After the release of Lovechess : Age of Egypt it has been quiet around Artmunk games. There were a few articles published on your development pages, mainly about erotic games in general, but nothing specific about an upcoming title. So what are you guys working on?
Well, we have been working on a new sexual themed game, although it's actually more a simulation, or as we like to call it, a virtual exploration of sexual possibilities and fantasies. The whole concept is build upon the idea to give the user control, let him/her decide what's going to happen, how far he likes to push his limits. I all honesty I can state here, that we have broken quite a few "political correct" rules, and pushed some borders here and there.

What's the theme of the game, and what's the name when it's released?
The name we keep secret for a while, mainly to protect it from copying and registering, we're still in the process of claiming the name worldwide. The game is set in the thirties of the past century, the time of the great luxury trains, like the Orient express. We use the train as a metaphor, a vehicle to travel along your own erotic fantasies and desires. An other important aspect in this title is the dream. Most people, I guess all people, dream about things they would like to do, but don't do in real life. To visualize this we made a dream world with an overall surrealistic atmosphere.

The word simulation is often used in the adult games market, why is yours differently?
I know that the term "simulation" is often used, but much too often it's just used as a marketing phrase, or they interpret the term rather broad. In our opinion a simulation must be an "open exploration" where the user can really do what he fancies, not follow a narrow line, with a set of animations attached to it. In our game the structure is more open, the user can really influence the sex, be a part of it, decide what's going to happen next. We also created a real-time physics engine that makes the sexual interaction, and body movement, more realistic. So, in a way you can control ( or try to control ) the woman, or man, as you would do in real life when you have sex.

Can you be more specific about that?
When you want your partner to do something, assuming your already have landed in bed, you often don't ask him/her to do something, you just maneuver. It's a subtle play of touching, pulling and pushing, persuading, kissing and whispering, till you get the things you want or your partner wants. Or things take their own way, even better. We want the interaction inside our game to feel like this.

You said you guys have broken a few rules, or borders, what can we expect?
In our virtual train (did I mention all takes place in a train?) you can expect all the sexual variants you could think of, but also many of the fetishes and sm things people have invented, and quite a bit more. We have a machine chamber/wagon, that's a heavy one, which we call the "Spider room". There you can use a machine to please or displease you virtual partner. Or the "hunting lodge" a wagon our Heidi calls home. It's an homage to the Tiroler sex movies from the seventies.

When will the game be finished? Is there a release date yet?
I would say we're at 2/3 but I guess that's wishful thinking from my part, the engine and a lot of the artwork is entering the pre-animation stadium, but there's still a lot of work to be done.
We hope to be able to release the game Q2 this year, but we will only release it when it's really finished and tested throughout.

The images are screenshots from the machine chamber, or spider room. Where you control the spider shaped machine to please or displease your virtual partner.