"The scene is about to enter it's adulthood stage..."

(10.10.2007, 08:11:58) Cristian is an Argentinian developer, who worked on several computer and video games before deciding to work on browser games about 6 month ago. Not only, because he wanted to be his own boss, but because he liked the thought of playing whenever and wherever. We talked to him about the process of his latest game and the difference to existing web games.

Galaxy-News: Please introduce yourself to our readers and tell us about your position within the team.

Cristian3d: My name is Cristian, and I'm the main programmer. But since its a small team, we all do many different tasks.

Cristian3d: Gamezatia was created a few months ago, and the aim is to develop web games that are fun to play. My personal aim is to be able to make a living out of that, so I'd be happy working on what I love without having to worry about how to maintain my family.

Cristian3d: The multiplayer browser games scene is about to enter its adulthood stage. There's already some well defined gameplay mechanics that have lead to a few well defined genres, each of them with a couple top games that are making good money. This is attracting new developers (which are usually also consumers of this games). Many of them just try to copy an existing game, but a few of them take risks and innovate. And this will eventually lead to new game genres, which might appeal to people that never got attracted by browser games, which benefits us all. So its very exciting times to be a developer on this scene.

Galaxy-News: What makes Megaduel different from other web games?

Cristian3d: Megaduel is basically a fighting game where you can perform a limited number of actions per day (in the form of turns). This design decision was taken in order to favor strategy over just accumulation of played time. And that might be the first and most noticeable difference. This game is ideal for people that just cannot spend 10 hours playing everyday, since it requires a minimum amount of time per day. Or course you could spend a lot of time in the game, and that might give you some sort of advantage in the top leagues, since after all, this is also a real time game. But that advantage is insignificant in comparison to other games, where pretty much the only skill required to be a top 1 is just playing as much as possible!. Besides, the fact that you can use your turns in little time doesnt mean that you just forget about the game. In fact, a lot of people have told me they just can't stop thinking about it. But they can continue with their normal lives. They can think of a strategy while they're doing other things, since it's not so necessary to be in front of the computer at all times to be a good player.
The second difference with most games in the genre, is not only that you control a group of warriors (instead of 1) but that after a while, they retire, and new warriors replace them. So this creates an endless loop of old warriors retiring and new warriors entering the game, which makes it more interesting in the long run. And this is encouraging for new players when they notice they can get to the top no matter if they started playing a lot of time after the game was released. It also gives more challenge to the users that have been already playing for a long time, since they have the opportunity to prove they're good because of their talent and not just because they've played for more time.

Third difference might be the battle and skills systems. The skills system is based on 5 elements, each of them with a defense an attack power. As you make progress, you can pick which defense or attack element you want to improve. This decision causes that in the long run, your warrior will be specialized in certain attacks and defenses, but not in others. So some of your rival warriors might end up being very easy for you to beat, while others might end up beating you most of the time. But since you have 4 warriors, and you can level up and control them separately, you can use different strategies when you level up them so they complement each other or not, depending on your short term and long term goals.

Then there's small details here and there (ie. you can watch a flash simulation of the fight, and make your warriors say different phrases doing a battle according to what is happening) but those doesnt add gameplay, just flavor :p

Galaxy-News: How much time does a player have to spend within your game on an average day to stay on top?

Cristian3d: About an hour per day. But it could also take more... or less. It mostly depends on how you decide to use the turns.

Galaxy-News: How many people are currently playing and what are your future plans for new features and yourself?

Cristian3d: We already got over 3,800 registered users. Considering the game started just a month and a half ago, and without almost any publicity other than a few posts, I guess its doing well. At this rate, we might reach 10,000 registered users by the end of the year.
Plans for the future include keep adding more stuff to the game. Ie. today we added a "creatures system", so the players can now fight other players and system creatures, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, which allows for more different strategies. And more changes are coming soon, specially some focused on interaction between users (other than smashing each other :p ). Besides that, there's small changes almost every week, to try to get the best possible balance in the gameplay.

Cristian3d: The community influence is bigger than in any game I know. Every time a new idea is born, is posted in the forums and discussed with the users (so far this is done in the spanish forum, but in the future we'll do it in all forums). Then the idea evolves according to the opinion of the users (and our own instinct) until it shapes into something that'd really work in the game, or is discarded. During the brainstorming usually other ideas are born, so its a never ending process. To those users who enjoy thinking about game design, this opportunity is pretty much unique. They help shaping the game they play, because the crew actually pay attention to their opinions.

Galaxy-News: Thanks a lot for your time. This is space for additional comments and to say good bye to our readers. Bye and good luck!

Autor: Redaktion

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Betatester gesucht + Verlosung

(27.09.2007, 15:48:31) Für die deutsche Open-Beta von Megaduel suchen wir noch aktive Betatester, die Lust haben, auch weitere Ideen einzubringen oder einfach mal ein neues Spiel auszuprobieren. Außerdem werden unter allen Testern 2x1 Monat MEGADUEL Plus verlost.