Advance Wars meets Mass Effect in Agharta Studios latest
This morning the App Store welcomed Rogue Planet to it's ever expanding list of games; a turn based strategy game with a classic space opera narrative. The game managed to turn more than a few heads when it was shown at WWDC, and since then has been on any self respecting iGamers horizon. Leading up to the games release we managed to steal a few words from Agharta Studios' CEO Aurelien Kerbeci about the game.
First things first, thanks for taking the time to speak with us Aurelien. The development team you lead are known for the interactive adventure game 1112. What made you decide to depart from that genre to a turn-based strategy title?
You can rest assured we haven’t abandoned adventure games! It’s actually our main focus and we take great pleasure in developing that style of game. We decided to tackle a turn-based strategy game because we are fans of those kinds of games and the iPhone controls really lend themselves to this style of game. Agharta Studio hopes to develop high-quality games by focusing on gameplay and the iPhone’s unique features.
1112’s narrative was vital in its experience as an adventure game, the characters felt distinctly different from one another. How significant is the story in Rogue Planet and do you think the narrative adds that extra incentive to play through the game?
Rogue Planet’s story consists of about 15,000 words (an episode of 1112 consisted of about 35,000).We wanted to develop this kind of scenario in hopes of enhancing the players’ immersion into the game during the main campaign. Each character possesses a unique personality which really enriches the development of the story.
How has producing 1112 helped Agharta Studio in preparing to create a vivid, atmospheric world in Rogue Planet? To what degree, if any, would you say 1112 has helped in Rogue Planet's development process?
Rogue Planet is a very different game from 1112, and it is because of our prior experience that we were able to complete this project; all three of us come from different video game development studios.
It’s true that the development of 1112 provided us with a great deal of experience. After that project, we were comfortable with developing games for the iPhone, the technical environment and ergonomics. We worked hard on the interactions and interfaces for 1112.
Because we develop our own technology in-house, we’ve made many improvements thanks to our work on developing a very different game, and we’re now able to vastly increase the overall quality of upcoming 1112 episodes.
We've recently learned that Rogue Planet will be published under the Gameloft umbrella. What made you decide to enter into a collaborative effort with them? What sorts of advantages are you expecting the partnership will bring?
We are a team of developers (designers, graphic artists, programmers), and the main thing we lacked with 1112 was a strong marketing team.
The teams with whom we’ve been in contact at Gameloft are all highly qualified and motivated. Gameloft has allowed us to organize focus groups with the goal of adjusting certain game elements. We’ve also benefitted from a complete translation of the game into a number of languages.
As a result, we are free to concentrate on the development of the game while Gameloft manages the publication aspect.
Micropayments are all the fuss right now in the iDevice community. With ngmoco's Eliminate following suit with the trend, many have complained about the nickle-and-diming going on. What is your stance on micro-transactions and will we see any for Rogue Planet?
We believe that micropayments are very important, seeing as they are very successful on all current platforms. However, we do not believe that some unscrupulous practices are favorable to the users’ gaming experience.
We are studying the possibility of providing additional content for Rogue Planet (at a very competitive price): new missions, or even a new campaign.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with us Aurelien, always appreciated. Congratulations and all the best for the impending release of Rogue Planet.
Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Rogue Planet is available on the App Store today for £2.99 ($4.99). Expect an in-depth review later in the week.
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