A New Game with Great Expectations

(13.03.2009, 21:25:00) Apocalypse Board Online is one of the high anticipated games for the early spring time of 2009. Our partners from BBGsite have had the chance to make an interview with Thomas and Ben, co-creator of the game, right after their official launch.

Glad to have a chance to do an interview with you. First, could you give us a brief introduction about yourself and your development team? Is Apocalypse Board Online your first project? Or the development team has previous experience in similar work?

Thomas: Hi, I'm Thomas, co-creator of Apocalypse Board Online. Our devloppement team has got 3 members: Ben co-creator and developper, Cedric web and interface designer, and myself character designer. The Apocalypse project has begun with Ben three years ago, but it wasn't our first project. We have worked together on several web games for companies and we have decided to create our own MMO game. Our first personnal project was "Resiliant", a medieval fantastic rpg game but we gave up this work four years ago, because it was a too big project for our small team. After that, Ben and myself entered in a long period of reflexion to imagine a game we could start and finish, we decided to create a MMO on a board. Apocalypse Board Online was born.

Ben: Thomas made a good summary, it's quite a long-term project, but everything was made to make it possible, every choice was made to simplify the creation process while making a great and deep game, our dream is to create the most complete browser-based game.

How long have you been working on Apocalypse Board Online? What major challenges did you encounter while developing Apocalypse Board Online?

Thomas: The first artwork of Apocalypse Board Online has been drawn in May 2006. Since that date, we met a lot of barriers, we should surpass many difficulties. At the begining, we couldn't find a developper to work with us, all our developpers left the project because there was a lot of work. Then, Ben decided to learn Flash developpement and started to work alone. Another example, colorisation wasn't my speciality, so I have trained myself until we were satisfied with our units' appearance.

Ben: That's right, finding a game developper was excessively though, but I think we made the right choice, the small size of the team (2 then 3 people only) is the main reason for wich the game exists today ! And with the time and money you need to create this kind of game, you can only count on yourself. In fact it's really a good thing that we did it by ourselves.

As we know, client MMOs occupy a large market share in the online game market. Why did you decide to develop a browser game? What is your prediction on the future of browser games?

Ben: It's true that the market is overcrowded, but we think Apocalypse Board offers something else. In fact there are 4 kinds of MMO today : the real MMOs like WoW or Warhammer, we're not in the same market, the PHP-based browser game, and Apocalypse offers much more, with real-time interaction, evolutivity, animations, great graphisms... There are also Flash Games, often made in two hours. Finaly the game we are close are rare, I think about Ederon, Adventure Quest or Tactics Arena, but we're very differents and there is room for everyone according to me.

Thomas: We'll try to remain a browser-based game, even if there are hudge limitations. In a browser-based game, you don't have to download anything and you can connect with your account from everywhere to play. We use a new technology called BlueBox that allow to connect even behind university or caompanies firewall ! That's the main philosophy of Apocalypse Board.

Ben: unfotunately I think it's harder than before to create a big community, Apocalypse is a good example, the game is fun but the community is still small, even if it is growing every days, and it's hard to convince player to join us ! There are some new sites today like BBGsite that are a proof this kind of game is really appreciate by players, so to answer precisely your question, the number of browser-based game will continue to grow but I think there will only be place for the best of them, and that's a good news for the players !

Can you briefly introduce Apocalypse Board Online to our readers?

Thomas: Apocalypse Board Online takes place in a the backgroung of Apocalypse where Demons and Angels are fighting for final victory. It's a strategic board MMO game where players are fighting other players. Every new player must choose his side (demon or angel), then he begins to fight others with a basic army of humans. With money and experience, he can make his units stronger, he can buy artefacts, he can hire new special units like angels or demons, create his clan...

In your opinion, what makes Apocalypse Board Online unique compared to other browser games? Does Apocalypse Board Online offer anything which other browser games do not offer?

Ben: If I could say two things that make Apocalypse Board different, it would be ambiance, dark and mature and depth, I don't know that much browser-based game where you can create an army, recruit units, where every unit gains experience (and even evolves but that is a secret *laugh*), you can craft items, and conquier a hudge World !

Thomas: I guess players are the best ones to answer this question :). In my opinion, before to lauch Apocalypse Board Online, we wanted a dark and mature game. A lot of MMO have got a design to seduce chidren and teenagers, we wanted to be different for that. An important point is our relation with the players, you can read on our forum, we make our possible to listen players ideas and advices. We have the willing to be closed to our players. And believe me, sometimes they talk about game's details better than we could !

Ben: ...and according to me, the game is really beautiful thanks to Cédric, the graphist of the Team. He managed to sublimate the game, and he's just one of the best designer I met, the difference between the version 1 and the version 2 is amazing!

How does the battle system work in Apocalypse Board Online?

Thomas: It's a turn based battle system. When a battle begins, fastest units play first. A unit can move, concentrate his attack, defend, execute a simple attack, execute a special action. Every unit is unique because of his caracterisics and his special action. A battle ends when all units of enemy are dead. After every battle, you win experience and money.

Ben: yes, basicaly this is how it works, with some subtleties, for example after each fight you have a chance to find gems, with this gems you can craft Orbs that make your army much better... You have Clans too, every player can create a Clan, and it's the final purpose of the game, recruit new players and attempt to conquer a World that is slowly unveiled after each update.

What is pit and how can we prepare and deploy army units during battle? Can we battle alone or have to work with other players?

Thomas: The pit is the place where you meet other players, you can talk, you can visit other pits, you can go and see the merchants, it's also the place to fight. When you stand on a piliar, it means you're ready to fight another player. To avoid being attacked by a stronger player than you, there are differents pits to fight people near your level. Before a battle, a player can organize his army. There are three types of units: Humans, Demons, Angels. A player can have a maximum of five units.

Currently, Apocalypse Board Online is a PvP game only, but we think about creating a tutorial for beginners which allows to fight computer. We have also thought about a co-op mode which could allows to several players to play in the same time, but it's not a near future, we have other ideas for the moment.

This article was originally published by our partners from BBGsite.

Autor: Redaktion

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