In the summer of 2017, the Kaliningrad Tortuga Team released the fourth part of the turn-based strategy Braveland with the subtitle Heroes. We talked with the creative director of the studio Anton Mikhailov about how the work on the project was going.
Alexander Semenov, Senior Editor App2Top.ru A year ago you launched Battles in Russia. Now the launch of Heroes has been announced. Isn’t it the same game?
Anton Mikhailov
Anton Mikhailov, Creative Director of Tortuga Team: And yes and no. In 2016, we launched Battles in the CIS. We made it in 8 months to see if our players are interested in the theme of free Braveland with asynchronous duels.
It turned out that such a game is interesting not only to our loyal fans, but also to new players. Therefore, we took up developing the Braveland frituplein with renewed enthusiasm, and a year later we re-released it in the App Store as Braveland Heroes, but already for the whole world.
It turns out that Battles turned out to be a softlonch version of Heroes. Why did you decide to rename yourself after a year in softlonche?
Anton: It’s not just renaming. We started a new server so as not to give out all the developments for the year. The maximum level in Braveland Heroes is now 20, not 45 as in Battles. There are fewer available creatures and clan events in the game. All this will allow you to make a little more surprises for new players of the world version. Our “oldies” from the Russian server have seen it all. We hope that players from all over the world will also like the new items now.
Tell us a little about the project. Do I understand correctly that you combined the three previous parts and screwed the fritupley?
Anton: It sounds too simplistic. Braveland Heroes is a full-fledged new part. The fourth and summing up trilogy.
Clans have appeared in Braveland Heroes and, of course, the most important thing is online duels. In fact, this is the crown of the development of Braveland. A kind of pub for fans of old-school strategies, where you can chat in a clan and fight against each other with your favorite squads from previous Braveland series, gather new dangerous fighters and surprise everyone with unusual strategic moves.
Do not forget about the new story campaign. We have written a new story about the theft of the Royal Scepter. Added a lot of new creatures and spells, not to mention their complete rebalance.
The game works perfectly offline for up to 7 days and fans of the single can move along the plot and fight monsters without the Internet. Just like in the good old days.
Why did you decide to leave the single, and not make one online based on the existing mechanics?
Anton: As they say, it happened historically. Looking back, we can say that the story campaign was very difficult for us and, probably, it was possible to make a game without a single. But a year and a half ago, a game without a plot seemed bland. As if it’s not Braveland. As a result, the first card was inserted for seed and it went-it went. It took a lot of effort to create story content. It took a long time to adjust and redo the balance of side dungeons. The result is a hybrid that combines both a story campaign and online duels. There is a certain stratification of players into “plotters” and “duelists”. Someone just wants to farm dungeons, someone just wants to fight in the arena. As they say, “we are so different and yet we are together.” Perhaps this creates a special atmosphere of Braveland Heroes.
When launching in softlonch a year ago, from what problems did my head hurt the most then?
Anton: A year ago we didn’t have clans and online duels. It was possible to play it, but there was not enough socialization. A spark was needed. And we decided to aim for more, to develop the game into a full-fledged gaming community. Since a full–fledged frituplay is a new genre for us, we had to do a lot of “hidden internal stuff” from scratch.
We didn’t have the opportunity to use the developments, as other studios do. Therefore, online duels, clans, chat, anti-cheat, admin panel, stock editor, localization control and much more had to be completed on the fly. We also used third-party developments of our friends, without which we would not have been able, for example, to use flash animations in Unity. There was a lot to develop and implement, but we managed it in a year with a team of 2-3 programmers. I think this is a worthy result.
What makes my head hurt more now?
Anton: Now we are trying to find the optimal combination of in-game promotions. Moreover, it seems that different audiences gather on two different servers and promotions have to be selected individually for each server, analyzing a bunch of “boring parameters”.
Plus, we have 8 languages in the game and there are some inconsistencies and flaws in each of them. At the moment, a monumental project on editing texts by native speakers is nearing completion. We hope this will significantly improve the quality of perception of the game in other countries.
What was the result of the softlonch had to be removed, and what, on the contrary, was added to the game?
Anton: We have completely changed the system of magic. If earlier spells were bought for ordinary gold and looked very simple, now magic is studied from scrolls that those who wish can buy more.
Both the balance of the start of the game has been repeatedly redone, and the parameters of combat units have been redone several times. Added a system of in-game promotions. And all this against the background of regular updates with content: we had to make new chapters, release sets of items and open new combat squads that were not even originally planned.
What forces did you do the project with?
Anton: The previous parts of Braveland were made by 4 people (1 programmer, 1 game designer, 1 artist and 1 freelance animator). Since then, the number of people involved has at least doubled. Now the team has 1 QA manager, 3 programmers, 3 outsourcing artists, 1 game designer. This is not counting the testers from the Braveland community, who help us a lot with the game balance. Other guys also helped us at various stages. All of them are listed in the credits, which have now become much longer.
If it’s not a secret, to what level could key metrics be raised?
Anton: Retention is close to standard figures. As far as I know, 8-10% of the retention of the thirtieth day is considered a good indicator. At the start of Battles, very loyal players came to us and we, of course, achieved such figures. But we must understand that with every month of the game’s life, fewer and fewer real fans of the genre come to it and the retention rate of the thirtieth day may change.
DAU and MAU on the world server are still small, because the game has just started. We will develop at a measured pace.
Have you calculated already, is the traffic paying off?
Anton: Counted. According to various sources, the cost of inviting a normal user to the game is now very high – around $3 or even $ 5. Accordingly, it is necessary to tighten monetization to a similar level, and we are working on this now.
We also expect to get to the main page of the App Store. That’s why we keep retina graphics in the game, we play on the iPhone, iPad ourselves and try to take into account all the little things on Apple devices.
Do I understand correctly that just because of the retina, your application weighs 500 megabytes?
Anton: Yes, the game looks great on the iPad, but the price of this is the large size of the application. Judging by the previous parts, we have more than 30% playing on the iPad. So we think it’s worth it. As for Android, after six months of persistent optimization, we have reduced the size of the game to 80 megabytes. But there is no question of any retina at this size. However, the game looks decent on phones and with such a small application size.
Heroes has a problem for me as a user. When I see it in the store – with the same art, with the same interface as the very first Braveland. Because of this, I get the impression that this is the same game from five years ago that I have had for a long time and I don’t need to download it. Why did you decide to do without at least a minimal guidance of the “marathon”?
Anton: Yes. There is such a thing. In fact, Braveland Heroes has invested three times more time and effort than one paid Braveland. But because of the incorrect feed on the store page, it feels like “it’s the same thing.” Soon we will change the screenshots and description to emphasize that Braveland Heroes is a full–fledged fourth game in the series, which has absorbed all the best of the trilogy and brought a lot of new things.
What are the current expectations and plans for the project?
Anton: We are currently working on improving the game. Small updates will be released regularly, improving the feeling of the gameplay. The big October update is being developed in full, where the third chapter of adventures will be added, new creatures will appear, the ability to change resources in the clan and much more. Perhaps Apple will still notice our commitment to their platform and in some of the stores we will still get to the main one in the near future.
Behind the team’s back is the fourth release of a turn–based strategy. For those who are timid, naive and green, would you advise them to take up such games or, to hell with it, it’s better to go do something more box office?
Anton: I can say that frituplay takes three times more effort than creating a regular single game. It would seem that there is more money in the frituplee, but worries are added many times. You need to carefully monitor that no one has bugs. Respond to the user in support.
Reviews that someone on Steam “the game is buggy, but still good” cause a smile. There is no room for error in fritupley and “minor” bugs turn into a storm of indignation in the community, affect the number of payers in the game and spoil the overall well-being. On Steam, the person has already paid and some developers (thank God, not us) can “philosophically” treat bugs, because after 2 hours of the game there is no refund.
So think seven times about whether it’s worth getting into the fritupley, where superbizons with teams under 500 people are fighting. Do not buy into the success of Supercell. Although their teams consist of 10 people, I think these guys have impressive marketing, management and other departments behind them, freeing them from many routine worries.
By the way, pay attention to the developers of Punch Club and Party Hard. They did frituplay, but now for some reason they are successfully developing paid indie games. Interesting fact, isn’t it?