We sit down with Luciano of United Lines Studio, one of the creators of the upcoming Swords of Calengal. We discuss how they are developing a game remotely, as well as the struggle of creating a game while working a day job to pay the bills.
This is the first project from United Lines Studio. What previous game experience does the team have?
No one on the team has “real” experience with game development. I (Luciano) previously worked as a game hacker, analyzing commercial games and publishing editors and toolsets for them; I created a basic Sonic the Hedgehog engine too, which helped me a lot in learning how to code a game. Riccardo, the main pixel artist, has some light experience with Game Maker as he created a platform game as an internal tech-demo. The other members came from completely different backgrounds.
How did all of you come together to create this studio? How do work as a remote developer? What does the studio’s pipeline look like?
The official founder is Daniele, who first asked me and Simone if we wanted to help him build a game that he’d been thinking about. The next members were Riccardo and Angelo, and they helped us to shape more of the game and start the real production. Once setup, working remotely is pretty simple. We are using our own computers and communicate via WhatsApp for easy messaging; Discord to keep an organized chat for in-depth talking; Git for code and resource’s shared repository. Git is used when some of us want to work on a game feature (scripts, animations, maps); a separate working copy is saved (called branch) and is merged with the main game once it is ready to be tested and played. Some internal tools that I developed are used to automate all the boring stuff, so even moving a leaf in the game is ready to be changed and tested from everyone in less than one minute. Honestly, we are so accustomed to remote development that it will probably be strange working in the same room someday haha.
The design reminds me a lot of the SNES adventure RPGs like the Mana series. How much inspiration do these games play? What will make Swords of Calengal standout from the games that inspired it?
The Secret of Mana vibe is clear since many of us played many JRPGs and Action-RPGs during the SNES/PS1 era. The inspiration from those games is helping us to learn what kind of elements makes a good game, without sacrificing modern components and requirements. For example, Swords of Calengal stands on a fast combat system, rich with attacks and numbers of enemies on the screen, without the compromises of 199x.
How many different environments will the game have? We’ve seen a forest area and a cave – presumably there will be more. How many are planned? What will make these different aside from visuals?
The cave and the forest are the second and third maps in the final game. The first map is located during a snow storm on a mountain, where a small town can be visited. After the green map, we are planning a very dense forest, since we want to use the green map as a swamp near the snowy mountain. We plan to add two more areas that will be located on closed environments with technological elements.
Will players be able to change the way the game is played by equipment or through some other manner, or will it be the same for everyone?
Hero customization is one thing that we want to focus on now that we have a somewhat incomplete demo in terms of features. The hero will be capable of holding 4 consumable items and will have up to 4 active skills that will expand combos. Other skills can be equipped on the menu too: passive skills will be useful for improving statistics or offering abilities to the character (i.e. Fire resistance +25%, Sphere Drain+, Combo+, etc.) and command skills can be mapped to the gamepad (defense, rolling, etc.). I was inspired by Kingdom Hearts in terms of player customization.
The game is expected for a Q4 2018 launch – how many hours a day does the team put into it each day to stay on schedule? I know it’s being developed in the team’s free time – is that date set in stone, or do you see it being pushed back?
The release window is tentative; since some of us have full-time jobs, it’s possible we only work 1 hour each day, but sometimes we will work up to 10. Scheduling on small tasks is hard in our situation, so we prefer to think about milestones and what is necessary to complete by certain deadlines. Q4 2018 is a realistic date and it is our final milestone. We will do our best to reach it. 🙂
What are your top 3 games of all time, and your top 3 from the last 5 years?
Our favorite games are: Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Tekken 3; since the last 5 years, our favourite games are The Witcher 3, Persona 5 and Dark Souls 3.
What would your advice be for someone that has never made a game before, but wants to start?
Never start a big project, but don’t ever start from a small one either (and never create a custom engine, like I did haha).
Thank you so much to Luciano for taking the time to answer these questions in the little amount of free time he has available. For the more about the game, you can visit the official site. And for those that want to see more of Swords of Calengal, we be played an early build of it on Twitch. You can view our first playthrough here.