Q&A: Capy on creating Clash of Heroes, 2009’s best RPG/puzzle game
Despite its low key status as the secret best RPG/puzzle game of the year, you might have heard about Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, if not for its addictive battle system, pretty boy smiles, and inventive take on the puzzle/RPG formula, then for the acclaim it’s received from anyone who spent more than a minute with the DS title.
Both Boing Boing and Gamasutra honored it as one of 2009’s best handheld releases, IGN called it the year’s Best DS Strategy Game and nominated it for Best DS Multiplayer Game, and Penny Arcade has already namedropped it a couple times. The Penny Arcade mention is important, as the webcomic’s kingmakers were instrumental in calling attention to 2007’s puzzle/RPG sleeper hit Puzzle Quest.
We recently caught up with the folks at Capy, the Toronto indie developer behind Clash of Heroes, to talk about the game. Here, the studio discusses how it sought to differentiate its title from Puzzle Quest, where Clash of Heroes fits in the Might & Magic series, and why pixel art has become so rare in modern games.
We’ve seen an explosion of puzzle hybrid games in the past two years since Puzzle Quest’s success. Did you pick up any lessons or inspirations from those releases for your own puzzle hybrid title?
Nathan Vella (co-founder/president): The single largest thing we learned from those games was that we wanted to create, from scratch, a new take on the puzzle/strategy hybrid. We knew that, no matter what we did, the game would be compared to Puzzle Quest, so we wanted to ensure it was, in a way, nothing like Puzzle Quest.
Greg Georgiadis (co-lead designer): To be honest, I actually didn’t play Puzzle Quest until we were pretty far into the development of our battle system. When I did finally play Puzzle Quest it was only briefly and I looked more at the Adventure Map gameplay than the actual battle system. I’ve played bejeweled several times in my life but I’m one of the few people that aren’t actually a big fan of it, probably because I’ve never been hooked by that style of puzzle game (unlike the majority of people I know).
That being said, the fact that Puzzle Quest was so hugely popular did prove that combining a simple puzzle game with strong RPG elements works really well, and I think that alone acted as a light at the end of the tunnel for us when we were still in the early stages of the game, struggling to make it fun.
With the added strategic depth that we were able to achieve, I think we managed to “level up” the Puzzle RPG hybrid in some way, while still remaining comfortably akin to Puzzle Quest.
The bounty hunting mechanic works really well here, allowing players to take a break from the serious, epic storyline with side-quests hunting down distinctive rogues.
It almost makes players feel like they’re in a different setting, acting as a sword-for-hire for a faceless and somewhat shady organization. How did you guys come up with this idea?
GG: The idea of bounty quests was one of the things planned right from the beginning. Several RPGs have done bounty-style quests before, and the design team felt they were both simple and effective.
At first, bounties were just listed at “Wanted” signs located in certain areas, and the NPCs that the player must search for were just an easy way to add life to the world, giving the player a reason to talk to NPCs so they aren’t just background details. After we switched to a Bounty Agent instead of a lifeless sign post the writers took the opportunity to add more character to the world with witty dialogue and subtle location hints.
In all honesty, bounty quests are one of the easiest things to put in the game that provide a lot of bang for the buck. They require a relatively small amount of planning and were great to fill in sparse areas of the map, while some of the harder to find bounty targets were also useful to nudge the player into searching for hidden or optional areas where additional quests and rewards will be found in the process.
Can you talk at all about Zombie Tactics yet? As popular as puzzle hybrids have become in recent years, zombie games have overrun nearly every platform. I think I’d dismiss this as “yet another zombie game” if it were coming from most other devs and even indies, but Capy’s proven it can take a traditional genre or current trend and make it feel new and interesting.
NV: To be totally honest, no one should even know Zombie Tactics exists -– the very cool Ryan Langley from GamerBytes somehow dug it up out off a website that should never have been up (kudos to Ryan for the sleuthing). But now it’s out there.
Really, Zombie Tactics is a game we received some government funding to prototype, and that prototype is still very “work in progress”. I really wish we had the chance to “reveal” the game when it was ready so people wouldn’t immediately roll their eyes at the inclusion of Zombies, but all we can do is roll with the punches, try to make a cool proto and see where the game goes.
One thing I can say is that it will be a long while before we show anything, if ever.
Back to Clash of Heroes, unfortunately, I haven’t seen much in the way of promotional materials or artwork for communities/fans, like wallpapers or other ways Capy fans can enjoy the game outside of actually playing it. Do you have anything like this planned in the near future?
NV: We’re cooking a few things up — Critter Crunch character artist Qiqo did an amazing rendition of Fiona that we’re going to turn into a wallpaper. We’re also hoping to do a few cool things with all the great pixel art and animations from the game.
If anyone out there wants to see something specific, just hop over to the Capy forums, start a thread and request it!
Speaking of Critter Crunch, was it more limiting to work on a retail DS game, or a downloadable PSN game?
NV: I think it really depends on how you define “limiting”. I think, coming from the background of working on the worst devices ever (cell phones), we can’t really think of a DS as limiting at all.
From the very beginning, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes was developed with the DS in mind, so creatively we didn’t feel limited at all. While we couldn’t push crazy amounts of particles or do insanely detailed 2D HD art, I think our love for pixel art really removed the visual limits that some people assume the DS would have.
So, although working on a self-published PlayStation Network game is much different than working on a Nintendo DS game with Ubisoft, I really don’t think we ever felt that limited… though I am sure our technical team might feel just a touch different.
This is something I’ve been wondering about lately, and I thought I’d bring it up with you since Capy’s roots were in the mobile space and your games tend to have a great 2D look to them.
When I covered the mobile titles a year or so ago before the App Store really took off, I was amazed with the 2D art/spritework I saw in so many games, many times from devs I’d never heard of. Many mobile studios have since moved to produce games for iPhones, but it doesn’t seem like we’re seeing many games with beautiful 16-bit style sprites/environments for iPhone. Why do you think that is?
GG: A lot of our favorite games of all time are in pixels. It’s kind of sad that it’s not as popular in games as it once was.
NV: I think pixel art is extremely hard to do well, and the artists who do it the best are very under-appreciated. Those insanely talented pixel pushers like Paul Robertson, Gary Lucken (Army of Trolls), Fool, Kenneth Fejer, and so many others from the Pixeljoint.com (and other) communities rarely ever get credit on the same level as other game artists.
I think most medium and large-sized studios don’t at all care for 2D art, especially pixels. The modus operandi is usually “more polygons” or “increased realism”, rather than just creating delicious sprite art. When the iPhone rolled around, people had the power to push 3D and/or more illustrative art, so most everyone backed away from pixels. There are a few exceptions, but not many. Capy is totally committed to continuing to use pixel art in our games… for example, we’re working on a collaboration with pixel-art-mastermind Craig ‘superbrothers’ Adams called Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.
To any pixel artist out there who happens to be reading this: we love you.
Visually at least, Clash of Heroes seems so different from other titles in the Might & Magic series. I’m curious about what the team decided makes a Might & Magic game when looking at the series and what themes they felt needed to be in Clash of Heroes?
GG: At first glance, it’s probably not too easy to see the similarities with the Might and Magic franchise, but I think anyone that takes a closer look will see the thematic similarities and shared elements that do exist in Clash of Heroes.
During development of the game we focused a lot more on the Heroes of Might & Magic games as opposed to anything that just contains “Might and Magic” in the title. Clash of Heroes shares many artifact and Unit abilities with HOMM, not to mention characters and story references. However, in my opinion, the single largest tie to Heroes of Might & Magic is the strategic layer -– without a deep layer of strategy complete with lots of army variation/customization, the Might and Magic is just a slapped on title.
All in all, we tried to take the really positive and key points from the HOMM series, but we didn’t want to be constrained with the crutch of remaining 100 percent in line with the franchise. I know for a fact that no matter what game we ended up making, if it’s not a remake of HOMM II or III the hardcore fans will be angry. We never planned on remaking the older games in the series, we just wanted to make something unique and fun, and did our best to be as loyal as we could be with the franchise without sacrificing the gameplay mechanics that make Clash of Heroes what it is today.
Are you worried at all about gamers hearing about the praise Clash of Heroes has received through friends or the internet, then accidentally picking up Dawn of Heroes at a local shop? [Note: Dawn of Heroes releases next February].
NV: I wasn’t… until now… Thanks a lot, Eric…
GG: Hopefully, they can tell the difference between 2D and 3D art.
How do you feel about your game releasing just a week before The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks?
NV: Capy can’t control release dates – all we can do is make a game we are proud of.
I know Zelda is going to get a huge push from Nintendo, and it surely will take some focus from Clash of Heroes. We could sit back and feel bad about it, or we can do what we can to push the game out there –- talk about it with the press, on forums, wherever, and try to convince people to give it a shot.
In a perfect world, no game would be released within a month of us, and we’d be on the front page of every website and magazine… but the reality is that so many studios are making and releasing DS games that you’re bound to bump up against another title with a bigger name behind it. It’s just the reality of the gaming landscape today.
How was the experience of working for a publisher?
NV: Normally it’s fun to trash publishers – indie developers especially love to do it. Hell, Capy loves to do it. But I definitely can’t say anything but good about working with Ubisoft on Clash of Heroes. It was great.
We’re a small independent studio, and the assumption is that you are going to get railroaded by the big publisher. In the case of Clash of Heroes, though, it was the exact opposite. They really trusted us, and worked with us, to make a game we were proud of. When we brought Ubisoft the initial concept, we were so excited about the gameplay… and once we pitched it they got equally as excited. On both developer and publisher sides, that excitement never left.
It was a difficult development, with lots of hurdles to get over, but they never once waivered in their support for the game or our creative vision. That’s pretty damn awesome in my books.
I appreciate you taking the time to speak to us!
NV: Big thanks to Tiny Cartridge for the coverage, and I hope everyone out there considers giving Clash of Heroes a shot! Thanks!
GG: Thanks!
tags / clash of heroes / might and magic / ubisoft / capybara / interview / ec
