We always thought of Paul as something of a water baby, and given his penchant for all things liquid we sent him off to question Blade Interactive's Pete Jones on the developer's ambitious new offering: Hydrophobia (two exclusive new shots are now available here).

Your new game, Hydrophobia, has recently been revealed, can you give us the low-down on what we can expect?

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We have assembled a team that comprises some of the industries finest talents to produce a different type of game. We take the view that next-gen isn't about delivering more of the same old games with upgraded graphics - it's about giving the player a whole new experience. In Hydrophobia we deliver this in three main ways:

First and most obviously there is the tech - no other game comes close. It's not only the water (which looks and behaves EXACTLY like real water) its real-time lighting and shadowing, its volumetric lighting, its fogging. Hydrophobia is created using a tool we call 'Infinite Worlds' which is our next gen suite. No other game even comes close to what we are doing. It gives an environment which is mathematically defined. What does this mean for the gamer? It means a bloody big world for one, secondly expect on the fly procedural texture changes i.e. we can deform and re-texture / remap the entire environment in real-time. In short we're making a gigantic, superbly detailed, and varied world, with water that looks exactly like the real thing, with lighting and other effects that will blow people away.

Second is the story. It is absorbing and deep (pardon the pun). The characterisation brings the cast to life. Each character has his or her own character arc. There are no cut scenes in this game yet the story is conveyed to the player progressively - and each player's experience is different. For the player that wants to delve more we blur the boundaries between reality and the game world. For instance the Terrorists have real world ideology - a difficult trick to pull off without upsetting any existing political, religious or ethnic groups.

I have deliberately left gameplay until last. We have created a game that puts gameplay at the heart of every decision we have taken in the game - to misquote old Bill 'It's about gameplay; stupid.' We aim to give players a very different experience. The game, like a movie, is comprised of acts, each act is comprised of episodes and each episode has its own act structure. Each episode also has its own unique gameplay emphasis which constantly challenges the player in new ways. We have even made the water tech subservient to this - it is given to the player in a series of technological wow factors which reinforce both the gameplay and the story. Expect cliff-hangers, expect to adapt your thinking, expect to see something which you would not have believed games to be capable of delivering.

What we want to be seen to produce is a seminal work that changes the way that games are made. There, I'm finished now.

So, water, an element that's often attempted in games but rarely mastered, considering how the success of Hydrophobia's water effects could be the difference between the game sinking or swimming (sorry...) how confident are you that you've cracked it?

In two weeks time we are releasing our first captured sequence of our water in action. Entirely in game, entirely in game environments. The player can make their own mind up. You can be fooled into believing that this is real water. It looks and behaves that realistically. And remember unlike any game EVER this is real water and it flows. We have flow, we have real-time ripples in the flow, we have meta-ball splashes that self ripple, we have foam where high energy water fogs the surface, we have emergent behavior eddies, we have particles on the surface and below the surface (up to 600,000 of them) we have a revolutionary procedure called wet mapping (whatever the water touches it wets - i.e. it darkens the texture, dependant on the absorbency of the material - non absorbent material it will coat with a film of water which then sublimates into drips). Oh, and we have perfect specular reflection, object and environment reflection and perfect refraction, we have dynamic caustics both above and below the water - check out the compression wave acoustics when a wave moves through a light. We also have a constantly changing wave pattern on the surface which is entirely dynamic but so detailed it looks like a video of real water.

Besides how it looks and moves can we expect the water to have the anticipated effect on the environment, for example doors being harder to open and close, debris and other objects being carried around by the current and the angle of the ship causing shifting water levels.

Okay, the environment and objects within it all have real world properties, expect the water to interact with this environment in exactly the same way that it does in real life. Remember two things - first the environment is absolutely huge - this isn't a ship it's a floating city. Second it is entirely dynamic - the water has a high level fluid dynamics algorithm that means no two experiences will be alike. Open a door here and water will flow though it. This may help the player, this may hinder the player, this may kill the player (or their avatar at least). If a wall is made of flimsy material - wood or plasterboard, the water will rip right through it. If it is stronger it may retain the water until such time as the water pressure overwhelms it. If it is a bulkhead it may well retain the water indefinitely. Ditto with all environmental objects - depending on the material they are made from they will either float or sink, some will float initially, become waterlogged, and then sink. Each object is given its own centre of gravity so they will behave realistically. Let me give an example: a vending machine. As the water level rises the vending machine remains in place but because it is somewhat top heavy before it starts to float it first falls over into the water. Understand this; our Hydroengine is completely paralyzed, that means it runs in parallel to the other functions such as Havok physics.

The game's heroine, Kate Wilson, is apparently afraid of water, an interesting twist considering her situation but how does her fear of water manifest itself in the gameplay?

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