New video game ‘Basement’ is similar to ‘Breaking Bad’

For fans of the hit TV series “Breaking Bad”, they can get their drug-making fantasy fix with video game “Basement”. The indie strategy title allows games to play a “scientist that has been forced to do not exactly legal stuff underground” – managing a virtual crystal meth-making business, building production rooms, hiring employees and security staff, all the while avoiding the prying eyes of the cops. Metro spoke to Dmitry Minsky, a Belarusian programmer behind the game, now available for pre-order for PC, Mac and Linux.

“Basement” was definitely inspired by “Breaking Bad”, right?

— That’s everyone is talking about, but for real, we haven’t been watching the series much at all. Our artist forced himself not to watch the show so he wouldn’t wreck our own vision of a game. We can say that the game was mostly influenced by the sci-fi game franchise “X-Com”, the “RollerCoaster Tycoon” series, and real-time strategy title “Evil Genius”. All of our team are hardcore gamers with large gaming experience, and we are trying to bring most favorite elements from those games.

But the role of the player is exactly what Walter White from “Breaking Bad” does…

— Yes, that’s true, but that’s how it works. In here you build your own enterprise, which produces several types of drugs. Build production rooms, hire workers and security staff, avoid federals and capture new markets. We say that “Basement” will most appeal to players who like strategic, simulation or maybe the “Tycoon” games.

Why drug-dealing?

— First of all, “Basement” is just a game and you have to treat it as a game. We did not raise the issue of morality or something like this. We just want to create an interesting game with simple but deep strategic gameplay.

The game has already won praise for its graphics and art. How was the process of creation?

— All this is merit of our artist Vadim Kovtun. He is a perfectionist and the main reason why graphics looks polished. But, sometimes it brings a lot of problems – for example, we’ve reworked the game characters six times.

What do you think the game can represent for us? What are the expectations?

— There are a lot of unthinking, casual strategic games. At the same time, there are enough big, well-crafted strategic games with a lot of numbers in the interface, which can make you feel lost. We want to make something in the middle – a game that is easy to start, but at the same time, one where the player can find many interesting and sometimes funny ways to solve problems.