Hello, Readers of the Friendly Necromancer blog! I have a special treat for you today. I've asked Game Designer Roland Kie from Starstruck Games, makers of Roguematch: The Extraplaner Invasion, if he'd be willing to sit down and answer a few questions for us in an interview format.
I've talked about Roguematch a few times here on the blog and after making it into the credits for the game with a special thank-you, it's only fair that I return the favor. Roland highly deserves a spot here on the sidebar of the blog as a VIP!
Read on for more insights into Roland's special kind of awesomeness.
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Q: So Roland, why don't you take a second to introduce yourself to those who may not know you! Let us know how you found yourself in this state of life and why you're doing what you're doing.
A: Hi! I'm Roland Kie, born and bred in Singapore! Games have always been a major part of my life, and when I got a chance to work at EA as localisation QA 20 years ago, I joined the games industry and never looked back! I eventually made my way to become a game designer, co-founded Inzen Studios, focusing on mobile games, and then subsequently left and found Starstruck Games.
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Q: Let's talk for a moment about Starstruck Games. Where is Starstruck Games based, and how do you feel that location has or hasn't influenced your approach to development and marketing?
A: We are based in sunny Singapore! For us, I think it's been a fairly good spot for development. For example, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do make it fairly straightforward to get Devkits here, so that was a blessing! Marketing wise, it's been a challenge, as always, because we don't use a publisher, so we have to look for marketing companies in the different regions, or try to approach social media influencers ourselves!
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Q: What inspired you to take the leap into indie game development, especially with the risks involved?
A: There's this deep...yearning? Want? To create something that somebody would love to consume and appreciate, the way I've appreciated the games I've played throughout my life.
I don't think the freedom to do so would be easily available in a bigger company. Games have been such a deep part of my journey that making them feels like the natural direction of my life. The risks are 100% definitely (Still) there, but this is really one of those things where, if I don't try the darndest for it, it would be something I would regret later on.
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Q: Could you walk us through your team’s workflow—are roles more defined, or do you collaborate on multiple aspects of the game? Are there certain fingerprints in Roguematch that you could identify as yours or Jesmond's or Yi Chuin's?
A: Chuinny is our Artist, Jesmond is the Coder and I'm the Game Designer. That's the very basics of it. We discuss and bounce ideas off each other all the time though.
The character design is definitely in Chuinny's style, that's the most visual 'fingerprint' we can see. She really does the cutest stuff. UI/UX is a good mix of the three of us, but eventually Chuinny finds the best look. I come up with the narrative and features but always bounce them off Jesmond and Chuinny. I also did the music, but also with their input on whether it sounds appropriate. We balance each other out quite a lot!
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Q: As a fellow game designer, I’m curious: what design principles do you hold closest, especially when blending genres like match-3 and roguelike?
A: This is a tough one! Personally, I feel like I need to have a narrative to the games we make.
For Roguematch though... In some ways, I have to adhere to the limits that Match 3 and Roguelikes bring to the table. I kept shifting focus between many principles, but ultimately kept going back to, and having difficulty in, designing the best tutorial because these are two disparate genres merged into one. We still don't feel it's good enough! It's too long, it's too short, we should break it up into different stages, there's so many mechanics because it's two genres, etc.
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Q: Do you or your team have a particular fondness for both roguelike and match-3 games, or did Roguematch come together more organically from different ideas?
A: I have a reasonable fondness for Match 3. It started with Bejewelled, and it went on to the many iterations of games like Candy Crush and Puzzle Quest and Gardenscapes and so many in between I forget them. Oh Angry Birds, Harry Potter, and Stranger Things just rushed through my mind.
I do not play Roguelikes like Angband and Dwarf Fortress, but I did play the Mystery Dungeons like Torneko's Quest, and a bit of Chocobo Dungeon, I can't remember if I've played Shiren it was so long ago, and a few years back, Dragonfangz and Crown Trick.
Roguematch did not come from just appreciating both genres. Roguematch came together from the years noticing that out there, games are tagged as 'Match 3 Roguelikes' or 'Match 3 RPGs', and they were in a sense, but not truly combined in the way I imagined it. I always felt that the next step for a Match 3 RPG is...what Roguematch is. Where Match 3 is real to the characters in the game. Where Match3 players can put their skills to test in a more 'real' situation. Where Roguelike players are playing a turn-based, grid-based RPG with Match 3 for real.
We also want to push Match 3 further into a space where the mechanics of it aren't viewed as 'casual'. There have been other Match 3 RPGs that have managed to do it in some ways, like the Puzzle Quests 1, 2, 3 and Marvel Puzzle Quest, which is more of a Match 3 deckbuilder, and many of the games that you've covered and talked about a few years back. What we wanted was for the Match 3 aspect of it to be way more involved within the game itself.
Our serendipitous discovery of your hunt for Match 3 Dungeon games also gave us a super boost in motivation during early development :D
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Q: What design or gameplay element of Roguematch are you the proudest of, and why?
A: We're proud that we even managed to find a playable balance between Match 3 and Turn-based Dungeon Crawling!
We didn't have any references so it was a lot of trying to see how it could work. We had so many iterations of it. We ended up with this one because we realised that if we wanted to introduce this sub-genre, we had to make it more palatable for players, so it's the simpler version of what we thought it could be.
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Q: How do you incorporate player feedback into Roguematch's development, and were there specific changes you made based on that feedback? Where does most of your feedback come from?
A: We have friends playtesting the game, which is useful for deeper-level game design issues. We went to some cons, like Tokyo Gameshow, Busan Indie Connect, and Gamescom Asia SG, and observed players playing, which is useful for silently observing beginner player issues. We listen to everyone and then we sit down and discuss what makes sense and what doesn't.
Specific changes from player feedback? Quite a lot, some were additions, like multiple ways of shifting the pieces when using controls. We added a different color scheme for the color blind. We shortened the number of rooms to reach each level's boss. We shortened, then lengthened, then shortened the tutorial based on player feedback (or frustration).
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Q: How did the team approach the fusion of match-3 mechanics with turn-based gameplay? Was it challenging to keep it balanced and accessible for different types of players?
A: It was extremely challenging. We were facing two demographics of players that did not necessarily have any skill overlap, or skill transfer from one genre to the other. What we did attempt to figure out were the common motivations for playing these types of games. One of them was the 'tactics' aspect of both games. In both genres, you try to be efficient with your turns to get the optimal outcome.
For the short version of this, In match 3, this could be solving one of the parts of the board, in a roguelike, it would be, defeating one enemy. The next step from that would be how to find ways to clear more of the board, or how to clear more enemies at one go. So the (not exactly) parallel tools for this are the special pieces in Match 3 and Magic/Skills in Mystery Dungeons.
Match 3 players are usually presented with one board to 'solve' in a number of turns. Dungeon crawlers, however, are often one large level with interconnecting rooms that you can freely travel around, and where monsters can chase you from one room to the next.
We decided to stick to one room at a time for Roguematch so that it would be easier to learn and play. We tried to find ways to reward players for clearing a room, and that came in the form of getting items, and later on, gaining Exp to level up.
During player testing, we would find an experienced match 3 player doing really well, defeating enemies further away...until one enemy reached them, and then they'd be just running away. Experienced Roguelike players with no Match 3 experience maybe could kite a bit, but without relying more on available matches, they would miss opportunities to defeat enemies and get overwhelmed. Fortunately we came across a few players who played both genres, and they were quite good and played it so naturally, and liked it. We also had players who were better at one genre than the other, but halfway through playtesting, had an 'Aha' moment, and then played through all the way to the boss. So on that end, we knew on average that the game was balanced and generally well received as long players stuck around to learn a bit of both genres.
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Q: Tell me more about the dynamic music in Roguematch—how each stage’s soundtrack shifts with elemental themes. What inspired this feature?
A: We started out that way because in each level, you could have rooms associated with one elemental plane, and a different one the next, so the music just faded in and out according to the room you were in. Also, the combining of music in the mixed elemental planes just 'made sense'. If you listen to the Cryo-Volcanic rooms, they're a mix of the music from the Ice rooms and from the Lava rooms, which in themselves are a mix of music from the four main planes. For example, the Elemental plane of Lava is associated with the elemental planes of Fire (Where we use more heavy Brass Instruments) and Earth (Where we use more percussions). Ice would have music from Water + Air.
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Q: Sonya the “nekomancer” is such a unique character! Can you share more about her creation and the idea of her quest for the Nekonomicon?
A: We knew we had to have a Cat, Dog and Rabbit BFF adventuring party. So if there was a Cat, it absolutely (100000%) had to be a Nekomancer. If there was a Nekomancer, the Nekonomicon had to be involved. If the Nekonomicon was involved, Cathulhu had to be involved. If Cathulhu was involved, the other Meowter Gods, Elder Nyans/Elder Wans also had to be involved. If they were antagonists or protagonists, who would be their counterparts? And so on and so forth!
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Q: What were some of the most challenging technical aspects of Roguematch’s development? How did you approach them?
A: The Match 3 system was challenging. Characters interact with it in so many ways, walk into it and you switch places with it. Or maybe you have the item that makes you consume it. Or maybe you're the same color and you match with it! Then, matching them makes them disappear, or turn into new pieces, or explode, or stop time. Put in a new feature on the Roguelike side and something on the Match 3 side goes haywire. Honestly we could only approach it with hard work and time. Aka Brute Force. (Thank you Jesmond).
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Q: Is there a dream project you’d love to work on with unlimited resources, or are there aspects of Roguematch you’d expand on?
A: Yes. It's Zelda related. And now that BOTW and TOTK have come out it made me think that it is even more possible now. But we're not Nintendo! So that's a pipe dream. (Wait, unlimited resources means we can buy Nintendo, yes?). There are others! But it has to do with past games we've worked on before.
Jesmond and I often have fun thinking of working on a fighting game. As for Roguematch, yes for sure. Though that largely depends on how the gaming community as a whole accepts diegetic Match 3 Roguelikes as something that they could learn to play.
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Q: What lessons from Roguematch’s development do you plan to apply to future games?
A: Don't try to create new sub-genres unless you have plenty of resources. Especially one where half of it looks casual, and the other half looks hardcore.
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Q: What’s next for you and Starstruck Games? Any exciting plans for new projects or updates to Roguematch?
A: Roguematch is our Final Fantasy. We won't have the resources to carry on if we cannot get the world to see and try Roguematch.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for my readers. As someone who loves this style of gameplay and mashup, I'm extremely excited to see it happen and executed in such a fantastic way. You've done an amazing job and made a game you can be proud of!
In a way you might say I am star-struck by Starstruck! Keep up the excellent work and thank you for your passion with Game Design, Match 3, and just being a downright great person. I wish you nothing but the best and success in all your endeavors.
Happy Dueling!
