On March 27, after a year of softlonch, Kefir! studio released the Forge of Glory buttler on Google Play. About the project App2Top.ru I talked to the game’s leading game designer, Yuri Lyashenko.
Yuri LyashenkoAlexander Semenov, Senior Editor App2Top.ru Forge of Glory is a non–standard project for you.
This is a three-dimensional battler with a three-in-a-row action, originally created for mobile. And your debut on the mobile market. Why did you start making your first mobile game from scratch instead of porting projects that have already proven themselves on social platforms?
Yuri Lyashenko, leading game designer of Forge of Glory: The studio’s previous games were focused on the Russian market. When developing a new project, we have already set our sights on the whole world. Plus, our team always strives to create something new every time. Therefore, having compiled a list of requirements, we developed the Forge of Glory concept.
In Forge of Glory, its scale is striking. The game has a lot of content and functionality. How long and by what forces was the project created?
Having experience in supporting our projects on social networks, we understood that the new game should become a powerful foundation for constant updates. Therefore, the content was made with a margin.
Forge of Glory was created for a year and a half, there was a fairly long period of softlonch in Canada and Australia, at different times from 15 to 20 people worked on the project.
What specific indicators were achieved at the sotflonch stage?
The team approached the softlonch with full responsibility and a clear understanding of the goal: to determine whether the game will be able to recapture the costs of attracting traffic.
If we talk specifically about metrics, then, for example, in terms of retention, we aimed for such indicators: day 1 – 40%, day 7 – 20% and day 30 – 10%.
The game, as it seems after the first hours of acquaintance with it, has literally everything (construction, pumping, single and PvP, etc.). Why did you decide to enter so many at once? Usually it is considered that it is better to launch the basic functionality, and then polish and supplement with new entities?
Yes, we deliberately introduced a lot of interesting things, because we initially saw the vector of development of the game. As mentioned earlier, we were creating a solid foundation for the introduction of new functionality after the release. In addition, for fans of this genre, such an abundance of opportunities in the game will only be a plus.
How do you balance such a huge number of mechanics?
In order not to bother the reader with complex calculations, let me tell you about the calculation of the combat system.
We translate everything into one universal indicator that allows us to compare the effectiveness of a particular element of the game. As a result, working with the balance sheet and finding errors is much easier and takes less time.
The root mechanics of Forge of Glory are three-in-a-row. It is on it that the combat system is built. And match-3 in the game is far from the most standard. We are dealing with a trace system (chains) and six-sided chips (not a four-sided classic). Why did they make such changes, what did it give the game (compared to if they had done the classic three-in-a-row)?
Of course, many options were considered. But the current implementation has helped to reduce (but not eliminate) the proportion of randomness. The player gained more control in battle and an understanding of what would happen after his turn.
Usually in battlers in battles, the skill of the player does not play a special role (the first fiddle is the ability to make the right deck and its leveling level). How is it with this in your game?
Our game was no exception. At the same time, the strengthening of the impact of RPG elements does not occur immediately. At the initial stages, the emphasis is on three-in-a-row and, speaking in percentage terms, 100% of success depends on the ability to collect stones. But the higher the player’s progress, the more stats of heroes and monsters decide the outcome of the battle. Thus, the influence of the three-in-a-row component is reduced to about 40%. To facilitate the grind, we did not forget to introduce auto-mode, which copes with puzzles as well as the player.
Our favorite question when we talk about three-in-a-row: how is the distribution of chips on the playing field formed?
How are we going to look people in the eye? Everything is fair: 4 colors, the probability of each is 25%. [laughs]
In fact, in our game it is pointless to control the number of colors on the field. The difficulty of the level is more solved by increasing the stats of the monster at the level, rather than by complicating three-in-a-row.
The game has a lot of classic battlers, but at the same time there are enough differences. For example, I have not found such an opportunity as merging several cards into one to get a more powerful one. Probably, at a certain stage of the development of the project, the question of introducing such functionality was. What motivated the rejection of it?
Of course, this issue has been raised. Despite the scale of the game, we tried to simplify the management of creatures as much as possible at the beginning. In the future, users will expect similar functionality, but significantly changed compared to the classic version.
I was also surprised that you split the characters into two types in the game – heroes and guardians. Why were they divided, because then it would be possible to assemble an army from both?
The separation of creatures made it possible to implement a single combat system in both PvE and PvP. Its distinctive feature is the seals that move from one stage of the battle to another. It is they who add an element of surprise to the three-in-a-row and generate a lot of acute gaming situations.
Please tell us a little more about the seals. What is it, how does their mechanics work?
At the beginning of each stage of the battle, the monster creates a seal on the playing field, which, depending on the property, makes it difficult to pass. It can only be destroyed by a special element on the field or by a special skill of the hero. If the seal has not been destroyed during the stage, then it goes to the next one and is triggered again.
Suppose that the player does not eliminate the seals in the battle, then at the end their combined effect can destroy the heroes before the first move on the playing field.
I was impressed by the store in the game – 9 types of goods (the goods themselves are an order of magnitude more). How difficult is it in a game without a donation, how much does the pace in the game decrease without it?
In fact, the game is friendly enough for non-paying players and strongly encourages frequent returns. We tried to give them the opportunity to achieve their goal in different ways. As a result, if one of the options is beyond your strength, then there is always another.
Do I understand correctly that there is no donation in the game as such. Is it possible to enjoy the game without paying?
We don’t make insurmountable paywalls. Any difficulty can be dealt with in several ways: hero management, grinding, changing the strategy on the playing field, etc. If the player wants to get past all the obstacles faster, then the store, of course, will help him.