The Chosen: Well of Souls Wrap Report

Best Decisions

The first decision of this sort was to create the mechanism that enables the player to combine objects. The goal here was to give the player limitless possibilities with regards to weapon creation, and doing so gave players a lot of freedom within the game.

We put all our effort and heart into the production of The Chosen / Frater... many sleepless nights and many seven-day work weeks. A team of a few created a game played now by thousands. It was all worth it.

The storyline of the game is set in the 19th century. We were successful in creating the atmosphere of that time.

Continuing production past the premiere date resulted in creation of a game that is more beautiful and has better atmosphere. Extending the production process was a great risk for our company; however, I do believe that this additional time we had really paid off, and not only from a financial point of view.

Key Strengths

One of the very strong points of The Chosen is definitely the gameplay atmosphere and the storyline. We set the game storyline in the 19th century, which set our game apart from most available on the market.

Another strong point is the feature allowing for merging objects. From the beginning, it was our goal to create a system allowing for object merges. The system was to be easy to use and give a lot of satisfaction to the gamer. I believe that we were fully successful in this respect.

The third strong point is Golem and Neferkar, helpers available at any moment and very much needed in fighting the battle. Frater has many very strong elements that make our game definitely worth trying out.

Areas for Improvement

There are a few elements I would like to improve in the game itself and also the production process. The character models could be better, as well as the linear nature of the play. I think that there is also room for improvement in the soundtrack area. These are certainly the key elements that could be modified and changed for the better.

I would also expand the quantity and quality of the cutscenes. There are never enough of those in the game. Another thing was also handing many of the game-related projects to the outside teams a little too late.

Lessons Learned

During the production of Frater, I learned a few very good, but also rather painful lessons. I am happy to have experienced what I did, because those lessons will help me with future projects. ;) I have learned a great deal about the game makeup / construction and the necessary elements. :) I must say that each game, every new project teaches me something new.

Audience Response

We were very surprised and happy with the reaction of the gamers. We have had many positive comments on our websites, and also overwhelming feedback on other sites within the industry. The media and critical feedback was not as favorable. The opinions of these two sides are clearly opposite, which is understandable in the case of low budget games, where there are no funds for game promotion. Everyone can rate a game very well or criticize it completely, all depending on the how they choose to look at it.

Generally speaking I am very happy with the feedback of the Polish gamers. The game was very well received in this market, so much so that we are thinking about possibly making Frater Part II. We are working on writing the game plot at the moment.

Personal Thoughts

We put all our effort and heart into the production of The Chosen / Frater... many sleepless nights and many seven-day work weeks. A team of a few created a game played now by thousands. It was all worth it.

Krzysztof Krawczyk

CEO and Co-Founder, Rebelmind

The Chosen: Well of Souls (also known as Frater)

Wrap Reports are intended to complement reviews by providing a post-release viewpoint we seldom see, that of the developer and/or publisher. Since introducing this format in November of 2003, we have had the pleasure to publish quite a few, primarily within the RPG and online world categories, with selected action and strategy games also represented. A complete list of the previous ones may be found on the next page. - Ed.