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Ten Ton Hammer: How much is each coin worth?

Although you can't customize your character, the computer will give you one of the hundreds of randomly generated avatars to play.

Eddie: That really depends on the stake of the game. Kwari is all about stakes, and right now you can play anywhere from $0.01 per hit to any amount they'd like to wager. We have rankings in the game, but it's actually measured on a profit and loss basis. If a player is frequently winning, they'll find harder opposition. If they're constantly losing they'll find easier opposition. At the same time, we also have technology that keeps players faking their skill levels from taking advantage of lower skilled players. We're very interested in doing accurate skill matching in the game.

Ten Ton Hammer: Just to clarify, there will be four different themes - the three different scenarios and the countdown - but how many different maps will there be?

Eddie: There will be nine maps for the three themes, but there will only be one map for the countdown arena. But when the game goes live, we'll be adding different maps and we'll also be adding different functions.

That's one of our main goals, to add different features to our game along with additional maps. For example, we're hoping to introduce a function in the game, one month after launch, that's an object that flies around the level and players can shoot at it. It costs $0.01 to shoot at it, but when a player hits the object coins come exploding out of the item that anyone can pick up.

Ten Ton Hammer: How do you protect players from griefing and cheating?

Eddie: We spent a huge amount of time on security because this is a game about money and requires all the appropriate security measures. We couldn't just take the Unreal Engine and make a game about money. When we began pursuing this game, the first thing we did was make an arrangement with a company that provides the betting and security technologies for some of the largest online gambling sites in the world. After that, we enlisted a modified version of the BigWorld engine (a premier MMOG engine) with specialized technologies provided by us and the gambling security company. We have a very elaborate data capture system where we capture every single shot in the game. When you fire a shot at me, before you see any money change hands, it's being captured in the database. There are no "war hacks" in our game; almost everything is operated server side. It's only in a very close area that the client actually controls. We also use variable encryption and we change encryptions very very frequently. A lot of time was spent programming routines that analyze network traffic, so if there are any abnormalities we nail them down very quickly.

We take all of our security measures very seriously, because we don't see it as cheating when it involves money. We see it as stealing. That said, this game is for 18-year-olds only and you must have a credit card to play. For every time a person tries to hack us, they're going to need a new credit card.

Kwari will be digitally distributed.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are you going to market this game? Will it be sold in stores? Will it be distributed digitally? Both?

Eddie: Initially we're going to be entirely digital. When I first began conceiving of Kwari, I wanted to make a game that had easy distribution, ultra low cost, ongoing revenue stream, and those were our objectives. On top of that, I wanted to distribute the client for free. I tried to devise the game around the business model itself. I spent two years researching gambling and the thrill of money, but I also wanted to make our game 100% skill based. Kwari is not a game of chance in any way shape or form.