By: Staff 03/28/00 Design by Brian Mullin Developer: 14 Degrees East Publisher: Interplay Target Release Date: Q2 2000 Genre: Simulation Page 1 of 3 Raphael Hernandez is the producer of Star Trek: Klingon Academy, Interplay's oft-delayed yet much-anticipated capital-ship simulation. As the game's title indicates, players will train to take the helm of a Klingon ship or two -- or seven -- fight in glorious battles under the leadership of General Chang and Chancellor Gorkon, and eat some grub, all in the goal of expanding the Klingon Empire's reach. To heighten the Star Trek gaming experience, Interplay has taken steps to improve critical gameplay issues. In honor of Star Trek week, we asked Raphael Hernandez to talk to GameSpot about some of those concerns. Raphael Hernandez GameSpot: Why has Klingon Academy been held up in development for so long? Raphael Hernandez: First, the original vision for this title was to create a game that was essentially Starfleet Academy but with Klingon ships and a brand-new storyline. This original vision was proven to be woefully flawed very early on due to the fact that Starfleet Academy was getting bad reviews in the American press and because Klingon Academy was This interview was published as part of GameSpot's Star Trek Week. To see that entire feature, click here. intended to be released shortly after Freespace 1. This required a complete overhaul of the original vision for the product so that it would address all of the complaints from SFA and also be competitive within a genre whose standards were soon to be raised by Freespace 1. Click to enlarge Second, it was decided that we were to use the Starfleet Academy engine and build this new product from that code base. Regardless of the risks and problems associated with trying to make a cutting-edge game from an engine whose core was already more than three years old and used an 8-bit software renderer, the decision was made to use as little new technology as possible. Click to enlarge In addition to the above challenges, we were limited in the size of our team. Our initial ranks started out with only three programmers, and the project was well into development for a year before we increased our programming staff. Lastly, add to this mix the fact that we were trying to do certain things that were new to the space-sim genre (ginsuing, interactive space terrain), and you now have a collective picture of what we had to overcome in order to get where we are today. Click to enlarge In light of the challenges we've overcome, what is most amazing about this project is not that it has taken us so long to get to where we are now, but that we've gotten this close to completion and still created a game that is of the highest quality and a lot of fun to play. Next: A look at gameplay and Klingon culture