey I don't know yet, so tell us anyway ;D