Answers to questions for Barcode Studia are here! Some of the questions were translated from one language to another, but the author’s punctuation and grammar were retained where possible. Hopefully this all will answer some questions about individual projects, collaborations, give insight into how you can help us and more.

Q: Are you a SLON?
A: 100%!!!

Q: When the SC 2.0 comes out?
A: Well, it’s already out, I guess?

Q: Do you have any plans on Manhunt?
A: I like Manhunt but I’m not planning on making any mods for it.

Q: When the Stardark Chronicles for Android comes out?
A: ???

Q: Is the PS2 version of Sindacco Chronicles updated with 2.0?
A: Yes. In fact, the development of the patch was the main obstacle when it came to releasing these ports. That, I think, answers the previous question as well. I wanted to make sure that patch 2.0 would fix all critical bugs and issues. I’ve heard enough stories about some game crash almost bricking someone’s console. I didn’t want to be guilty of destroying someone’s PlayStation, obviously.

Q: Are PSP ports of Manhunt, GTA 3, GTA VC in development?
A: Of course!!!

Q: Do you plan on releasing a mod for Vice City Stories in the future?
A: I was never really interested in Vice City Stories. I’ve never even beaten it. That said, though, I’ve never beaten Liberty City Stories either, so that’s not the point; VCS modding is something very difficult for many reasons – there’s even less modding software, the scripting is even more complex, there’s a severe lack of info on many .scm operations, I won’t even start about the voiceover porting… that’s how many reasons there are.

Q: What was your first thought when you were making Sindacco Chronicles?
A: Originally is wasn’t a serious project. At first I wanted to make a tech demo with 8 missions to show the very possibility of modding LCS to my friends. Because of my inability to organize anything all, I kept adding more and more stuff to the original concept, until I got SC.

Q: Will you make some day a gta VC total conversion mod? Love your work!
A: This is somewhat similar to the VCS situation: I have little interest in Vice City. It’s a very questionable entry in the series with poor modding potential – It has the worst map in the series, a story that lacks depth and potential for spin-offs, and technically doesn’t offer many more options than GTA 3, plus there are difficulties in modding ports of VC.

Q: Hello, Sasha. When will you accept me into your team? I dm you every day, but you still ignore me.
A: ААААААААА

Q: About FRR… Will you be able to fully port it to PS2 or at least partially? Thanks.
A: We will port as much content as possible. I would say the port will have about 80% of all the orginal features. The original port had around 50% of features I’d say. This is despite the fact that there is a lot more things to play with this time. So far the tests of the mod on PS2 are purely positive. Only the porting of interiors and voice acting is questionable. These two things are, of course, important, but the core gameplay will not be affected at all. Five cents from Jeansowaty: Consider this port to be an upgrade over the original FR PS2 port pretty much. We hope we can surprise the community in a few ways even here.

Q: Is there an approximate release date for the mobile version of Sindacco Chronicles? If so, what would it be? / When are you gonna release the android trailer of Grand Theft Auto Sindacco Chronicles?
A: Sometime soon.

Q: Hello. Will there ever be a project about the early events of the Forelli Mafia, like the stories of Sindacco and Leone?
A: No. I can only recommend checking out the Liberty Wiseguys mod, it seems to be doing just that. I’ve heard some critical reviews of it, but it looks like the thing you need.

Q: Will FRR be released on Vita? What’s the main plans? Will you continue to post videos about betas and other content on YouTube?
A: Can’t say anything specific about FRR on PS Vita for now. Porting the original FR was quite problematic already, because the re3 port available on the console is really unstable. Maybe not just unstable, it’s just plain out weird, because it behaves in a totally unpredictable way. For example, it sometimes shows messages about loading autosaves out of context (???), requires pre-conversion of models (I don’t know much about it, it’s something tied to backface-culling), and also crashes if you add too many new models. Altogether this isn’t something one would look forward to working on. It would be nice if I had the source code of this project so that I could finalize it. Perhaps, at the time of publishing this reply, the situation will have already changed. But alas. Even the Dreamcast port is more likely to appear one day. As for the main plans, the focus now is on completing all announced projects. And for beta content videos, something may still come out, but there is nothing in production for the time being.

Q: Would you like to collaborate with the Stars and Stripes team in the future and create a story mod in a new city or state created from scratch?
A: I personally know the lead developer of Stars and Stripes, and we’ve even discussed such an idea. I can’t say anything more about it.

Q: I wanted to ask about the development process (and tools used) of Sindacco Chronicles on PSP and PS2. How were sounds, radio stations, textures, text replaced? What difficulties were encountered? What was the most difficult?
A: I used either Dageron’s programs, or my own software, or just hex editors. Except for the main.scm – Sanny Builder was used for that. Actually, the most difficult part was understanding all the formats, because there isn’t much documentation on PSP-formats online.

Q: Had you ever considered making a GTA mod project for Yakuza? Kinda feel they need far more attention, given that they were main allies (Asuka, at least) during GTA III and Italian Mafia (Leone, Sindacco, Forelli) already got plenty of spotlight, both in canon and fandom.
Other similar questions:

  • I have two questions for you… Will you make a GTA based on the Kasen family in the future? (I think it has potential)
  • Hello, Barcode! Are you making another mod like the ones you have on your website and Discord? And do you still make videos about your projects on YouTube?
  • what your next game gta fanmade?
  • why don’t you make your own story mod like flame story or vasya city or trash or somethig serious
  • Will you port GTA 3 to PSP?
  • Will you ever make a GTA SA Stories for PSP or Android?
  • your prowess in developing an overall expansion like experience has not gone unnoticed what are any future plans besides two original total conversions? are we going to see any GTA Vice City Or Vice City Stories Total Conversions Anytime Soon?
  • are you working on any more games? and finally, do you plan on taking Forelli’s Redemption to Vice City eventually? 😀
  • Do you have any plans away from Liberty City?

A: I don’t discuss such plans publicly, I don’t like to ever announce my plans. I don’t even like to plan stuff and I don’t like to talk about it. But there will be no sequel to Forelli Redemption in Vice City, that’s for sure. FR was not intended to have a sequel at all, as my actions don’t have much meaning behind them and are just a stream of creative nonsense, and therefore my stories do not make sense and have no logical coherence in the long run, especially in a run of two separate mods, pfft. For all we know Giovanni might slip on a banana and die in FRR. Don’t believe in everything you see. Seriously speaking, there WILL be projects, and not just one. But I will announce them once they’ll be at least 50% complete.

Q:

For FR and SC:

  1. In Forelli Redemption Reissued, why not use the Xbox/Mobile hands for the characters? (As the trailer and screenshots use GTA 3 weird ass fingers). On the same note will It feature improved gameplay mods like Silent Aircraft, Classic Axis, etc?
  2. Do y’all plan to have Giovanni’s revenge on Vercetti as a mission?
  3. Will Sindacco Chronicles received a PC port? (Maybe using Re:LCS If that still exists).

For the team:

  1. You plan on doing similar mods for other GTAs like Vice City and San Andreas?
  2. Any plans to have your own games? (Not GTA Related/Mods)
  3. How did the team start?

Anyway, good luck with the projects, y’all rule.

A: That’s a lot of questions. Thanks for the kind words, I will briefly answer almost all the things you asked about:

  1. Xbox models are not for everyone. I stick to the style of the original game. But nobody can stop players from modifying the models however they want. Speaking of different plugins, only what is needed for the gameplay design will be added. For example, what’s the point of having helicopters in the game if they are never used in missions and the game map ain’t made for them?
  2. I never seriously considered a Forelli Redemption sequel. Not even once.
  3. I’m not going to answer that question.
  4. I’ve answered a similar question somewhere before.’
  5. At some point – surely.
  6. The team started on my own with support from lesenqa as the main tester and community manager, gradually building up various support with many things that I can’t do myself. The first to join the team after me was willkozz (he used to be a GTA youtuber I used to watch in my 7 years old, lol), he started shooting all the promos for the projects. Then a few guys joined almost simultaneously, mostly doing design (Jeansowaty, Auga), editing (Al Alvarez, Paul Kulik), console porting (Z0Li). And most of the ones mentioned here were Jeansowaty friends, because I myself never burned with the desire to establish any connections with anyone through the modding community at all. Unfortunately, lesenqa left the team in the fall of 2024, having been drafted into the «Belarusian Marines» (direct quote).

Q: Are you going to make and publish mods for other games other than Grand Theft Auto?
A: I don’t think anyone would be interested in custom campaigns for Warcraft 3. So no.

Q: Do you guys have plans to port it to the Dreamcast though the homebrew Dreamcast port?
A: I don’t think there’s enough target audience for such a project (yet).

Q: Why don’t you publish signed Sindacco Chronicles roms to run on official PSP firmware?
A: Right now Sindacco Chronicles is in a gray zone where it is unrunnable on official firmware. If I sign the rom, that will mean that I’m distributing a fully fledged pirated UMD rom that runs on an unhacked console. I don’t want to get involved in that.

Q: Why is Forelli Redemption is not released on PSP? Why didn’t you port GTA 3 to PSP?
A: You got a point there…

Q: What were the names you guys made to create this group, before it was Barcode Studia?
A: The team name was «1826 idiots», which I changed to «Barcode Studia» on the day of Forelli Redemption’s release.

Q: Will you post guides on modding GTAs for PSP? Likem how to create your own missions and so on. It will popularize PSP modding.
A: That kind of content has no target audience.

Q: Is is possible to port re3 to PSP?
A: Well, yeah.

Q: What are your thoughts on GTA 3 Dreamcast port?
A: Purely positive. It looks like a project with huge potential if it gets fully polished.

Q: Do you need any help with the development?
A: If you’re a 3D interior designer, have experience in the gaming industry or ain’t dumb in general, feel free to DM me.

Q: Will you translate GTA Sindacco Chronicles and the future Forelli Redemption Reissued into Italian? / Someday will SC have a PT-BR translate?
A: That’s not for me to decide. Translations are made by people who themselves volunteered to do it. I am open to cooperation.

Q: In SC 2.0 will the protagonists now say something when they point a gun at NPCs? You know that when you target 1 NPC in any GTA the character will curse that NPC when you kill him or when you grab the money on the ground. and in the previous version of SC they don’t say almost any ingame dialogue.
A: This is impossible to implement since there are two protagonists in the game.

Q: Why «Barcode Studia» name?
A: I don’t know, I came up with it in a minute.

Q: What kind of characteristic you need to play GTA FRR?
A: You have to be a real patriot and a really kind person. If you are a coward, the game will not even start.

Q: Hey Barcode Studia, when will you release Forelli Redemption Reisued?
A: Probably by the end of the year.

Q: Next Question: In Forelli Redemption Reisued Can We Use Alternative Costumes For Giovanni?
A: Yes.

Q: Greetings! For a long time I’ve had this idea that you guys would be interested to work on a joint project together with the same kind of modders as you, namely the Spanish guys from SASquad. Could be productive. Tell me, is it possible that we will see you collaborating with SASquad in one joint GTA San Andreas Stories project in the future?
A: I don’t know. This is a difficult question. We could if they’d want to. I just don’t know how exactly we could help each other, because we work at different paces and got differing styles.

Q: Can you have an update the gaem that able to eat and can drive by on the vehicle on hired men and more mission and new buiness and can you collab with sas squad team creating a new gta gaem
A: I already talked about the collab earlier. The rest is too complicated ’cause of engine limitations, if we are talking about Sindacco Chronicles.

Q: Why the studio take much time to finish any projects?
A: Because most of the time I’m busy designing LANs, racking up MMR on Protoss, earning achievements in Isaac, living my own life (contradicts with everything said before, ig) and, finally, eating Big Macs.

Q: The AI voice work is still kind of lame and needs a lot of work, lots of voice lines lack punctuation, pauses and general conversation tactics, they often seem rushing from one sentence to another.
A: It’s not really a question, I guess. But I’ll answer it anyway, not gonna skip it.

  1. Voice quality is limited to the TTS models used. There are no resources for non-TTS ones.
  2. The TTS models themselves are also limited. First of all, they are paid for, and that makes it very hard to get things done the way they should be done.
  3. The game plays voice lines 5% faster than their real speed, because they were recorded for the game with 11500 Hz sampling rate instead of 12000 Hz used by LCS by default. This is done to save space, which is very limited for game audio.
  4. AI voice over is an optional feature. If you don’t like it, you can turn it off. This is not an excuse for the quality that some may find poor, but nevertheless, it should also be taken into account.

(Almost) all answers by 1826. Editing and translating from Russian to English/English to Russian done by Paul Kulik. Additional editing done by Jeansowaty.