About the history of Hybrid Wars development, the project itself, as well as working with WG Labs, – App2Top.ru I talked to the Extreme Developers team.
Denis Sidorov, CEO of Extreme Developers, answered the questions.
Hi! To begin with, tell us a little about yourself: who are you, how many of you and by what games can we know you?
Denis Sidorov
Hi! The studio was formed in 2004, that is, we have been in existence for twelve years. And I started making games at school on the ZX Spectrum, and at the time of Duke Nukem, Quake and Half-Life, I opened a computer club and started making mods for these games for club visitors. I created the company alone, after I became very interested in cult games like Quake, Duke Nukem and Half-Life, and caught fire with the idea of doing something similar.
At first there were four of us: a game designer, an artist, a programmer, and, in fact, I, who was something like a human orchestra, did a little bit of everything. Now there are already 40 of us.
Before Hybrid Wars, we released several games. From the latter — the mobile game Tank Domination. Of the more or less well-known, I can name “The Truth about the 9th Company”, which was created jointly with Dmitry “Goblin” Puchkov and the 1C company.
And what do you specialize in?
We used to specialize in first-person shooters. In general, it so happened that we have to master some new genres all the time, including MMO. Some of our projects are developed in experimental genres. For example, “The Truth about the 9th Company” is a documentary game. And the “Merchant’s Diary” is generally a simulator of instrument search. Racing, mobile tanks (even before World of Tanks Blitz), a game in which you need to draw on the screen — what we just didn’t do!
Merchant’s Diary
Actually, that’s how we came to Hybrid Wars. And also — by inspiration: Jungle Strike, Desert Strike — we have long had a dream to revive this direction of games. I myself really liked them even on “Sega”, “Super Nintendo”. And after a happy meeting with Wargaming, the dream came true.
Let’s talk about Hybrid Wars. The announcement of the game, on the one hand, impressed everyone, but on the other hand, it was somewhat confusing, since it is still unclear what the game will be. Is it about something like a new reading of Jungle Strike?
In general, the original idea was to create a game in the style of Jungle Strike. That is, it was planned to alternate between vehicles (completed a mission — they gave you a helicopter, completed another — you get into a tank). Then, as a joke, we made it so that the character himself could get out of the technique at any time, not necessarily from mission to mission. We liked the mechanics, and we began to redo the whole game for it, which gradually acquired a new look, content, and in general became more fun and lively.
The game has already announced three characters with different abilities and a fleet of cars of four names, which implies the presence of a certain meta on the swing. How will this work in the game?
In general, we plan to increase the number of characters. And, yes, all of them can be pumped. At the same time, each hero has its own characteristics, and the passage of the game for each is also slightly different. If we talk about pumping, there will be quite a lot of opportunities here. For example, the player will be able to get an assistant in the order of pumping, which initially does not exist. For example, Alex’s assistant is able to restore his life. Or fly and collect bonuses for it. Pumping in Hybrid Wars will have a very significant impact on the game.
Hybrid Wars
A question about mechanics. Now on the site you can find information about eight maps and one hundred and fifty tasks. What are the maps at the moment — the settings or the actual levels?
Eight maps are exactly eight different settings. Each card contains several episodes. Roughly speaking, if 150 tasks are divided into 8, and then into 3, it turns out that for one mission the player needs to complete about 6 tasks in each episode.
Did you initially have an eye on cooperation with Wargaming, or did you get down to business without waiting for outside help?
Rather, it was a happy combination of stars: we have long wanted to make a game in the spirit of “Strikes”, and then Wargaming opened a laboratory to support innovative projects, WG Labs. We showed them the finished prototype and started working on the project together. So the Hybrid Wars game was born.
What has WG Labs contributed to the development? What did I have to change? Have any fundamental things been added?
Freedom is what WG Labs gave us from the very beginning and in an unlimited amount, thanks to which we could do literally anything we wanted. At the same time, it was always discussed how best to do something, something was tried, something was introduced into the game, something was deleted.
Hybrid Wars
The WG Labs team conducted an initial review of features, game mechanics, equipment, environment, maps — that is, almost everything that was in the game. We worked a lot on the quality of objects and characters, since the initial art design was slightly different from what you will see now – the guys from WG Labs wanted a more plausible environment that would reflect the realities of a relatively close and quite likely future, where the conduct of war will move to a more technological level.
What WG Labs liked right away was the robots and how they move, how they behave or, rather, could behave during a fight. There were no major alterations for them, mostly the work was reduced to voice acting and a variety of weapons for mechs for each character. The narrative was removed from the game, because it was decided that it could not convey the whole idea of the game for a particular character, as a result, only messages were left that guide the player on missions.
How is your work with WG Labs structured: who is responsible for what, how often do you call, what decisions can remain with you, which ones are for the publisher?
To begin with, we communicate every day: via Skype and email. Every week we call up and voice the main points related to the game and the publishing house.
At the beginning of work on the project, WG Labs provided us with a “full package of professionals”, including specialists from the marketing, PR and user support department who serve the game.
Hybrid Wars
But, most importantly, WG Labs has provided us with specialized specialists, such as an R&D expert on games who oversees gameplay and features, and an operating producer who ensures that the game has everything you need at the start: integration with Wargaming services and other platforms, preparation of all relevant materials in accordance with the developed style, availability of all necessary localizations and sounds, and much more.
Publishers do not have a rigid position on what should remain behind the development and what should remain behind the publisher: in fact, we solve all issues collectively, arguing for certain actions.
How long have you been preparing the project for release? And how many iterations did he go through on the way to this release?
Before we started working with WG Labs, we independently developed a prototype for about a year, then we worked on the project for about the same amount already in cooperation with WG Labs. That is, together with all the experiments, experiments, trials and errors, it took us about two years. Quite a standard term for such a game.
What is the game being developed on and what dictated such a choice?
Perhaps, the choice was, first of all, dictated by many years of experience with Unity. That is, we work on Unity all the time, have made the last five games on it and have already studied all the bottlenecks of this engine.
Before that, we were doing our own engine — in fact, then everyone was doing it, there was no other way. But with the release of large engines, it was easier to switch to them than to maintain your own.
Did you need to create additional tools for the game? If so, which ones and for what?
Having worked on Unity for so long, we, of course, got a whole arsenal of tools. Basically, the task of each of them is to save time on development and get rid of routine manual work. For example, the situation: you need to hang the same sound on a thousand destructible objects. Agree, it’s much easier to spend a day writing a script than a few days manually, like on a conveyor, to hang these sounds.
As far as I understand, the game is created in the spirit of console projects, but at the same time it is declared only for PC. What about the consoles?
We are currently working on releasing the game on PC, then on Mac and Linux. As for consoles, it would be interesting to look at the feedback from players of console games like Jungle Strike and other “strikes” of that generation, which we focused on when creating Hybrid Wars. In general, the Unity engine allows you to make a console version of the game. One way or another, we will be guided by the situation in order to understand where we need to move on.
I see. We will be waiting, thanks for the interview!
The editors thank Wargaming for their help in organizing the interview