Stomped: What is your single favorite moment in the game?

Kaufman: There's currently a glyph that Obi-Wan can do which is very sneaky and probably not very honorable from a Jedi standpoint. He quickly drops down and sweeps the saber out with his wrist, cutting his hapless victim off at the ankles. It's a whole lot of fun. Also, most of the acrobatics and jumping stunts are in, so you can forward-flip and roll up to an enemy, who's just totally confused by these physics-defying Force leaps, and whack him on the head before he knows what's going on. It's a pretty good approximation of the wild choreography from the Maul versus Qui-Gon versus Obi-Wan fight, and it's also a whole lotta fun for the whole family.

And the coolest part is, there's MORE animation to come!

Schmitt: Honestly, its the saber combat. I have been reading a lot of posts about the glyphs and how they will be difficult to master these. Let me tell you this, it is not that hard to master, and when you do, they create some really satisfying moments in the game. I was watching one the LDs play his level and he was rushed by some Sith Agents. They started taunting him and before one agent had time to finish his taunt, he had executed a glyph that made Obi lunge his saber into the agents chest cutting his taunt off quick.

Stomped: Why was the decision made to create a new engine for Obi-Wan, rather than update the Jedi Knight engine or license an engine from another company?

Bruner: The RenderDroid engine has served us well for many games (Jedi-Knight, MOTS, Grim Fandango and Jones3D) but was starting to really show it's age. It lacked a lot of the features that people expect from today's games. We needed an engine that could render lush Episode 1 worlds in great detail, support complex saber fighting animations, and allow for really cool force power interaction with stuff in the world. There wasn't an engine that supported everything well, so we decided to start fresh. We also try to leverage our technology across as many games. The Obi-Wan engine is very modular, and pieces of it are already getting used in other LucasArts games. I'd love for the Tanis engine to contribute to as many great games as RenderDroid has. Plus making a new engine is a lot of fun!