Nomion Games reveals creative director Jean Tyulegenov, former lead game designer on Escape From Tarkov | exclusive interview

Nomion Games studio unveiled its creative director, Jean Tyulegenov, the former lead game designer on Escape From Tarkov.

It also announced its debut project, Rush is Real, a high-stakes shooter game where movement is constant. It will be targeted at the PC and consoles.

Nomion Games said that Tyulegenov held the position of lead game designer for Escape From Tarkov for nine years and was “the second most important figure at Battlestate Games after Nikita Buyanov,” who recently launched his own new company Rant Gaming Studios.

As lead game designer, Tyulegenov was responsible for almost everything: bosses, quests, events, bots, core mechanics, AI, as well as the design of the Hideout and the Flea Market. Thanks to him, Tarkov became the game everyone knows today, Nomion said.

Now he will head the development of his own independent project, Rush is Real (Discord here) – a high-stakes shooter where players, spectators, and the game environment itself constantly force you to keep moving in order to win.

The first 10,000 players to join the Discord server will receive a special in-game gift from the Nomion Games team upon the release of Rush is Real.

Dmitri Ogorodnikov (left) and Jean Tyulegenov of Nomion. I did written interview with Tyulegenov. He told me the company was formally founded this spring, though the plans for creating the game had been discussed earlier. He said his cofounder Dmitri Ogorodnikov left in March and he left Battlestate in late April.

“To elaborate, as we know, after ten years of development, Escape from Tarkov has finally reached its release. The project is fully formed: everything has already been done there, and from now on, only patches will be released. There can’t be anything conceptually new there anymore; the game will just keep doing the same things,” Tyulegenov said.

He said a person with his mindset gets bored in such conditions. Simply working on straightforward tasks – that’s not for him.

“Maybe the Jean of fifteen years ago would have liked it,” he said. “But now I have completely different priorities. I need to move forward. I want to spend my time on ideas that have a chance to change the gaming industry and the very fabric of reality in modern video games. Even if not everything works out, it is critical to keep moving forward. Basically, that is where my relationship with Battlestate Games came to an end.”

He said the studio is at the prototype development stage, and they are trying trying to keep the team small and applying a lean approach. There are about 20 people, but the company is planning to grow the studio’s headcount in the near future, as the tasks are multiplying and becoming more complex, he said.

The company has raised money, but it can’t say where from yet. Asked about the inspiration, Tyulegenov said there are a few key goals with Rush is Real.

“The first is to rebuild the very mechanism of motivation. Many studios simply copy other people’s successful ideas, slightly improving the interface. We took a different path: we are building the project around an entirely new, rare mechanic, organically immersing it in understandable shooting and progression,” Tyulegenov said.

He added, “The second goal is to make the game a source of the right emotions and a genuine support system. For millennia, our psyche was honed for fast-paced, ‘survive or die’ stress – a hypothetical escape from a saber-toothed tiger. Today, this stress has been replaced by a slow, oppressive kind, but the brain still craves quick victories and heroic deeds here and now. “

He said the game fulfills this primal need. Furthermore, it can always become a loyal friend.

“Whether you are sad over a failed deal, spending New Year’s Eve alone at your computer, or, conversely, wanting to celebrate a success – the game and your online comrades will always provide the exact support you need in that moment,” he said.

As for inspiration, Tyulegenov said, “I turn heavily to art to reinvent mechanics. I am deeply inspired by the Japanese approach – director Kinji Fukasaku and the short stories of Haruki Murakami, with their unusual, unconventional view of worlds. But, while paying tribute to Japan, our most important source of inspiration has been American cinema – specifically, one particular film.”

He didn’t say what the film was.

“When the time comes, and you draw the parallel, realizing exactly what kind of gameplay we are building around this movie, it will become clear why we are making this specific game,” Tyulegenov said.

The company has a plan for development but it isn’t releasing any dates yet, only that it is working on the prototype.

I asked how the team felt about using AI for game development. Tyulegenov replied, “We feel very positive about it. AI is currently taking over the industry because it allows us to significantly speed up and reduce the cost of development by offloading routine tasks to a machine.”

He added, “For example, AI is a great help with mathematics and calculations: it brilliantly handles modeling, builds graphs and convenient visual interpretations, as well as structures and processes massive amounts of data. What used to take me a couple of days of work now takes just twenty minutes.”

And he said, “A practical example of our AI usage is the internal NADIA system I mentioned. It provides information to programmers and artists, quickly answering questions they need to clarify urgently. If they have doubts about something, they can always go to the Lead Game Designer later, but the system covers that primary need. As for art, AI allows you to concept visuals very quickly – this is a huge help in formulating a basic idea and moving forward.”

He said the most important thing in this process is not to let AI do the thinking for you.

“It must remain strictly a tool that handles the routine. If you stick to this rule, everything will be fine,” said Tyulegenov.

He also noted how Dima (Ogorodnikov) explained this in his recent interview for PCGamesN:https://www.pcgamesn.com/rush-is-real/ai-stance-interview.

He said the game is targeting a “fairly young audience.”

“These are players who keep up with new releases, who are looking for their own game, and who aren’t opposed to PvP battles. These are people who can’t sit still, who need that dopamine hit. That is our audience,” Tyulegenov said.



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