Duke Nukem 2: An Interview With Interceptor Entertainment

The remake of Duke Nukem 2 was announced for iOS devices earlier today with a neat little trailer to go along with it, and it's set for release this coming April.

I got to sit down with Interceptor Entertainment's Frederik Schreiber to talk about the game and what their plans are for the title.

"We took a look at some of our favorite games, and were shocked that one of the best DOS platformers ever didn't get more love," said Schreiber about the studio's motivation to make the game. "Coupled with the problem that the sourcecode didn't exist anymore, we had a big challenge ahead of us."

"I believed we had a solution to that problem, and got in touch with Scott Miller, to talk about a possible deal. And Duke Nukem 2 for iOS was born!"

I asked the developer what sorts of additions players could expect to see with the upcoming iOS version of the game beyond touch-screen controls.

"We wanted to strike a good medium between the old game, and new tweaks and additions," replied Schreiber. "We added a new frame and control scheme, redid the original cover artwork, and did a new main menu, optimized for touch controls. We also added customization options for the controls, as well as a new theme song."

As for whether the game would come with GameCenter achievements from its release, Schreiber says that those would be added in later patches as implementing it remains a big challenge for the team due to the lack of a sourcecode. To that end, I asked him about what the team needed to do to port the game.

"We dissembled the entire gamecode in HEX format and started from there, going through it line for line. We created a plan around which parts of the game we could hack, and which we couldn't, it ended up as a mix between clever hacking, a custom pixel-detection application running on top of the app, as well as different hex-code hacks," explained Schreiber.

"The game is actually the old dos game running in our own custom emulated environment," he said. "It's a big mix of things to ensure the game is playing fluently, as well as supporting our new control scheme, touch controls, swiping, accelerometer, etc."

Depending on how popular the game is going to be iOS, Schreiber says that the team is open to the possibility of creating new levels and content for Duke Nukem 2. Regardless of how well it does on the platform, Interceptor Entertainment shared their plans to port the game to other platforms like Steam.

"We have Mac and PC plans as well," said Schreiber. "The audience deserves a good PC port, that's more than just the classic running in Dropbox."

Beyond Duke Nukem 2, Interceptor Entertainment is currently working on Rise of the Triad.