HL Fallout: When did you begin development on Nightfall, and how did you get the idea for the story?

Kremator: The development of NightFall traces back into early 2005 when I was just bored and started a map for fun which I aim to use in my own little small SP mod called NightFall. The turning point of the decision was to post the WIP screens of that little map I made on interlopers at approximately 4:04 pm of Tuesday, Feb 1 2005. In the case that you are wondering how the hell do I remember that, it's on the thread that is still there in interlopers WIP section: http://forum.interlopers.net/viewtopic.php?t=1383 (http://forum.interlopers.net/viewtopic.php?t=1383).
Cr4ig, the moderator of Interlopers showed interest and contacted me and the first chapter of NightFall began. We then recruited members and organized a website and a host with much credit to Cr4ig's connections.

HL Fallout: Your website has an eerie feel to it. Would you care to elaborate any more on the storyline, or on the character of John Dalton himself?

Kremator: First of all, for the website I would really like to thank AcX and Mess for their contributions, without them the website would have not been this good. As for the storyline all I can tell is that John Dalton is not your average protagonist (if you have not figured that out already), he is not a washed up type like Max Payne or an uber killing machine like Duke Nukem. John Dalton is a character with depth and you will learn about his story while playing the game. The story of NightFall also requires some speculation and/or research in order to actually understand it, but I can tell you that we have given some hints on the website that should get you going on the right track.

HL Fallout: What would you say has been your biggest challenge so far in creating Nightfall?

Kremator: It's probably balancing the responsibilities in your life along with developing NightFall. Many of the developers have enough headaches on their own already and I really appreciate them biding their time into doing this free mod. (Not to mention my own headaches in keeping the team working.)

HL Fallout:You mentioned to me that you are looking forward to the SDK update from Valve. Based upon that, can we expect to see HDR used in Nightfall?

Kremator: Yes, you can expect that we will be using, to some extent, a HDR technology in NightFall. We are currently waiting for the SDK to test out the possibilities of implementing it to the whole mod.

HL Fallout: Can you share with us any information on what new weapons and enemies we will see? Are there any plans as of right now to include the use of vehicles?

Kremator: We are sketching out new ideas for weapons and some are in production such as the iPistol. The hard thing is coming up with a fresh idea for a weapon. We want NightFall to use a mix of conventional and combine weapons while not making it too bland or familiar with any other games which is very hard to do. The enemies in NightFall also follows along that line of design principle, we want them to be unique and require the player to think innovatively to defeat them while not differing away from the HL2 theme too much. Some enemies of this kind are the Spine Leech, and the "prototype strider".

Yes, there will be the use of vehicles in NightFall and we are trying to make the section that contains them as fun and intense as possible.

HL Fallout: How far along are you with the Nightfall project, and are you on schedule?

Kremator: We are having a struggle at the moment in terms of development pace since everyone is having school/college work and exams, but we will be getting back on track after a few weeks.

HL Fallout: Nightfall is scheduled to include 54 maps. That is a pretty large undertaking. Since episodic content seems to be popular these days, do you have any plans to release Nightfall in that fashion? Or will it be released as one complete HL2 single player mod?

Kremator: We are currently having internal discussions about that and so far we decided to release it as a complete SP mod since we believe that it would give a more complete experience that way and we don't have to try and keep up to the deadline of new episodes.

HL Fallout: Prior to the release of Nightfall, do you plan to make available any demos or preview videos for gamers to get a feel for the mod?

Kremator: We are planning to do that however things might change, for now you can all enjoy the teaser comic instead.

HL Fallout: Since we are on the subject of releasing the mod, do you have an estimate of exactly when it will be released? Also, have you had any contact with Valve about releasing it over Steam?

Kremator: The brief (and delay-able) release would be around May or June of 2006 but we hope to go for something more like March 2006 if possible. We have had some contact with Valve and they somewhat agree to help out in ways that they can, we may also use Vapour as another distributing method.

HL Fallout: Finally, is there anything else you would like to add?

Kremator: I would like to thank everyone who is involved, the Nigredo Studios team, Interlopers staff/ insurrection mod team, the Dystopia mod team (who offered us some accessories at the IGDC), ModDB staff, and all the fans out there especially 75thDeadman. and hetairia, you guys are so extreme

On a side note, we are still recruiting for a good programmer/coder, concept artist, and skinners. Those who are interested can find out more by emailing us at jobs@nightfallmod.net (mailto:jobs@nightfallmod.net)

HL Fallout: Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to allow me to interview you. Best of luck to you and your team with this mod!

Kremator: Thank you HLF team, especially Trooper, who showed us great interest and support. The night falls 2006!