The creative vision of Eastman and the identifiable character of Strain were exactly what Ritual needed to get their creative juices flowing after the disappoint that was SiN.   “When we first started the gig, it seemed like every day we'd get something from the movie -- concept drawings, various versions of the screenplay," Atkins recalls. "That was one of the reasons we took on the property because we were almost mentally exhausted coming off of SiN to have to start a new game from ground zero."   Dochtermann admits that while the concept sketches were nice, Strain herself served as the team’s muse.     "Julie Strain is an awesome person. She inspired our artists, and there's a lot of Julie in the game," says Dochtermann. "If we didn't have that female archetype character that Julie Strain embodies, I think it would be a different game."

For Strain, the experience of seeing herself as a video game character for the first time turned out to be quite emotional. "When she saw it at E3, she almost started crying," says Atkins. "Julie was very happy. The game to her, I think, is one of her highlights of her career. From everything she's said and all this support she's given us, the game is very special to her and Kevin both -- the fact that they have an awesome video game based off of her character. It's something that she really loves."

Part of that love may be born out of the fact that mainstream acceptance has largely eluded both Strain and Eastman.  “Julie has worked so hard in her career to get to where she is -- She certainly hasn't taken the easy path,” explains Doctermann.  “She's the 'queen of B movies' and that's a huge stigma. Sure, Julie would like to win the Academy Award, but in a way it's a little bit cooler, or a lot cooler, that she got turned into a video game character."   Not only did she get turned into a video game character, but one artist at Ritual spent over a year and a half perfecting the computer-rendered version of Strain.

However, with Strain and Eastman being relatively unfamiliar with game development – but intensely familiar with the pains of doing hand-drawn animation – the Ritual crew admits the ability to instantly change the game environment on the fly proved to be a pleasant surprise to the Heavy Metal couple.  "I think we kind of shocked them," says Tom Mustaine, a Ritual game designer who led the production of F.A.K.K. 2. "The way they produced the movie was pretty different from how quickly we can turn out results here and make stuff look really cool, really fast."

As any game developer will tell you, the toughest thing about designing a game is trying to turn what’s cool into what’s good gameplay.  While the inspiration was there early, the team behind F.A.K.K. 2 now had to face the challenge of creating a fun game.