Membrillo dulce

they had saved themselves. And when they die, that knowledge is probably lost forever. So you feel an obligation to them to get it right.

Mechner: I mean, you can legitimately ask, "Who cares? What does it matter which way the sleeping car faced?" But there's something about a piece of history on the verge of being forgotten. Whatever else you can say about this game, it's authentic.

Barba: How did the story and characters develop? You said there was a long period of writing before the game design began.

Pierce: Yes, we spent a long time developing the story. We wanted full characters with complete stories, with histories. The back stories we created for each character are very extensive. Everybody on the train has a reason for being there. They represent something about the changing nature of the time.

Mechner: Everyone on the train has to see their story from their point of view.

In each character's mind, he or she is the hero of the game.

Barba: Yeah, I really appreciated that there were no one-dimensional characters in this game. Everybody's got a story. Everybody is sympathetic. Even August...the Serbian terrorists...you understand their motivations, you know exactly where they're coming from, and there's no actual "bad guy." It's just conflicting interests coming together in this cauldron of the train.

Pierce: That's the bitter comedy of war, that everybody has their reasons.

Mechner: In a computer game, it's pretty tempting to have an evil opponent—you're the good guy, they're the bad guy, and when you beat them, you win. World War I is very resistant to that. The more we read about it, the more we realized this war had been a mistake for everyone. Nobody knew what they were getting into, even the people who were most guilty of provoking the conflict.

Pierce: They went in with a very innocent moral structure and an appetite for material things, with the new Industrial Age powering up. They had no idea how long the war was going to last or how devastating it would be.