Category: Interviews

09/28/13

The GrogHeads Interview: Jim Snyder & Rob Crandall of Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm

fpcrs-boxGrogheads interviews the twin geniuses (geniui?) behind the new Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm.

 

GH: Since the release of Flashpoint Germany it’s been eight years. For wargamers who have been dying to get their hands on the sequel, what took so long?

Rob Crandall: There is researching the game, designing the game, coding the game, testing the game and then documenting the game. Then you decide the original concept wasn’t that great after all and you repeat the process. Keep repeating until you run out of patience and/or money. Such is the carefree life of a game developer! The costs are all upfront and the payoffs are speculative and far away so it is a real test of commitment to see it through to the very end. Worse, although many parts of the work are fun, many are no fun at all and this can really bite. It is easy to zip through the fun parts but it takes discipline to do the rest when you know it will take months and months to do so. Mercifully, I had some outstanding help and the parts that were not so fun for me were picked up by partners who could do them.

I don’t have any direct evidence but I have often thought that for every ten wargames that get talked about only one gets started. For every ten that get started maybe only one gets finished. It is just that hard.

FPRS has almost 200 design documents supporting it, I have 3,500 emails sitting in Outlook regarding it since April 2007 and there are 10,500 forum posts in the Matrix private development forums. At least 100 testers must have helped me out over the years by now. Managing all that takes time too!

 

GH: Flashpoint Germany used tiles for movement. Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm uses hexes. Why the change?

Rob Crandall: I completely rewrote the square tile system so that each tile was broken down into a 4 x 4 grid of cells. Each cell had its own graphic and was rated for all the different terrain factors. The 16 averaged together represented the tile as a whole. It was awesome and very inventive, if I say so myself, but it was still squares and was too different from everything else. Converting the underlying code to hexes took something like a weekend and I have never regretted it. The result was I had to throw away my internal map editor and go to the existing system where we paint a map in a paint program and then scan it for values based on color IDs. That is a little more cumbersome but I loved the look and also loved that it became a chore I could delegate to people with greater graphic talents than I.

Jim Snyder: The graphics fell to me and I’m not really that good compared to a real graphics artist, but what I did does work. Plus folks will be able to mod their own stuff too.

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09/11/13

War of the Vikings – Developer Interview

Fatshark’s Executive Producer, Gordon Van Dyke, and Grogheads’ Jim Zabek just wrapped up an interview about War of the Vikings, the follow-up title to the smash hit melee game, War of the Roses.

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OK, so aside from the obvious “cool factor” why did you choose to go with Vikings?

That was my answer! The Vikings came to England a few hundred years earlier than the Wars of the Roses, they even founded what is now known as the city of York, so we took that setting and ran with it.

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What lessons did you learn from the success of War of the Roses that you’ve incorporated to improve War of the Vikings?

We took a lot of community feedback into account and have added throwing weapons, a dodge mechanic, and special attacks. The time period for WotV is set earlier than WotR, meaning the technology was crude by comparison armor wasn’t as effective because plate armor didn’t exist yet. Because of this, the matches in WotV are faster-paced as sending an axe through someone was much easier during the time of the Vikings.

Just like WotR, we’re also implementing a level of customization not seen in most games. This time around, players will be able to even customize the beards of their character! It’s a Viking a game, how could we not do that?

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08/20/13

Interview with Jim Crabtree of Lock’n’Load

When GrogHeads’ Editor Jim Zabek saw that Lock’n’Load redesigned their website last week and launched a new crowd-funding pledge system he knew he had to chat with Jim Crabtree, Lock n Load’s new Business Director.

 

Jim Zabek (JZ): Wow, so there are several big developments going on with Lock ‘n’Load.  Let’s start with why you decided to get involved with Lock’n’Load. Did you wake up one morning and think, “I’m going to work at game company?” Why specifically Lock ‘n’Load?

Jim Crabtree (JC): No, I actually came across the opportunity by accident.  I have been gaming since I was young and never stopped. One night I was out playing games with a few buddies, and I said, “I would love to do this full time”.  My friend told me he knew a game company that was for sale, so I made a few phone calls and spoke with Mark Walker. Mark was a joy to talk to, and we were very excited about what we could do as a team. I really love LNL games, and I am really looking forward to see what the future of the company holds.

 

JZ: As the founder and driving force behind many of the game designs, what will Mark Walker’s role be going forward?

JC: I am running the business side of LNL, and making sure the day-to-day operations run smoothly. Mark is our lead manager of designers and developers. Mark is doing what Mark does best – designing and developing games.

 

JZ: Tell us about your new website!

JC: Our new website is lnlpublishing.com, and our old url will redirect you to the new site. We offer boxed and downloadable products.

Our systems will keep complete history of what the customer purchased, tracking numbers and access to download links. We also offer LNL Gift cards for download. The website features a Wish List, Customer Support Desk system, and forums.

We added an Article page to LNL that allows members to write strategies, reviews, create scenarios, and share them with other members on our site.

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07/29/13

Sir, You Are Being Hunted – Interview

GrogHeads Editor Jim Zabek eagerly jumped at the opportunity to interview James Carey, Designer of Sir, You Are Being Hunted. The team at

GrogHeads (GH): Can you tell us about Big Robot and the people behind it?

James Carey (JC): Big Robot is a core of three people, two full time, with a couple of art freelancers into the mix as well. We started the company to make a game called Fallen City for a British TV broadcaster (which is still freely available through Channel 4’s website). Since then we’ve released a second title called AVSEQ (available on our website or through Steam) and successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund Sir, You Are Being Hunted last year. The core team is: Jim Rossignol – Creative Director, author of This Gaming Life and co founder of RockPaperShotgun.com. Tom Betts – Programmer, procedural generation genius, and then me, James Carey – Designer, before Big Robot I worked on Arma 2 and for the Creative Assembly.

GH: Tweedpunk? What’s up with that? It sounds instantly cool. If you guys haven’t invented the genre, you’re definitely putting a big stamp on it. What does Tweedpunk mean to you and where do you see it going?

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JC: We came up with the term ‘Tweedpunk’ as a sort of off-the-cuff line for an interview. It seemed to get pounced on by everyone even though we only meant it as a half-joke. Basically we wanted to try and distinguish ourselves a bit from being ‘steampunk’ because Sir is not really Victorian in that way – we have modern phone boxes and wind turbines and stuff like that in the world – it’s more a sort of parody of the British upper classes, of fox hunting and tweed-wearing privilege.

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07/20/13

Interview: Chris Fasulo Sr of Grognard Simulations

Interview by Brant Guillory, 20 July 2013

This week, we are fortunate to have with us Chris Fasulo Sr, of the (relatively) new wargaming company Grognard Simulations.  Grognard Simulations burst onto the scene with their Death Ride series of operational games that garnered a great reputation for its combined arms system.  We managed to chisel a few moments out of his 18-hour days to talk about Grognard Simulations and his wargaming background.

 

Tell us a little bit about your wargaming background? When did you get started and what made you stick with it?
This will be difficult as I have an extensive background in wargaming.  It started when I was but a teenager in the 70’s with my first game being the AH classic of France 1940.  I still have it.  This grew through my high school years and I was solidly convinced by my enjoyment of wargaming that I wanted to be in the Army.  So, after having failed at my first semester at college I made my leap into the service.  I enlisted and spent my active duty time in Hawaii.  I found a small gaming group and built my desire to keep it up.  I exited active duty and as a member of NJ National Guard I sought a commission as an officer.  Having succeeded at becoming a Second Lieutenant as an Armor Officer I had so much fun that my gaming and military life began to be one.

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