Additional lore media

During the development of INFRA, additional lore snippets were posted as part of its promotional materials on IndieDB, Facebook, Indiegogo and Imgur. After the release of the game, the developers provided additional information and answered community questions on Steam Discussions and Discord.

This is a source page that can be referenced in other articles, content here remains unchanged from their original form as they were posted, however due to develoepers not being a native English speakers, minor typos, misspellings and mistakes might be present. The only section that has a modified content is the developer's commentary, which due to a nature of more casual and informal comments during conversations, had various typos corrected and an additional context added in brackets, where it was absolutely necessary.

Indiegogo campaign synopsis 1st revision

The game tells a story of deep structural corruption in a realistic but fictional city called Stalburg. The player is an engineer whose day goes from an interesting yet ordinary facility inspection to a struggle against the environment and mistakes of the past. As the player, you are faced with demanding challenges and situations in a fragile and complex world. You must thereby use your wits and experience to balance between survival and the quest for truth. There’s a lot to discover and learn about the world also outside the beaten path.

Stalburg and the detailed world:

• Large Baltic/European metropolis.
• Founded during the medieval times as a mining town.
• Used to be one of the most important European steel producers, a major industrial power.
• Rich in history, with medieval castles and other historical locations visit-able in game.
• Realistic – everything in the city has a function and the city is planned to function like a real city. Multiple different districts with personalities and backgrounds of their own. From the 1900s industrial areas to modern business parks and wooden old towns. Now decaying infrastructure built during the 1960s when the city's industrialization was at its peak.
• Multiple different locations: water tunnels, sewers, maintenance tunnels, metro stations, abandoned factories or other facilities, the streets of the city, modern offices, old and wooden parts of the town, dams, rural areas, homes and more. The puzzles are unique to each area.
• A lot of art glorifying city's industrious past.
• City's political field is defined by it's industrial past, major political axles are anti-technological vs. technological and liberal vs authoritative. *The city is at a point of redefining itself. These multiple political parties and organizations add to the story.
• A deep networked story – the corruption has far-reaching roots.

~Posted on INFRA Indiegogo page, 2015.

Indiegogo campaign synopsis 2nd revision

Third important dimension of the game is the story. That is, INFRA tells about deep structural corruption in a realistic but fictional city called Stalburg. The physical structure reflects and symbolizes past interests and political games. As an engineer, your days go from interesting yet ordinary facility inspection to struggles against the mistakes and hazards of the past. You get to use your wits and experience to balance between survival and the quest for truth. There’s a lot to discover and learn about the world also outside the beaten path.

Let us introduce Stalburg in a few more words. Stalburg is large Baltic/European metropolis, which was founded during the medieval times as a mining town. It used to be one of the most important European steel producers, a major industrial power. The city is rich in history, with medieval castles and other historical locations visitable in game.

It is also realistic – everything in the city has a function and the city is planned to function like a real city. Multiple different districts with personalities and backgrounds of their own. From the 1900s industrial areas to modern business parks and wooden old towns. Now decaying infrastructure was built during the 1960s when the city's industrialization was at its peak. The city is aesthetic – there is lot of art glorifying city's industrious past. The city embeds interesting political history, defined by its industrial past. Major political axles are anti-technological vs. technological and liberal vs. authoritative. The city is at a point of redefining itself. These multiple political parties and organizations add to the story, a deep networked story in which corruption has far-reaching roots.

~Posted on INFRA Indiegogo page, 2015.

Stalburg backstory

The game is set in city called Stalburg, which is an major European city on the coast of the Baltic sea. The city used to be major industrial power in the Europe, famous for it's steel.

The city was orginally founded as an small iron mining town during the middle ages. Since then the city has grown slow and steady until the industrial ages when a lot of metallurgy plants started to pop around the city. During the 1960s the city's industrialization was at it's peak generating a lot of wealth for the city.

Since then then the industry of the city has been in decline, which culminated in the suspicious collapse of the city's flag carrier steel manufacturer, Stalburg Steel. The decline has lead to many social problems within the city, such as, alcoholism, wealth inequality, decaying infrastructure and crime. City is now trying to redefine itself to restore it's former glory.

Picture from Stalburg's central metrostation with art glorifying it's industrious past.

Stalburg has nearly two million citizens living within it. The city has a complete metro system covering the majority of its districts.

Saddly many of the city's suburban areas have been impoverished after the city's golden age. Currently many metro drivers are afraid of driving the metro in said suburbs due crime and poor condition of the metro system and demand higher pay.

The player will visit the metro during his journey.

View from the more wealthy area.

Bergmann Group

The Bergmann group were founded by the visionary businessman Eric Kleinmann and an engineer Xeander Berg during early 1900's. The company specialized in underground construction and it has built the majority of Stalburg's undeground infrastructure, such as water and sewage systems.

During 1960's the company lost its innovation potential along with it's most innovative engineer, which caused the decline of the company until it was sold for Walter Co.

This Bergmann constructed watertunnel brings more than 90% of the fresh water to the city. Old status reports claims that it's literally on its collapsing point.

Stalburg Steel

Stalburg Steel used to be the City's flag carrier steel manufacturer until it's suspicious fall which happened, even when the factory were completely profitable. A lot of conspiracy theories revolve around the Stalburg Steel's fall, some claiming that trade unions were the major cause. Other believe that Walter did it. And some claim that it was done by foreign steel manufacturer.

The plant used to have one of the Europe's and world's largest blast furnaces.

This now overgrown and abandoned converter hall were used for converting iron into steel.

Some people have taken over the factory's lands for their own purposes.

Hammer Valley Hydro

Alex Hartman constructed a 40m tall hydro-power dam in the Hammer Valley during the 1960's to supply in high-demand electricity to power the city's blooming industry. Hartman also constructed other major dams withing the city. Hammer Valley Hydro went to bankrupt after the fall of city's #1 energy consumer Stalburg Steel. After bankrupty Alex started to suspect and investigate Walter's actions.

Hammer Valley Dam also feeds water to the Bergmann watertunnel.

Walter Corporation

Huge construction company owned by construction tycoon, Jeff Walter who were the city's richest man.

Walter Co. built large part of the city during the peak of it's industrialization. Walter Co built many prefabricated concrete flats and suburbs for the city's working class. Currently majority of the said buildings and suburbs are in terribly poor condition and populated by impoverished people.

And railroad.

National Consulting Group

NGC is an engineering consulting company founded after fusion of many smaller engineering companies. Currently player is employee of the said company.

With a cod in a water tank.

Osmo Olut

Osmo-Olut is the Stalburgs largest brewery producing self proclaimed "world strongest beer". People claim that Osmo-Olut is one of the main reasons for the alcohol problem in the city due it's agressive marketing and huge visibility.

~Posted on Imgur, June 30 2015.

Undeground tunnels

Tunnels and systems under Stalburg has longer history than the city itself. They originates from medieval times when Stalburg was just a small mining settlement near the current ruins of Stalburg castle which was built to protect the mining settlement. Since then the mining has moved more inland to richer and larger ore deposits. As time passed by the original mines have been filled with rubble and replaced during the industrial ages with the infrastructure of rapidly growing city. Currently very small to nonexistant sections of the original mines have survived.

During the first half 20th century Bergmann Group started massive tunneling project what size of Stalburg has never seen ever before. The project was to build massive tunnel system feeding fresh water for the city which was suffering lack of potable water due pollution. Less than decade later the tunnel was completed and it instantly became the lifeline of the booming city. In the 1970's second tunnel was concidered and later approved, but the project ended in the bankruptcy of the Bergmann Group. Only small amount of tunneling work was completed. Now the first and the only (and crumbling) watertunnel brings majority of the fresh water consumed in the city, only some suburban neighbourhoods water is supplied from other sources.

The metro system originates times before the watertunnel was build. The current metro system has four lines and more than 50 stations.

The extensive underground (excluding metro) is unknown for vast majority of Stalburgers, only small portion of the population are familiar what lays below their feet. Parts of forgotten unserviced tunnels are taken over by people hiding from authorities, homeless people and some who are using them for their own purposes.

~Posted on Loiste Interactive Facebook page, July 15, 2015.

Political Parties of Stalburg

Since the decline of the Stalburg's heavy industry the traditional parties have fallen, broken and completely replaced by new generation of political parties. The new defining axes are liberal vs authoritarian and tehcnological vs anti-technological.

Humane Party believes that since the decline of the industry and infrasture the technology is failing the people and that now we should return to the "old ways" with strict rules regarding technology and value social interaction more.

Technocrat Party is the opposite of the Humane Party and they believe that now is perfect time to invest heavily into infrastructure and rebuild Stalburg with new industries.

Interne.ts is very liberal and technological party which believes that future is in internet and information technology and generally in information.

Ethos & Pathos believes in art, culture and freedom of expression and partially questions the "progress" and money even when it approves atleast some technologies.

The new left wing rises from anarchistic roots. They believe that traditional political economy has failed them. They believe in very grass roots (bottom-to-top) level economical activities and organization structure.

Stalburgers is a localist party promoting Stalburg centered values and politics. The party is somewhat quarrelsome from the inside.

Militarist Party is the most authoritarian party promothing very security related politics and values. They also believe that the city needs strict order to bring it back to it's former glory.

Ordinary people party believes in traditional family and work centered values above all. They don't believe that new technologies and personal freedoms will bring the city back on it's feet.

Neo-liberal party believes that letting the money and goods to run freely along with some new technologies and strict rights to them will generate wealth and well-being for the city and it's people.

Turnip party believes that the future is in many forms of agriculture.

~Posted on INFRA IndieDB page, September 13, 2015.

Original Black Rock Nuclear Power Plant backstory

Black Rock 3 style EPR-reactor Olkiluoto 3 in the middle. Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, Finland.

Stalburg Nuclear Power Production about to Double

• Black Rock Nuclear power plant to build a third reactor by 2022
• The new reactor will produce more energy than the old two combined

The National Parliament has given green light to plans of Stalburg Industry Power (SIP) to build a new nuclear power plants to Stalburg. Black Rock 3 will be part of the existing Black Rock Nuclear Power Plant by SIP.
⠀⠀The new plant will use the newest EPR-type reactor, which is a third generation ressurized water reactor design. The power output of the new reactor will be roughly 1600 MW, which puts the current two 780 MW BWR reactors to shame.
⠀⠀The plan to invest to expensive nuclear power during these turbulent times has raised a lot of discord, especially as the price of renewable energy is going down by the minute.

~Present in the game since the release, later changed, January 15, 2016

Stalburg City Tales

Stalburg City's water supply system tunnel no. 1, commonly known as the Bergmann water tunnel is named after its builder the Bergmann Corporation. It is the lifeline for Stalburg city, bringing a vast majority of the fresh water consumed in Stalburg. According to the last maintenance reports of the tunnel, the tunnel is in a very bad shape. It has been speculated that the tunnel is in an imminent danger of collapsing, which would leave most of the city without potable water. It's not a question of if the tunnel is collapsing but rather when it is going to happen. While being vital for the city and unknown for the majority of the populace, the tunnel has gained a legendary status among some urban cultures spawning urban legends around it.

~Posted on Loiste Interactive Facebook page, April 14, 2016.

Walter Corporation backstory

Stalburg city was bombarded completely in the World War II. After the war, many of the surviving citizens of the city moved elsewhere. Stalburg city was a ruin filled with homeless people, thieves, beggars and prostitutes. Old buildings and historical monuments now in ashes or otherwise badly destroyed. Stalburg was a city with nothing left but deprivation and desperation.

Then a young and a rather wealthy man called Jeff Walter saw his opportunity. He was determined to rebuild the city to its former glory. Founding a company and hiring hundreds of homeless people from the streets to help to rebuild the city, Jeff Walter was on a mission. His company built entire districts with affordable housing, huge factories, hundreds of kilometers of roads and other vital infrastructure. Jeff Walter practically rebuilt to whole city from next to nothing. Jeff Walter was idolized and very well known for his achievements and thanks to him the future seemed as bright as ever.

Suddenly everything collapsed, with the companies going bankrupt, unemployment rate skyrocketing and the people moving back to the streets as they couldn’t pay for their housing. Jeff Walter disappearing and his company in deep trouble, the city was, yet again, sliding in to a chaos. Some say Stalburg city will never get back on its feet again, some even predict it will slowly turn into the same ashes it was before Jeff Walter rebuilt the city. A flourishing future turning into bitter ashes, the city was once again only a faint memory of its previous glory.

~Posted on Loiste Interactive Facebook page, May 14, 2016.

Bergmann Group backstory

"The acts of individuals make the future of mankind" - Eric Kleinmann The Bergmann group was a very important pioneer in the world of building structures of underground constructions. They improved the techniques of reinforced stone and changed the way of building underground. Most engineers are still using the knowledge today of the Bergmann group.

If this company was so important, why can't we find anything about it? This was because of personality of Eric Kleinmann, founder and owner of the Bergmann company. He was a modest entrepreneur who didn't like much attention in the business world. The Bergmann Group operated mostly under pseudonyms to avoid too much press attention.

The founders: The German, Eric Kleinmann was a building engineer who inherited one of the biggest building companies of Western Europe of his father, Edward Kleinmann. He was one of the entrepreneurs of the new generation in his time. His company was the founder of reinforced stone as we now know today.

The Belgian Xeander Berg was co-founder of the Bergmann Group. Little is known about this man. Before he joined Alex's foundation he had a small research and development research facility in mining engineering in Brussels.

Both found each other in the International Exposition in Brussels and they shared the same ideas about constructions and buildings. From that day the Bergmann group was born. The second world war:

For many years was the Bergmann group one of the leading companies in the world of underground constructions. But things changed after the big depression. Germany and the rest of Europe became political and social instable. Eric Kleinmann moved, just before the second world war, with his company to Switzerland. Xeander Berg joined him in 1940 after the collapse of the Belgian defensive forces.

They continue with their underground projects for the Swiss government. They become specialized in tunnels and bunkers.

After the war they returned to the rest of Europe. Their first big project after the war was in the capital Stalburg. The city suffered a lot under the German bombing. The government ordered to build the city from the ground up again, starting with the fundaments of the city. The tunnel of Bergmann was one of them.

Hammer Valley Hydro (Hartman) company: Stalburg was rebuild with the collaboration of 3 companies: Stalburg steel cooperation, the Hartman company and the Bergmann group. The city council gave the Bergmann group some room to build innovating structures for the city. One of the idea's was to do something with the rivers around Stalburg. The company Hartman built 2 hydrogen dams for the main electricity production of the city. Bergmann had the job to create the main tunnels for the underground power plants. With the knowledge of the bunker constructions for the Swiss government the Bergmann company had a lot of knowhow for this task.

Xeander Berg was working on some innovations in the same period. Eric Kleinmann pumped a huge amount of money in the innovation department. One of the big innovations was textile-reinforced concrete. It was a mix of steel and titanium. It was used in the main tunnels of the underground plants. The bankruptcy

There is a lot of mystery around the end of this big construction company. First there was the disappearing of Xeander Berg. In his last classified reports of 1960 he talked about a new innovation that would change the building world forever. After that he disappeared and nothing was heard from him again. This was a big clap for the company. But the biggest impact on the bankruptcy was the payback of the projects. The innovation team spent almost everything of the Bergmann group's money and the company gained little in return for their building projects.

…*The company invested heavily into the innovation department and had little to show for it. At the same time the public construction projects were not as profitable as one would hope, when making the deals bergmann group had taken the public interest into account as well.

Many shareholders didn't believe in Bergmann anymore. They forced Eric Kleinmann to sell his company to another building company. (to Jeff Walter) Nowadays almost every big city in the world is built with the knowledge of the Bergmann group.‎

~Posted as part of Eric Kleinmann wiki page, July 17, 2017

INFRA: Game Design Document - Stalburg history

Stalburg is a fictional Baltic city of Hanseatic and Novgorodian origins.

History

Early middle ages (before 1200)

There were small unnamed fishing village in the area of current ‘Fishermen bay’

Late middle ages (1200–1400)

Hanseatic league and Novgorodian traders founded Stalburg as iron mining settlement, in the area of currently known ‘Old town’. They also constructed small castle to protect the new founded settlement of Stalburg Between 1200’s and 1400’s the settlement grew and granted full city rights. Castle was also expanded.

Renaissance (1400–1600)

During 1400’s the original settlement suffered great damage during the Stalburg Fire. After the fire the city was decided to be relocated to the current site of the city center at a bay 5km east of the original location due it’s obscure location for port and rough cliffy terrain. The old castle was abandoned and new fort were built to cover the location of the new Stalburg.

Neoclassicism (1600–1800)

The city started to grow fast and it became wealthy and important harbor and trading city in the Baltic region. Many new sea forts were built to protect the important port.

Industrialization (1800–1900)

The city’s status as important port and iron mines allowed the city to industrialize fast, boosting the city’s growth and economy even more. Many factories were constructed in districts around the times city limits and coast, such as ‘Foundry’. Railroads were also constructed. On the other side of the coin, the fast industrialization caused many people seeking jobs to migrate into the city, faster than new apartments and tenements we’re built, forming slums around the city. During that time the city also suffered some sanitation, pollution and health issues. At the late 1800’s work started on improving the sanitation and water quality. Sewers and water pipes were built under the city and some of them are still operational.

Modern times (1900–)

At early 1900’s to further improve the water quality (and to response the growth of the city), city contracted Bergmann to construct water tunnel from the northern lakes. During the early 1900’s the slums we’re removed and replaced with proper housing.

Metro system

The city of Stalburg has 4 line citywide metro system operated by Stalburg Mass Transit. The player will use and visit parts of the metro system during his journey. The metro system is also a way for the player to perceive the scale of the city and his movement relative to it.

~Snippet from INFRA: Game Design Document posted as part of Stalburg wiki page, July 26, 2017‎

INFRA: Game Design Document - Stalburg Politics

Humane party

Purpose is to stop technological development and thereby stop cyborgization, the submission of man to machine, and the inequalization of nations. Is an advocate of strict rules against all technological innovation. The Humane party is gaining support from infrastructural disrepair of the city by claiming that “technology is failing us”. Party supports very community, nature and enviromentally centered values.

Average supporter: Young and middle aged “hippie” female.

Technocrat party

Purpose is to promote innovation and technological development without compromise. Common members of the party supports industrialization and “progress” over nature and preservation of historical sites. The common members also loathes the more culturally minded folk. The most “intuitive” wing of the party believes that evolution of man into a new species or the replacement of human by a new intellectual creature is a law of the nature and should not be hampered, but some of the members of the party of this wing has switched to more liberal and less bureaucratic Inter.net party. The party gains support from current state of disrepair of infrastructure

Average supporter: Middle aged male engineer or other technically trained person. Along with some basic industrial workers.

Interne.ts

Globalist very open- and technologically minded party, which focuses on internet and IT related things, such as copyright question, internet neutrality and regulation. The party also opposes all burearcy Inter.net split from Technocrats some years ago. Party enjoys and is driven by growth of IT sector in Stalburg area.

Average supporter: Young well educated and self taught IT professionals and young entrepreneurs.

Ethos & pathos

Purpose is to promote art and culture. It believes that human species exists to create art. Majority of the party opposes the use of money.

Average supporter: Many young with some middle aged “hipsters” working on cultural sector. The supporters live in central Stalburg and in some trendy suburbs.

The new left wing

Leftish movement with an strong anarchist wing that emerged from Stalburg Steel bankruptcy. The party feels that traditional political economy (and capitalism) has failed the people. Gains from relatively high unemployment rate.

Average supporter: Minumun wage workers and unemployed persons living In sububrs.

Stalburgers

This localist party is promoting Stalburg centered values. The party is somewhat quarrelsome from inside.

Average supporter: People who are proud citizens of Stalburg.

Militarist party

Focused on security related problems, such as threat of a foreign invasion, but nowdays after the end of the Cold War they're more focused on fighting crime and instablity such as riots. Purpose is to secure steady development of Stalburg by the submission of all activities under military command. Is open for the possibility that democracy might replace militarism after 15 years of order. The party is most nationalistic party in the country. Opposes immigration. Lost a lot of supports after the end of Cold War, but has been gaining more since growth of immigration.

Average supporter: Old and middle aged resident of Stalburg along with some younger and poor persons living in suburbs with a lot of immigrants.

Ordinary people party

Culturally conservative party which promotes traditional family centered values and work. The party is somewhat quarrelsome from inside.

Average supporter: Middle aged persons who work from 8 to 16 living in city suburbs and outskirts.

Neo-liberal party

Neo-liberals are driven by market centered values.

Average supporter: Wealthy people, often entrepreneur.

Turnip

“Farmer's party” with focus on smaller towns and agriculture, very little support in the city of Stalburg.

Average supporter: Middleaged and old small town residents.

~Oskutin, posted on Discord as a .doc file, August 13, 2018

Developer's commentary

On details of the water network in the Stalburg

"Pitheath watertreatment is for waste and it's not linked to the underground one. Two gorges dam also feeds to bunker and city. And hammervalley, if connected, help in tthe powerstation puzzle at the end. Berg tunnel feeds underground water and two gorges also suplies the mains power, [tunnels feed] ug and ug gives the potable water for city (and the pumping station in tunnel2 gives for more rural region). Sewers and sewage channels feeds pitheath along with steelfactory. [Pine Fell] draws from bergman. Rerservoir -> (dam) -> tunnel -> treatment plant (for fresh water) -> consumption, consumption -> sewers -> waste water treatment, waste water treatment -> sea, there's map of the flow in the pitheath controlroom."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 30, 2017

On the country Stalburg is set in

"Stalburg is a fictional capital city of a fictional Baltic region country. Basically taking influence from all the countries around the Baltic Sea."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, August 28, 2017

"I see there's been some discussion about the name of the country Stalburg is set in. It's not Stalburg, TSL is the acronym for it. However, I'm not going to reveal it, because we never really came to the conclusion if we should use that one or not. We went to great lenghts not to use the country name anywhere, that's why it's always "national X" or similar. Stalbrug is the capital of a country, the capital of "TSL"."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, December 23, 2018

"[The country name] is not defined, the guy who made the car license plates just put [TSL] there, it wasn't a team member.

Stolland."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, December 15, 2019

On Mark's voice actor

"Mark's VA is Hungarian. Mark (or Markku as his real name actually is) is of Finnish origin, so it's useful that his VA is Hungarian since Hungarian and Finnish are distantly related languages. Of course we would've used a proper Finnish VA if we had had the money to do that. We've grown to like him too. The roughness fits the non-caring character of Mark."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, August 28, 2017

On occassional German words found around the world

"Some decals etc. are just textures straight from texture web sites, so they might have different languages."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, August 28, 2017

On power production in Stalburg

"MW for that and HV-dam can be found from the game. Yes TGD produces. Also it's possible to calculate city's whole energy consumption in the powerstation level (atleast at the time of the game) (or the local regions power consumption., depending on the state of grid). Cascading failure [causes city blackout], both [other plants shutting down and destruction of Powerstation]. [Powerstation produces 120 MW,] yes, less than tenth of blackrock. [Black Rock produces the base load,] yes, Stalburg power demand at the time of P2 ending was about 4000MW, by calculating how much player's actions at the powerplant affect the grid frequency."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, September 17, 2017

On what the Black Rock name refers to

"Geographical feature."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, September 17, 2017

On the last names of Amit, Steve and Carla

"Amit Rahal, Steve Johnson and Carla Diethart."

~Zuntti, posted on Discord, September 18, 2017

On whether Pitheath water flow control board shows full extend of the Bergmann tunnels

"Mostly the water system at northern districts. [There are more Bergmann tunnels than explored,] yes, bergmann tunnels refers to tunnels built by that company, that watertunnel is one, but it may also mean other tunnels around the city."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, September 18, 2017

On the timespan of INFRA

"The game starts in 8 am and ends at about 5am. The clocks ingame tell the canon timeframe. Funnily enough it takes about the same in real life too when playing."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, September 30, 2017

"Also regarding the clocks, all the ingame clocks should now show the right time, as in, the canon time for Mark's travels is about 20 hours from start to finish, which quite well matches the playtime if not lingering for too long."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, January 15, 2018

"Office BO should be 0:00, tenements & rail 01:00, villa :02:00, field 03:00."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 13, 2019

On the VALTA's setting

"Somewhat set into same universe as infra, but different time. Later, a lot later. Has "city"-theme in it, but another question is, in what direction has future went and especially, in what regions [V-society went].

[V-country] won't be where the game actually takes place (with minor possible exceptions)."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, October 3, 2017

"I recall already revealing that Valta, is set in post-postacop future, where world have descended into constant and pointless wars resulting in shattered tribes and citystates, with few exceptions (who have lost their faith on humanity) and by 'few' i mean one intact, and few who have not suffered that bad."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, February 16, 2018

"That is fortress, not factory, fortress set up in former grain silos.

The society has shattered into tiny city states and small petty kingdoms, meaning there's a lot of existential threats.

And the fortress was set up in former grain silo, as they're mostly made from strong solid concrete, providing good defences against sieges and forest was cut before fort to give sight and less protection for invaders.

They [various societies] have access to some early artillery (1850's-1950's), but the thing is that there isn't many of them, only the most well equiped armies have access to "proper" arty.

They'll mostly use rifles...

[V-society] uses the finest granite and steel and finest concrete. [V-society] and where the VALTA is mostly set is different."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 21, 2018

"Affordability and aesthic preferences and culture [sets V-society apart from others].

And please note that the first image posted portrays completely different society, which is [V-society] and rest are not [V-society]. As it looks and is far mor prosperous and hightech

[The year is] 2200, but society has shattered and declined."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 22, 2018

"[The setting is] concretepunk or dieselpunk."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 24, 2018

"People who have played infra will find some references."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, April 14, 2018

"[V-society] is capable of space colonization, others are not (and prevented to do so).

[Others] can't [steal from V-society], at least for any meaningfull and massive tech, only like consumer goods. Others money are worthless and generally not accepted, only "development aid" and ideological groups are plausable."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, July 29, 2018

On the location of Business district

"To clarify a bit, business1 and business2 are not located in the de facto business district in Stalburg. The actual business district is north of the main railway station. The area featured in business1-2 is Point Elias, a former dock area that has been turned into residental and commercial zone starting from the early 1990's.

Also, if this seems like a developer just saying things that can't be made out otherwise, it's not. All of this should be possible to figure out when looking at the architecture on those levels and comparing it to the neighboring districts and the general locations of the levels within Stalburg."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, October 3, 2017

On the military checkpoints during the city evacuation and the idea of driving sequences in the game

"Explosion in middle of city and stuff collapsing everywhere may have made them to suspect terror."

~Oskutin

"You can see this sign when driving down the road to arrive in rails, something that isn't in the game yet, I will add it a some point. Also, driving as in an animated sequence, Not through the city, just the arrival in rails, across the bridge and then turn into the side road. Indeed, it was in the test build, but I didn't have time to finish the animation then, it takes a bit of work to animate all the gauges and steering wheel to match the movement of the car."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, October 15, 2017

"I once had an idea or a transition scene from the office to the start of chapter one, where there would've been scenes along the route there. We never had resources for that."

"[Of thing I want to fix] for example, implement the short driving sequence at the start of rails. Right now it confuses players because they don't know why Mark has encounered that roadblock, it's because there was a military checkpoint."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, December 24, 2018

On the changed backstory of Blackrock Plant

"Blackrock is based on Olkiluoto power plant pretty much. We changed the completition state of the third reactor at Blackrock, earlier it was to be constructred, the canon is that it's almost finished, with a construction process with similar issues than it's real life counterpart. It said basically "Blackrock to have a PWR type reactor similar to Olkiluoto"."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, December 22, 2017

On the cause of the flood in stormdrain

"The flash flood in the stormdrain is an industrial process water outflow peak. That's never said anywhere, but that's the way I had it in my mind when designing the area. Not that it really matters that much."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, January 24, 2018

"Canon."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, November 13, 2019

On the country name of V-flag

"Valta is the name of the game and has nothing to do with the said flag."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 22, 2018

"(Geographics name here) Teknokraattinen Tasavalta."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, July 29, 2018

On the VALTA's gameplay

"Valta is more strategic, with more emphasis on society and economics than warfare. [Cities Skyline or Factorio is a] good guess. And we don't want to just specialize in INFRA style exploration games, but to experiment with various ideas and concepts."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, April 25, 2018

"You can build tenements in it. Fun fact, one of the first assets in the game were tenement kit.

Also [the game is] realtime, with little bit of "kenshi/rimworld"."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, January 31, 2021

On the Pitheath electric motor factory

"Mushroom farm was built there after the factory was closed, the factory used to assemble electric motors and those motors were needed for [uranium enrichment] centrifuges. I'm pretty sure it's stated somwhere that that factory manufactures motor, atleast should be stated. I think the factory sign was originally "MOtor (W)Orks co". If its not refered in the bunker, nor elsewhere, there is fair chance that we have forgotten to add those."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, September 6, 2018

On whether the alarm heard on cut Industrial map was a warning about Two Gorges Dam failure

"Yep, two gorges dam [failure]." October 4, 2018

On Stalburg districts not directly mentioned in the game

"The actual prison island (Still part of District of Whiprock). Whiprock is the actual name of the fortress island and that district is named after it, Whiprock Island and Whiprock District."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, December 11, 2018

"Pitheath, Walter Square."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, February 28, 2020

"You can figure out district names from the metro stations pretty much."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, June 23, 2020

On the nearby cities

"Koksburg etc. are nearby cities/towns, yeah. Cellecter and such are nearby cities/towns part of the stalburg metropolitan area."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, December 23, 2018

On the actual distances between locations Mark traverses

"The bergmann tunnels are, in fact, multiple kilometers long, but for gameplay purposes, they are as big as they are ingame. Think of it like if Mark wrote his autobiography, he wouldn't use 20 % of the pages to describe the tunnels. The same reason metroride is missing a few stops and the fields in the boatride are smaller than they are in reality, "reality" as in it's in the maps. [Metro ride] should be a station or two longer, considering the distance it takes to walk from crash site to central station, it still should be longer distance covered with the maintenance tram."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, December 23, 2018

"This [an hour long raft ride] is something that has always bugged me as it's the biggest error in the whole map. Maybe we can put it that way that Mark just doesn't want to remember most of the raft ride since nothing of interest happened during most of the way."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, June 23, 2020

On the location of the Stalburg

"As far as I know we have never decided the exact location, only the region, and the fact that the coast is on the southern side of the city, and the existance of Finland is canon. But, who knows if the shape of the baltic sea is the same as it is in our reality."

~Yucca, posted on Discord, December 26, 2018

On when was the Ampstrand line constructed

"70's-80's."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 3, 2019

On details of the Obenseuer freshwater tunnel

"That OS line [tunnel] is "auxiliary" [to the main Freshwater tunnel], the one what starts from "open sewer plant". Also it's an intake for various factories, hence the branches [on the south of the tunnel]. Whole open sewer - main tunnel connection is auxiliary, those open sewer streams go to factories (and osmo olut)."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 4, 2019

On backstory behind beta metro trains seen in INFRA teaser

"Only few of those units operate on some lines. Could say that it was failed investment from SMT and only few are operational/built at all. They didn't function like they supposed to be, hence cancelled the order and only got few units. You know, rolling stock riddled with problems."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 4, 2019

On localised names of Stalburg in other languages

"Stalborg [Swedish], Stalpuri [Finnish], actually finns would spell it as Staalpuri."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, December 14, 2019

On existence of Helsingborg

"Why not? Why there wouldn't be a city in the narrowest part of the strait? Could belong to Danes or TSL (sweden and denmark has been frequently in war over the region of southern sweden). Helsingborg exist, It's name may be different, depending on what country owns it."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, December 14, 2019

On Osmoman Union/Osmostoliitto

"Oh nice the MC server we played few years ago. Osmograd is not real city in INFRA. Nope [about Osmoman Union either] and honestly it was Osmoet Union. And well the MC server was mostly finnish and we originally had "Osmoonien Valtakunta" as a joke of Ottoman Empire, and then went full communist and started to refer it as "Omostoliitto" english translations have been more or less off. It may have been short time refered as Osmoman Union in english until Osmoet Union translation took it's place. Osmoman Union was some kind of transitional translation. It [the Osmostoliitto flag] was in [Stalburg Steel] Tower, and in Business."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, December 14, 2019

On why Union of Metal Workers is still active after the collapse of Stalburg Steel

"Well there are many machine shops, and etc in the city."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, December 15, 2019

On meaning behind Terästalia name

"It was like "steelsteel", steelsteel was translation of the tsl, mashup in two languages."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, December 15, 2019

On the use of Ltd. and LLC in Stolland

"Stalburg jurisdiction doesn't consider differences with ltd, and llc, plus stalburg's primarly language isn't english so local media and companies use llc or ltd as a translated term from their native abbreviation. It follows nordic tradition on company forms, swedish aktiebolag / finnish osakeyhtiö / danish aktieselskab is closer to what it is in Stalburg. Hence they just pick something roughly equivalent for translation. National language doesn't mean that majority speaks it, more like means that you can use that language with officials, can get education and etc with it. it doesn't deny the that like Stalborg Tidning [Swedish for Stalburg Times] exists."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, February 16, 2020

On the circumstances of Metro Accident

"Metro drivers knew about the spur, but didn't know it's real purpose, mostly just thought it was just one more abandoned tracks to the old abandoned tunnels/some random depot or else. Theres even blast doors somewhere in the spur. Maybe they [S.N.W] were dispataching a train or expecting a train. SMV wasnt around at that time [to be blamed for incompetence], could be rookie metro driver."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 5, 2020

On Green Mushrooms preceding S.M.V

"Mushrooms been long in the play, but you know what they found and developed [the S.M.V] in bunker, SNW room in reactor tells more about it. Can confirm normal green shrooms are "safe". Shrooms are parastitic with poisonous spores, normal ones are unable to infect/survive on humans. Hallucinations and addictions come from other chemical compounds in the shrooms than the spores. Ethanol does it too in the [Obenseuer] game, but not as effective, pure alcohol kills a lot of stuff."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 5, 2020

On the Orange Mushrooms in relation to Green ones

"Oranges have different structure, different species."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, March 6, 2020

On the Whiprock prison

"Whiprock prison & sea fortress is abandoned, hence player offered task to survey it

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 20, 2020

On Erzfell city

"Erzfell is like Kiruna, Kiruna-like city."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 23, 2020

"Erzfell is huge iron mining town on mountains."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, April 16, 2021

On the city borders of Stalburg and the neighboring municipalities

"Is it known that the map is not just City of Stalburg but there's also neighboring municipalities pictured? The border can be found on this, anything "C" is not Stalburg anymore. Cellecter is the name of the municipality to on the west side. [Coastal metro line] is a joint effort with two municipalities. Every time there's a station called "railway station", that's another municipality, but some of them might be municipalities that don't exist anymore in the current day, eg. Fisch River is probably part of Cellecter by now. [R15] is a north-south line to the Eastport. It uses the Tarfell exchange station for connections to Central, kinda like a heavy metro in a way.

I refine my statement. AT LEAST everything C is not Stalburg municipality. Parts of B might also not be."

~Yucca

"Tarfell is not Stalburg, Tarfell is separete municipality"

~Oskutin

"Yeah exactly what I was thinking, but Raft Isle and Whiprock are probably part of Stalburg, so the line is not clear. But yeah, at least C is not Stalburg anymore. The zones are based on distance from city center and muni borders."

~Yucca

"A = Stalburg, B = Stalburg + parts of Tarfell, C = not stalburg."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 23, 2020

On construction history of the Stalburg metro

"Earliest ones are from 1950s. Most are 1980."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, June 1, 2023

On different levels of Other Side

"Black noise and red noise are visited in the [Obenseuer] game. The game has two different wasteland levels currently, the difference between them is rather small. If tou see those small flying red glowing dust, you're in red noise, in black noise you don't see them, just thick black smoke/fog on some places."

~Oskutin, posted on Discord, February 15, 2024

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