Might and Magic Clash of Heroes Postmortem interview
Written by Charles Husemann on 5/11/2011 for
360
PS3
More On:
Might and Magic Clash of Heroes
Ports are interesting things as you rarely see developers add a lot of new features in the new version of the game. When we saw that Ubisoft was adding a bunch of new features to the HD version of Might and Magic Clash of Heroes we were intrigued and started poking around for answers. Here's what we found out.
Could you introduce yourself and talk about your role on the project?
I’m Nathan Vella, co-founder & president at Capy. I was the producer on Clash of Heroes HD, and spent most of my time working with our programmers, artists, designers and QA dude to keep the project pushing forward. Production is mainly a job of communication, so I talked a heck of a lot, wrote a lot of emails and tried to make sure our schedules were at least partially accurate :)
Do you think you have created a new genre that blends fantasy, puzzle, and RPG elements?
I think we created the next step in the genre that Puzzle Quest created. Rest assured, there’s no Clash of Heroes without the trail Puzzle Quest blazed. However, I do think we took Clash of Heroes in an entirely new direction by creating a battle system from scratch that develops meaningful play between puzzling and strategy.
We’re really proud of the game we made, especially considering how hard it was to get all the elements (puzzle, strategy, rpg… and jokes) working the way we thought it could. In the end it’s the game’s depth that I think was the freshest part of the puzzle-meets-strategy hybrid gameplay.
For those who haven’t picked up the game yet could you give us a quick overview of the game?
Might & Magic Clash is the love-child of the puzzle and TBS genres, sprinkled with some RPG elements for good measure. Battles in Clash of Heroes have players combining puzzle gameplay – matching same-colored units vertically to form attacks and horizontally to form defensive walls – with the depth of the turn-based strategy. Meanwhile, there’s a huge campaign mode that spreads across the world of Ashan, allowing players to take the lead of 5 different factions, recruiting units and gathering treasure. Beyond the main quests, there’s tons of side quests, bounty hunting and battle puzzles to solve.
Alongside the meaty campaign, there’s online/offline multiplayer in both 1 versus 1 and 2 versus 2 coop flavors.
Does the HD version ever get created without Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network? Any chance we’ll see the game headed to the PC in the future?
Xbox Live Arcade & PlayStation Network really were the catalyst for this game – the game would have stopped at DS without it. Each are amazing platforms for unique games.
When we were finishing up the DS version of Clash of Heroes, Capy released Critter Crunch on PSN. We had a great experience making Critter Crunch, and wanted to dive back into more downloadable games. Fortunately for us, Ubi believed Clash was a great project and we decided to do the XBLA/PSN version soon after.
As for PC, I can’t comment on that. If people want a PC version, they should say so via Twitter, on the Might & Magic facebook page, and anywhere else they can! How big was the development team? And how many animators were there on the development team? Was it the same team that did the DS version or a different team?
Our development team size fluctuated all over the place, from 10 to 18 people. Very early on our good friends (and fellow Torontonians) Drinkbox Studios, makers of About a Blob, came on board to help on the tech side. They are a great team and they helped us a lot. Art-wise, pretty much every artist at Capy worked on the game – both the artists from Critter Crunch and all the pixel artists/animators from Clash DS. We’re lucky here at Capy, since most of our artists can bounce from pixels to HD art at will.
Almost everyone from the DS team got to work on the HD versions, which was great. Everyone knew the game inside-out, so even though we had to redo a lot from scratch, we knew exactly how the game should feel & play.
How difficult was it to balance the title? Was it easier to have a random monster layout per battle or a static assignment?
Almost all of the game balance was done by our lead designer Greg, along help from both our battle programmer Kenneth and our lead tester Christian. It’s a mammoth amount of work for basically one person, and considering the game is 20hrs long I kind of can’t believe he managed it. When we returned to the game for XBLA/PSN, Greg dug even deeper, rebalanced a lot of the game a second time, and really smoothed out any bumps that existed.
As for the randomized aspect – that’s another layer of ‘puzzle’ we blended into the strategy of the gameplay. Units are our games blocks, and units filling the screen randomly meant more puzzle-style components to balance the strategy.
How much of the code from the DS game made it into the HD version? Was the HD version always planned or something that came up after the game was launched?
To be honest, we never expected to get to HD-ify Clash of Heroes. We never expected to do online multiplayer, have thousands of frames of HD animation, 2v2 coop, anything. As such, we had to redo a ton of the game from the ground up. However, with a lot of the same team in place, and a lot of game logic we could re-use, it wasn’t that big of a nightmare. Just a little one :)
Were there any features you wanted in the game but just didn't have the time to get in there? Will they be used in a sequel? (Should there be one)
We left a lot on the cutting room floor – a lot of different special battle scenarios, artifacts, and so on.
Our lead designer Greg really wanted to do an Arena mode, where you could wager on battles and the whole 9-yards, but when we sat down and drew out all the different modes we already were doing, it was just too much – there’s already a 20+hr campaign, a quick battle 1vsAI mode, online/local 1vs1 mode and a new online/local 2v2 mode.
The HD version has a new two on two co-op mode, was that an idea that you couldn’t implement on the DS or a new idea that you came up with after the DS version was launched?
When we were talking about doing the HD version, Ubisoft was pretty adamant that since 1vs1 online/local was so intense, we should try to get 4 people playing at once. It seemed a pretty lofty goal, and we had no clue if we could pull it off in a meaningful way. Greg banged his head on it for a while, tossed out a bunch of ideas, and eventually came up with the mode we see in the game – a mode that requires true cooperation, and draws out a bit more of the puzzle elements in terms of interactions. When we finally got to test the new mode for the first time, we lost more than a couple full days of development playing it for fun… errr… testing it.
Are there any tactics that you would recommend for people just picking up the game? Any tips for advanced players?
New players should always take time at the start of their turn to survey. Don’t just jump right into making attack formations. Find the opportunities to create chains, try to plan a strategy, and build defenses if your opponent has attacks coming soon. Since the game has a puzzle backbone, new players often jump right into puzzling before weighing strategy.
Advanced players should definitely be on the lookout for fusions – even core unit fusions can play a decisive factor in a close battle. Sometimes we’re scared of destroying our own defensive walls to make space, but if the end result is a stronger attack quicker, you should take that risk.
Is there anything we missed that you think is important?
There’s demo’s available on XBLA & PSN, so grab it and give it a shot!
I'd like to thank Nathan for answering our questions as well as Alex for setting up the interview.
Could you introduce yourself and talk about your role on the project?
I’m Nathan Vella, co-founder & president at Capy. I was the producer on Clash of Heroes HD, and spent most of my time working with our programmers, artists, designers and QA dude to keep the project pushing forward. Production is mainly a job of communication, so I talked a heck of a lot, wrote a lot of emails and tried to make sure our schedules were at least partially accurate :)
Do you think you have created a new genre that blends fantasy, puzzle, and RPG elements?
I think we created the next step in the genre that Puzzle Quest created. Rest assured, there’s no Clash of Heroes without the trail Puzzle Quest blazed. However, I do think we took Clash of Heroes in an entirely new direction by creating a battle system from scratch that develops meaningful play between puzzling and strategy.
We’re really proud of the game we made, especially considering how hard it was to get all the elements (puzzle, strategy, rpg… and jokes) working the way we thought it could. In the end it’s the game’s depth that I think was the freshest part of the puzzle-meets-strategy hybrid gameplay.
For those who haven’t picked up the game yet could you give us a quick overview of the game?
Might & Magic Clash is the love-child of the puzzle and TBS genres, sprinkled with some RPG elements for good measure. Battles in Clash of Heroes have players combining puzzle gameplay – matching same-colored units vertically to form attacks and horizontally to form defensive walls – with the depth of the turn-based strategy. Meanwhile, there’s a huge campaign mode that spreads across the world of Ashan, allowing players to take the lead of 5 different factions, recruiting units and gathering treasure. Beyond the main quests, there’s tons of side quests, bounty hunting and battle puzzles to solve.
Alongside the meaty campaign, there’s online/offline multiplayer in both 1 versus 1 and 2 versus 2 coop flavors.
Does the HD version ever get created without Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network? Any chance we’ll see the game headed to the PC in the future?
Xbox Live Arcade & PlayStation Network really were the catalyst for this game – the game would have stopped at DS without it. Each are amazing platforms for unique games.
When we were finishing up the DS version of Clash of Heroes, Capy released Critter Crunch on PSN. We had a great experience making Critter Crunch, and wanted to dive back into more downloadable games. Fortunately for us, Ubi believed Clash was a great project and we decided to do the XBLA/PSN version soon after.
As for PC, I can’t comment on that. If people want a PC version, they should say so via Twitter, on the Might & Magic facebook page, and anywhere else they can! How big was the development team? And how many animators were there on the development team? Was it the same team that did the DS version or a different team?
Our development team size fluctuated all over the place, from 10 to 18 people. Very early on our good friends (and fellow Torontonians) Drinkbox Studios, makers of About a Blob, came on board to help on the tech side. They are a great team and they helped us a lot. Art-wise, pretty much every artist at Capy worked on the game – both the artists from Critter Crunch and all the pixel artists/animators from Clash DS. We’re lucky here at Capy, since most of our artists can bounce from pixels to HD art at will.
Almost everyone from the DS team got to work on the HD versions, which was great. Everyone knew the game inside-out, so even though we had to redo a lot from scratch, we knew exactly how the game should feel & play.
How difficult was it to balance the title? Was it easier to have a random monster layout per battle or a static assignment?
Almost all of the game balance was done by our lead designer Greg, along help from both our battle programmer Kenneth and our lead tester Christian. It’s a mammoth amount of work for basically one person, and considering the game is 20hrs long I kind of can’t believe he managed it. When we returned to the game for XBLA/PSN, Greg dug even deeper, rebalanced a lot of the game a second time, and really smoothed out any bumps that existed.
As for the randomized aspect – that’s another layer of ‘puzzle’ we blended into the strategy of the gameplay. Units are our games blocks, and units filling the screen randomly meant more puzzle-style components to balance the strategy.
How much of the code from the DS game made it into the HD version? Was the HD version always planned or something that came up after the game was launched?
To be honest, we never expected to get to HD-ify Clash of Heroes. We never expected to do online multiplayer, have thousands of frames of HD animation, 2v2 coop, anything. As such, we had to redo a ton of the game from the ground up. However, with a lot of the same team in place, and a lot of game logic we could re-use, it wasn’t that big of a nightmare. Just a little one :)
Were there any features you wanted in the game but just didn't have the time to get in there? Will they be used in a sequel? (Should there be one)
We left a lot on the cutting room floor – a lot of different special battle scenarios, artifacts, and so on.
Our lead designer Greg really wanted to do an Arena mode, where you could wager on battles and the whole 9-yards, but when we sat down and drew out all the different modes we already were doing, it was just too much – there’s already a 20+hr campaign, a quick battle 1vsAI mode, online/local 1vs1 mode and a new online/local 2v2 mode.
The HD version has a new two on two co-op mode, was that an idea that you couldn’t implement on the DS or a new idea that you came up with after the DS version was launched?
When we were talking about doing the HD version, Ubisoft was pretty adamant that since 1vs1 online/local was so intense, we should try to get 4 people playing at once. It seemed a pretty lofty goal, and we had no clue if we could pull it off in a meaningful way. Greg banged his head on it for a while, tossed out a bunch of ideas, and eventually came up with the mode we see in the game – a mode that requires true cooperation, and draws out a bit more of the puzzle elements in terms of interactions. When we finally got to test the new mode for the first time, we lost more than a couple full days of development playing it for fun… errr… testing it.
Are there any tactics that you would recommend for people just picking up the game? Any tips for advanced players?
New players should always take time at the start of their turn to survey. Don’t just jump right into making attack formations. Find the opportunities to create chains, try to plan a strategy, and build defenses if your opponent has attacks coming soon. Since the game has a puzzle backbone, new players often jump right into puzzling before weighing strategy.
Advanced players should definitely be on the lookout for fusions – even core unit fusions can play a decisive factor in a close battle. Sometimes we’re scared of destroying our own defensive walls to make space, but if the end result is a stronger attack quicker, you should take that risk.
Is there anything we missed that you think is important?
There’s demo’s available on XBLA & PSN, so grab it and give it a shot!
I'd like to thank Nathan for answering our questions as well as Alex for setting up the interview.
About Author
Hi, my name is Charles Husemann and I've been gaming for longer than I care to admit. For me it's always been about competing and a burning off stress. It started off simply enough with Choplifter and Lode Runner on the Apple //e, then it was the curse of Tank and Yars Revenge on the 2600. The addiction subsided somewhat until I went to college where dramatic decreases in my GPA could be traced to the release of X:Com and Doom. I was a Microsoft Xbox MVP from 2009 to 2014. I currently own stock in Microsoft, AMD, and nVidia.
