4Players: How did the idea for "Lagsters" come about? Is it inspired by Rollcage?

Boolat: We had no inspiration from other games. To be honest, Lagsters was a childhood idea of our lead artist, as he imagined races with toy cars somewhere in slums and sewers. And when we started development, we only had his concept. There were no more toy cars though, since we all became older and our ideas became perfect. We realised some new aspects that we wanted to see in our game, such as special gravitation, layout of tracks, the places where all the races will take part. And now, when we are always asked about the other games we make some comparison and we can say that Lagsters is a quite innovative game among in arcade racing.

4P: What are your goals in designing the driving system? What are the main features? Will it be more in the spirit of arcade-racing or more realistic?

Boolat: You know, we spent a lot of time to create something between a realistic and an arcade driving system. Our vehicles use so much physical parameters, that we could have made a real good simulator racing game – all those frictions and accelerations, influences caused by different driving axles, weight and shape are calculated like in reality; the physical model of the car is rather close to the picture you get on the screen. In the beginning, you even try to drive following the rules of other games, but when you understand one particular thing -the special gravitation- you understand the main feature if the game. The gravitation is based on the principle of the centrifuge, in other words, all objects are being attracted to the whole inner surface of the tunnel. After some time spent in Lagsters you understand what new freedom it gives you and what unusual steep turns you can perform here.

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4P: Is there a storyline in the game, especially in the singleplayer mode? And how does the singleplayer mode work in detail?

Boolat: There are two types of single player modes – quick race and championship. In quick race there are no stories told or performed. And although in championship you do not get very strong storyline either, there is some information about the world of Lagsters that you get piece after piece with each track. In brief, you are in the far future, inside of some almost abandoned structures, each one with its history that describes things happened with the world before. 

The game process of singleplayer offers two different types of the game – you can make a career in championship, or fight for your own pleasure in short races with AI opponents. Championship is divided in four parts, with 8 tracks in each one – you get 32 tracks in total. It gives you the opportunity to buy and sell cars and parts, to upgrade them and to get exclusive weapons and engines after execution of some special tasks. Finally, it gives you the opportunity to build the car the way you like it. There are no boundaries for your imagination, the higher you rise in the championship, the more unlocked parts you get.

4P: About the upgrade system for the vehicles in "Lagsters"? Is it similar to the system used in Need for Speed: Underground? Can you buy upgrades after each level?

Boolat: No, the upgrade system in Lagsters is quite different compared to NFS: Underground. You can reach different upgrade levels of parts of the same type. For example the upgrade level of booster for one car can be 3 and for the other – 8. At the same time, you can buy upgrades just if you have enough money.

4P: Does the environment (in the four different areas) influence the gameplay?

Boolat: On each track there’s a special set of objects, that sometimes can help or, vice versa, hinder the player. Basically, you get used to theird advantages and disadvantages; after driving some laps on the track made in one style you may already foresee what objects and obstacles you will find in another track of this style. However, you can never be safe and take it easy. Every track has some new moments, new parts; the track can be shown in mirrored form or you can drive the track backward – it gives a new vision of the game.

4P: What kind of weapons will the player get?

Boolat: You get anything your soul wishes. There are both attack weapons and countermeasures. We made everything for the player, so due to the variety of weapon the player can built his tactics. If you think, the machinegun is the best mean to blast your enemies – do it with the machinegun. For the other acts, such as immediate annihilation of them – use rocket launchers, or if you are a leader of the race and someone disturbs you from your back – there are minelayers. Add here plasma guns, electronic weapon and you get the full picture of fights in Lagsters.

4P: Can you tell us some details about the multiplayer modes: Last Man Driving, Fox and Hounds and Divided Glory?

Boolat: All these titles hide many hours of sometimes familiar or sometimes new gameplay for the racing games. For example, Last Man Driving seems to be more vehicle fight than the race – the winner in this mode is the one who will survive in this battle. Fox and Hounds is a race, where one player is randomly chosen as a Fox (the car of the orange colour with locked weapon) and all the others are Hounds. The Fox must pass certain number of laps without annihilation, and the Hounds must hinder the Fox to do it.

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Therefore, you can only guess which car you should better choose before starting the game. And, Divided Glory. This game mode offers two-team racing, where one team is Racers and the other is Blockers. Racers have to complete certain number of laps and the Blockers have to collect the certain number of "scrap” bonuses left on the place of the annihilation of any car of the other team.

In the full version, you get five modes of multiplayer, including the race for the bonuses and the race for the first who finishes.

4P: Which graphics engine do you use? Why is it so special?

Boolat: We use our engine. And it is so special, because we made it :-). We knew what we wanted to see in the game and how it has to look, that is why we understood - the most acceptable way for us is to create our own engine.

4P: Is a physic engine like e.g. Havoc implemented, too?

Boolat: Our physics engine also supports all features needed for the successful game. You can see many of the features on the screenshots, but feeling the game is quite another thing.

4P: Do you plan to release a playable demo before the release?

Boolat: It is not known yet. Only our publisher can decide anything about it.

4P: Did you already find a publisher for the game in Germany and when did you plan to release the game?

Boolat: We already found a world-wide publisher for Lagsters and it is a company "Noviy Disk” Any information about the publishing the game in Deutschland will come from them. And about the release date - Lagsters will appear in the Russian market in spring or this summer. It will be out in Europe very soon too.