This week we present an exclusive interview with Owen Wu, designer and producer at Gameness Art Software and Metro3D, regarding Stake, a new fighting game from the Taiwanese developer.

Stake is the first game from Metro3D. Could you introduce your company and describe your previous experience as a developer?
My name is Owen Wu, designer and producer of Metro3D's "Stake" for Xbox. My company is called Gameness Art Software. I established the company in August 2000 in Taipei, Taiwan. My first project was creating the Veda game development engine that makes it quick and easy to add or modify details in a game. It also makes it easier to translate games to multiple platforms. Our first title to be released is Stake, which we began developing for the PC in 2001. I began the translation to Xbox this past July 2002.

What is Stake, and what will gamers have to look forward to as the release date approaches?
Stake is an action-oriented arena-based combat fighting game. There are eight awesome fighters that come from all different parts of the world. Everyone is trying to win the coveted Stake tournament and bring fame to his or her homeland. In single player mode, players will face multiple CPU fighters and endeavor to reach a pre-set knockout or "frag" count, and time limit to advance to the next arena. The multiplayer modes are 1-4 player Death Match and Team Death Match. Thus, for both single and multiplayer modes, when you die you can re-spawn and keep playing! Death Match is all-out war for frags, whereas Team Death Match allows you to team up with friends and take on the CPU or other friends (or enemies as the case may be). You can adjust pretty much any aspect of the multiplayer game, from the number of human players and CPU players, the number of kills/frags needed to win, time limit, etc. You can also determine if you want extra help in the levels - like having the map that shows where your opponents are in the arena and the on-screen arrows that point to your enemies.

Stake is going to be one of the first fighting games to make use of the Xbox Live service. What extra features or game play modes will this make available?
Stake is a 1-4 player game made exclusively for the Xbox game console. The hooks for Xbox Live! are in the game, but due to time constraints full online play will not be available. Downloadable content is undetermined at this point.

What do you feel distinguishes this title from other multiplayer focused brawlers such as Kung Fu Chaos or Godzilla DAMM?
I unfortunately have not had the chance to check out Kung Fu Chaos or Godzilla, but Stake did start out like Power Stone. Yet when you play that game the levels feel so constricting. I aimed to open up the levels to make more Death Match style action throughout the game. Being able to re-spawn is a particularly cool feature. There still is the interactivity that's so cool in Power Stone and Smash Brothers that you'll also see featured in Metro3D's Stake.

The "anger" levels appear similar to limit breaks commonly found in RPGs. Was the inclusion of this the result of trying to incorporate popular elements from other genres, or simply to balance the game play among competitors of different skill levels?
The "Anger" Powers were added to Stake to add more gameplay variety beyond the regular medium and hard attacks. Each character is balanced as you mention between speed, size and "Anger" Powers to make them all fun to play. The skill of the gamer comes into play in executing "Anger" and "Rage" Powers into multi-hit combos for serious damage to reach the coveted frag point.

How much impact will the interactive arenas have on the outcome of a fight?
Each arena has several different means of being interactive. First off, there are items and weapons. Items are mostly short-lived power-ups that make you invincible, increase the damage you inflict, recharge your Power or Health bar, increase your jump distance and speed, and most fun, is the invisibility cape. Weapons give you the chance to freeze, burn, shrink, blow up or slow the speed of your opponents. You can also trigger traps that look like items - how sneaky! Come across an invincibility shield and BOOM! Good laughs for all.

Approximately how many moves and combination attacks will each fighter have? Will players enjoy using certain fighters rather than others based on their tendencies, such as those who are defensive-minded?
Each character has two principal attacks, with two additional "Anger" Power Moves and an ultimate "Rage" Move. Each of these moves can be coupled together for multi-hit combos. As I mentioned above, each character is balanced, but players will certainly enjoy playing Anglesite for his powerful attacks, Baron for his speed, Void for his "Rage" Move, and much more.

With many online games, the strength of the playing community can greatly increase a title's longevity. Do you think this will be an important aspect of Stake, and will certain features or modes in the game reflect this?
The hooks for Xbox Live! connectivity are already in Stake, but due to time constraints full online play will not be available. Downloadable content for Stake is undetermined at this point. I plan to complete the game then determine exactly what additions we can make available.

Both Metro3D and Bunkasha, the developers of Wreckless, are small teams. Do you feel there are any advantages to having such a small, tight-knit development group?
Having a small team makes it really easy to communicate and to produce exactly what I want. The challenge of this, of course, is that there is a lot more work for me personally and it takes a lot of time to do so. So there are positives and negatives to the small team concept, just like there are pluses and minuses about large teams.

Do you plan to use the engine developed for Stake in future titles, or start from scratch with each project?
Yes, I definitely plan to use the Veda and Stake engines in future projects because they're both great tools to start from.

Which games do the folks at Gameness like to play on lunch break or over the weekend?
I certainly put in my time with Quake and other FPS.

Will you be checking out user created maps or engaged in some brawls with fans online?
Certainly, perhaps in the future.