Daily Radar: What is your name and title and what is your role in the development of Mafia?

Daniel Vavra: Daniel Vavra, Lead Designer. My job is to write the screenplay and documentation and then to direct the development process.

DR: When we last spoke, the driving portions of the game were near completion. What else has been accomplished since then?

DV: A lot. We upgraded parts of the physics, so now it's almost a racer's dream. We also worked on our LipSync technology, and the facial animations are awesome. All the graphics will be finished in a month or so, including landscape surrounding the city. We have modeled a lot of characters and the engine is being upgraded for DirectX 8. The AI is also still in development, and it seems that it will take us a little bit longer.

DR: We know that the player will take the role of a member of a mafia family. How will this be handled? What is the ultimate goal?

DV: The story is similar to Goodfellas movie in the way it is spoken. There is no ultimate goal for the player; you just have to live the life of 1930s gangster. You will fulfill tasks given to you from your boss. You will meet people and make friends. But then, as the time progresses, the player will appear in the war between two Mafia families and will have to fight for the survival of one of them. Friends you made will leave you, and gangster life will show its dark side.

DV: No.

DR: In addition to the driving portions of the game, what other major elements will be included?

DV: We tried to make each mission different from the others. There are lots of car chases, but it is not even 50% of the game. There will be lot of action scenes, but also stealth scenes, assassination with sniper rifle, bank robbery, circuit racing or even some adventure elements...

DR: Is the game in three dimensions, or is it more Resident Evil in its style with three-dimensional characters over two-dimensional backgrounds?

DV: Full realtime 3D.

DR: One major part of the best new games is the audio, both voice work and music. Will Mafia include voice-overs?

DV:Yes, hopefully we will find good actors, because Italian gangsters have very special voices.

DR: What about the music? Is it in a '20s or '30s style or is it more modern?

DV: We did not select the music yet, but expect a classical movie-like score, with some '30s elements.

DR: The game looks graphically impressive. Are you using a custom engine or is it bits and pieces of existing engines? If it's custom, why did you do that instead of using an existing 3D engine?

DV: Its our custom LS3D Engine. We decided to program it, because there was not (and still is not) an engine that we could use for such huge outdoor areas. Also it is cheaper to program your own engine if you have a few good programmers rather than pay one million dollars for two-year-old technology.

DR: How many playable characters are there?

DV: Only one. But very often he is accompanied by other characters, which are controlled by the CPU.

DR: How long does it take to finish the game? What's the target for replayability?

DV: I don't know. But our goal is to have something around 20 hours for the core game. But there will be lot of subquests and lot of things to unlock. You will have to collect special cars and then finish the game to unlock racing options to race with these cars. The racing game will be something like Gran Turismo. We will have 60 cars and at least eight circuits. And if you win, there will be free race mode like Midtown Madness.

DR: Are there any other comments you'd like to make?

DV: Yes. I must apologize for any release delays to all the people who write me emails with questions about release date: "Stay tuned! We don't want to make a bad game, and you don't want to buy bad games. There are still parts that are not as good as we want, so we will have to work a little bit more to make everything perfect." And also: "Yes, we will make a demo before the release!"