Here is the original interview text in English:
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Q: Hello, please introduce yourself to our readers.
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Hi, my name is Scott Lantz, and I am the Producer and Developer for Tiny Hero Game Studios and our first game, Land of Legends.
There are also other people working on Land of Legends, including Andre Anderson (Development), Suzanne Ford (Art), Daniel Silveira (UI Design), and Andy Bayless (Sound and Music).
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Q: How did you get the idea of making a game like Land of Legends?
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I've been a fan of strategy games for many years, and recently found myself enjoying more simple and fast-paced games like Advance Wars over longer games like Civilization. I found that it's easier to find the time to play shorter games, and I personally enjoy playing many instances of a shorter game instead of just one instance of a longer game.
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Q: Why didn't you think of better graphics? Most of the game looks like
it has been done in Paint.
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Well, it's not that it didn't occur to us to do 'better' graphics, and I assure you, they were not done in Paint! Our artist spent a lot of time on our graphics, and I think she did a good job given the technical constraints of our engine as well as the time and budget constraints she was under.
We had to balance a wide range of issues when deciding on our art style. In the end, we chose to go with a 256-color palettized art style. This lets us do some things that other art styles wouldn't have allowed, like our nifty team-coloring system and allowing players to easily change (mod) our in-game images. I think the team-coloring system especially is one of the strong points of our game, but is easily overlooked because it fits so naturally into the game. But by having that feature in the game, it put some limits on the freedom our artist had.
That said, we have realized that many people perceive our graphics to be our weak spot, and for future products we plan on really ratcheting it up a notch by trying out some different technologies and different approaches, and working with other artists. Our goal with our next product is to find a way to accomplish the same technical requirements while building an art style that people respond better to.
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Q: What influenced you as you did the gfx?
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Our artist is a big fan of Anime, and I think that had a large influence on her style. The game-board images especially are made in the 'super-deformed' anime style of small bodies, big heads, and a somewhat blocky shape. But that fit perfectly for the game board, where the units need to fill up the majority of a square tile. In fact, I think those images are where her work really shines.
The full-screen images also have a bit of an anime flair to them, but I think more than anything they represent our artist's personal style. An important concept for when designing the races was that they each have a lot of 'cultural flair'. Because we're using traditional fantasy races, it would have been easy to copy existing archetypes. But we tried to add a twist to each race, giving them some culture and context that showed through in their final form. For example, the Dwarves are a gadgety race so we wanted each unit to have sort of a primative mechanical feel to them. And our Orc race was designed to have a Native American feel to them, with other cultures making them out to be primal savages, but in they are really a kind, wise, and misunderstood people.
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Q: If you split development time into percent, what would this look
like? How many percent did you spend on gfx, sound, gameplay, etc?
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Well, it's hard to say exactly, but if I had to guess, I would say:
45% development
20% campaign
15% graphics
15% gameplay and content
5% Sound/Music
There's also a huge amount of time that goes into other things, like finding a publisher, managing beta testers, doing testing, etc. Making a game is hard work!
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Q: You will include some online ranking too wich can be accessed via
your website. Rankings, Statistics etc. are attracting clans and
communities wich want to play in teams, for example 2 on 2 - LoL
supports only 1 on 1 until now. Do you plan any changes here?
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No, for a variety of reasons, we're focusing on 1v1 play. I tend to have some fairly untraditional philosophies on game design, and I feel pretty strongly that they will help make sure Tiny Hero creates unique and compelling games.
One of those philosophies is to not offer features that you know you can't do completely right. When you look at offering games for more than 2 players at a time, you start to encounter all sorts of issues that players (and designers) don't typically think about much that tend to have negative effects on the player's experience.
For example, in a 3-player game, one player will inevitably be ganged up on more than the other players. It always happens to some degree, even if it's unintentional. When that happens, the game becomes less about playing the specific game (Land of Legends, in this case) and more about simply trying to be not be the person that is ganged up on. Well, when every game devolves into that, the actual mechanics of the game you're playing get shadowed by this quest to gang up on someone else. But I don't think our players want to play the gang-up game -- they want to play Land of Legends!
Also, with more than 2-players, the network code gets a lot more complicated, has more potential for lag, and would require a lot more development time to get right. That, in turn, would require us to raise the price of the game or offer fewer features in other areas of the game.
Those are just a couple of reasons why more than 1v1 isn't always a good idea, especially for Land of Legends.
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Q: Don't you think you could attract more players / buyers with allowing
more than 2 players to compete in online games?
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To be perfectly honest, I don't. In fact, I think if anything, we'll sell more copies with the decision not to support games with more players. I realize that sounds unintuitive, so let me explain.
First, I think that very few people -- a small handful at most -- are going to decide to buy (or not buy) the game based on whether or not they can play an online game with more than 2 players. Sure, I fully expect people to ask for it 'just because' they think it should be there, but that doesn't at all mean it would actually make the game better or more cost efficient for the customer.
I think even fans of more-than-1v1 games would agree that if you were to tally up every game played (campaign missions, skirmish missions against the AI, hotseat games, and online games), then a very small percentage of the games played would involve more than 2 players. So as I mention all of the costs and risks of supporting this type of game, that has to be weighed against the very small percentage value that would actually be gained from supporting it.
In your previous question, I mentioned some of the risks/costs of allowing more players. But another reason is that I feel that our User Interface (UI) is currently very clean and straightforward. This is, in part, because we only have to show data for 2 players on-screen at any one time. If we had to leave room to show information for, say, 4 players at a time, then that space would be wasted most of the time, and would only be used in a tiny fraction of games. Instead, I'd rather have the UI make the most of itself in all instances.
Also, the more players you have a turn-based game, the more time you spend waiting, and the less time you spend playing. If you have one slow player in a game, then you are forcing multiple players to wait for a long time rather than just one player. I think the wait time is a big flaw in existing turn-based games, and something that only allowing 1v1 games mostly addresses. (Now if we were making a real-time game, this wouldn't be an issue...)
Lastly, the more players you have in a game, the more likely that game is to turn into a negative experience for all players involved. Maybe your assigned teammate isn't up to your skill level, and you find that frustrating. Maybe one player is on a flakey internet connection, and bails halfway through the game. Maybe one person gets bored and quits. Maybe one person is verbally abusive, and is simply out to anger and frustrate the other players. Any of these things will ruin the entire game for everyone involved. The more people that are playing a game, the greater the risk that one of these things will happen, ruining the game for an even greater the number of people.
When you add up all of the costs and design concessions, plus all of the increased opportunities for a negative experience, I think the trade-offs get rather large, and the game would really suffer for it. And frankly, in my own experience with playing online games, I am usually dissatisfied when playing games with than one other player.
Land of Legends is a great game for 1v1, and I would rather embrace that strength and know that every game will be a good one, rather than spending additional development effort to add a gameplay mode that would be much less satisfying much more often.
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Q: If you could have worked on a top selling game like hl2, starcraft or
something similar - what project would have been your favorite to work on?
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Believe it or not, I think I would choose to work at PopCap Games (makers of Bejeweled and Zuma) instead of someplace like Valve or even Blizzard.
The reason is because I think they are really tapping into an approach to game design that will open an entirely new market in the next ten years. Popcap realizes that games don’t have to be massively big and expensive to be fun and addictive. In fact, I believe that smaller and simpler is often better, even though the reflex of both gamers and designers is to keep adding more, more, more...
I've become a big believer of doing something managable, and doing it *right*. While I didn't have the resources to achieve my full vision with this version of Land of Legends, I do hope that my future projects will get closer and closer to the level of production quality found in PopCap's games. And when it comes down to making highly polished games that appeal to nearly anyone and everyone, I think they're they're the most successful game company in the world, except perhaps Nintendo.
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Q: Do you have any cats at home? It seems like you love cats, you even
created a whole cat-race
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Hehe, well, the cat race was actually the idea of our artist, Suzanne Ford. But yes, I do love cats, and I think they fit well into the game!
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Q: My girlfriend never liked any turnbased strategy but played LoL
several times with the arcatta race because they are just soooooo sweet!
Did you try to target on girls/women to play LoL with creating a race of
fluffy pets?
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There was indeed an effort to make Land of Legends appeal to not only men, but also women and children. In fact, I've been pleasantly surprised by how many women who typically have little or no interest in games seem to be genuinely enjoy playing Land of Legends! I've had some friends tell me that their wives play it at least as much as they do, when their wives typically don't play games at all.
I think that since our artist is a woman, that helped bring a more gender-neutral approach to the game. But even when I was choosing a genre, the decision to make a fantasy genre was partially based on the desire to appeal to all audiences. After all, women tend to be less interested in games based on post-apocolyptic settings or World War II, for instance.
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Q: If a customer wich wants to buy a strategy game and has the choice
between LoL and - for example - Rome:TW (<-- insert better choice here,
i dont think theres anything direct comparable) why should he spend his
money on LoL and dont even look at rome?
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Well, I think they should look at Rome: Total War and still buy Land of Legends!
Land of Legends represents a fairly unique design philosophy for strategy games. In my game designs, I work very hard to create games with relatively simple rules and user interfaces, but with many interesting options and deep strategies. I know that sounds cliché, but the irony is that most game designers say that but don't actually *do* it!
One thing that helps make Land of Legends unique, and at the same time helps it be both complex and simple, is the fact that each unit and race have their own distinct gameplay personalities. For example, the Undead's Zombie unit has the ability to convert enemy units into new friendly Zombies when dealing a death blow. Or the Orc Mystic unit can give a Second Wind to a friendly unit, allowing it to move (but not attack) again in the same turn. And then there's the Gnome Gardener, who has the ability to earn extra money when occupying friendly cities, and can grant friendly units bonuses to their movement and influence.
That may not sound like much, but that's the key to what gives Land of Legends its depth and charm, while allowing it to be very easy to learn and play! The rules of the game can remain very simple, and each unit being played in a given game instance introduces their own unique abilities to the game, which is where the complexity is introduced.
The other major thing that makes Land of Legends unique is that it's designed to be played quickly. You can play a couple of games online during a simple lunch break. Or you can fit several games into a single evening that would have only gotten you partially through a more epic turn-based game. I personally have a lot of fun taking Land of Legends with me on my laptop and challenging friends whenever have a few spare minutes.
I really believe that quicker and simpler games are going to catch on in the next few years, but only if they keep the depth and fun of slower games. We at Tiny Hero are dedicated to making strategy games that hit that sensitive balance!
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Q: Is it possible to live from making games?
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Heh, well I'll find out soon!
Honestly, I think it's possible but very hard. Land of Legends took a huge amount sacrifice. In order to develop it, I personally had to go from making very good wages doing traditional software development to living below the poverty line. But I feel Land of Legends is a good game, and hopefully it will sell enough copies for me to make another (even better) game.
I know some people that have been wildly successful making games, and I know people whose efforts have made them basically no money. Thanks to our relationship with Shrapnel, I believe that I should be able to do well enough to make another game fairly soon, but I certainly have no expectations to get rich any time soon.
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Q: What's your favorite race on LoL?
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It's hard to say, because I tried to make each unit and race have a strong and distinct personality and play style. But I suppose if I had to choose, I would say I tend to prefer the trickier races like the Arcatta and the Afflicted -- the ones with lower stats but more interesting abilities. These races generally require more emphasis on crafty strategies rather than brute force, but they often end up being more versatile and can turn more situations to their advantage. I generally find victories with these races to be more rewarding.
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Q: The balancing of the game seems to be very close to perfect, but the
units and races are completely different. How long did you need for
balancing? It seems to be a job for ages for me
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Well, the core gameplay and the races have been around for a quite a while. I think the races have all been in place for over a year now. In that time I have playtested extensively with friends, and the beta testers at Shrapnel Games have been very valuable in giving me good balance feedback as well.
It was indeed very hard to balance such radically different units, because many of them rely so heavily on their unique abilities, which are much harder to balance than raw statistics. But I think we've gotten to a point where the races are pretty darned balanced, although every couple of weeks I still find something that requires a little tweaking.
But regardless of how hard it is, we're fully dedicated to achieving balance, no matter what it takes. Because, after all, if one race turns out to be more or less powerful than the others, then that's the race that player will tend to always or never play. And part of the joy of Land of Legends is experiencing all of the interesting match-ups of races in the game!
Tiny Hero Interview at Rebel
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