The free-to-play model of games has risen alongside the surge of mobile games and it often (at times, quite rightly) gets a bad name. However, not all free-to-play games are quite so onerous. In some cases, this model provides smaller developers an opportunity to get their title out the door and in the hands of gamers. Immortal Empire is one such title. We chatted with Tactic Studios founder and lead designer Jesse Attard about his first title and why the free-to-play model worked for him.
Co-Optimus: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. First off, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background developing/working on games?
Jesse Attard: My pleasure! Thanks for putting together these great questions. My name is Jesse Attard, and I designed/wrote/coded Immortal Empire. I worked for about 8 years in the games industry prior to going indie and founding Tactic Studios. I have worked on a bunch of games in those 8 years but probably the most recognizable one that I had a significant role on was Bioshock 2.
Professionally I’m a programmer, but I am involved in many other areas of development, including art, sound design, composing music, and writing the dialog. I even do a bit of voice acting in the game.
Co-Optimus: Your first release, Immortal Empire, was a free-to-play browser based game that combined gameplay elements from titles like X-Com and Diablo. It will be leaving the browser and coming to Steam very soon, still as a free-to-play title. How’s the transition going?
Jesse: It’s going awesome. We’re almost done. Just adding all the Steam-specific features like achievements and such. Wow it is ever nice not to be restricted by the small download sizes of web games. The web game was about 25 megabytes and we had some players still complaining that the download time was too long. Visually it was only 800x600 resolution and we also had complaints that the window was too big. Some things, like the fully voiced characters, were just impossible with the file size limitations, so we’re able to do a lot more now that it’s on Steam.
It’s really nice seeing the game full screen, high resolution, and hearing the characters actually talk. It actually feels like a real game now. It’s definitely not a port - I didn’t just tighten up the graphics on level 3. I actually rewrote the entire script, removed my least favourite levels, added some exciting new ones, tweaked some of the gameplay, wrote a simpler matchmaking interface, and lots of other stuff. Existing players will want to start again from the start, and new players should get a much more streamlined experience.
Co-Optimus: Can you describe for us a little bit about the actual gameplay? What does a typical level/mission entail?
Jesse: It’s a turn-based tactical role playing game. So in the combat sequences you have your units on an isometric field and can move them around the grid attacking enemies. The levels are medium sized and more sprawling, like a Diablo level, so you encounter mobs of enemies, there’s line of sight, things like that. Unlike Final Fantasy Tactics or something where it’s all on a small grid and everyone is visible. You start off controlling one immortal and can add more up to a total of five in a party. Taking a cue from DOTA 2 et al, each immortal has very unique spells and attributes; no two are alike. There are a few different play modes, but the main campaign is story-driven.
You’re typically sent on a quest pertaining to the story that has you fighting through monsters and bosses. There are also special challenges on each level that are orthogonal to the primary objective, like finishing the level in under a certain number of moves, or finding all the secret loot chests. There are also some levels that change up the game mechanics. For example there’s one level that prevents you from regenerating, and that limitation forces you to play differently.
The main fun comes in deciding how to deal with all the different types of enemies. In a game like Diablo, you’re basically reacting the same way to each enemy. Whether it’s a zombie or a skeleton, you’re going to spam them with your weapons and spells indiscriminately until they die.
In Immortal Empire, being a strategy game, blindly using your spells isn’t going to work. Some enemies are hugely resistant to magic, and you need to use skills that deal physical damage to be effective. Others have very powerful spells and you need to silence them or position your units accordingly to minimize damage. Stuns and snares are especially powerful against enemies that sneak in for a few hits then try to run away. You get the idea. So a lot of the fun is encountering new enemy types and figuring out the most effective way to defeat them using the spells at your disposal.
Of course, the meta-game is important too. The item system has a great balance where choosing how to level up and equip your characters isn’t just maxing a certain stat or farming for a specific legendary item. There are lots of effective builds and a lot of customization available through the item enchanting system. Sometimes half the fun is just building this super powerful synergistic party of immortals.
Co-Optimus: And all of that can be done cooperatively with friends, correct?
Jesse: Yes! The whole campaign can be played co-op with up to four players total. You can play with friends or use the auto-matchmaking to find random players on the internet. Enemies do get stronger with each added player, but like Diablo, Dark Souls, etc., the campaign is easier overall when playing co-op. There is a mode that’s exclusively co-op though that’s quite hard – it’s meant for high level players and is certainly the most challenging PvE mode in the game. I talk a bit more about that later.
Co-Optimus: Do the other players retain all progress on their characters? In other words, are the players using/playing their own immortals that they then get to take back with them into their own game, or are they borrowing characters from the host?
Jesse: Yes, everyone is using their own characters that retain progression, everyone in game can complete quests, everyone gets equal XP, each player has their own unique batch of loot, and so forth. There’s no fighting over who should get what loot or spam-clicking to get the drops or trying to last-hit to make sure you get the kill. You can join a friend’s game at any point in their quest line, help them through tough areas with your more powerful character, whatever you like. It’s pretty lenient from a co-op perspective, allowing you to play how you want with your friends.
Co-Optimus: Are there any other co-op modes for players outside of the campaign?
Jesse: Yes! There is an objective based PvP mode that allows 1v1 and 2v2. The PvP is really fun actually. As different as the enemies are, you do eventually learn their ins and outs. But other real live people are much trickier and unpredictable.
And there is “The Gauntlet”, which is a 4-player co-op only mode! You can’t even play it by yourself, how about that! In The Gauntlet, each player controls only one immortal, where you face waves of increasingly powerful enemies with partially randomized abilities on a small level. Anyone who dies is out permanently until the end of the wave, and if your whole team is wiped, you lose. If you manage to get through the 25-wave gauntlet then you’re rewarded with extra nice drops. There are different difficulty levels for all character levels but it is aimed at high level play once you’ve completed the campaign.
At the high levels you sometimes get crazy combinations of abilities that you really have to co-ordinate to beat. Players used to complain that the highest difficulty was impossible, until eventually teams would get extremely co-ordinated and figure out how to beat it. So, of course we had to make an even harder difficulty...
Co-Optimus: Shifting gears to the development and overall design of the game, why did you choose to start things off with a browser game instead of shoot for a release through a digital platform? Did that decision also influence the game being free-to-play?
Jesse: Actually, originally I did want it to be a digital download game. I launched the first version way back in 2009, charged a flat fee, and applied to be released on Steam. At the time, without Greenlight it was very difficult for a game like Immortal Empire to be released on Steam without a major publisher behind you. Our application was rejected but thanks to Greenlight, we’re back in the mix again.
On the web version the flat fee really restricted our total population, which is just so important for the longevity of a multiplayer game. When we switched to free-to-play, our population went up astronomically, and we knew that this was the best way to keep a decent population of players in the game over the long term. Of course, this meant we had to add a virtual currency like most free-to-play games so that we could continue to develop features and such, which is always a tricky business to get right.
Co-Optimus: How does free-to-play work in your title? Are most of the purchases players can make cosmetic, or do players have to pay to progress beyond a certain point?
Jesse: There is nothing in this game I have spent more time debating and scrutinizing than the pay system. I hope I’ve landed on something reasonable that balances fairness for free players while still giving value to paying customers.
So basically, all the levels and difficulties are unlocked and no areas are restricted to paying users or anything. There are no time limits or “energy” or anything like that, you can play as much as you want. You’re also not going to hit any hidden paywalls or grindwalls or anything. I’ve played through the game many, many times, on all difficulties, defeated many high level PvPers, and never bought any virtual currency. In the web version, many of the top players on the ladder, in PvP, co-op, tournament winners and so forth, have also never spent a dime on the game.
The way it works is that you can earn the virtual currency through regular play by killing monsters, completing daily quests, unlocking achievements, or defeating the level challenges. Of course, you can also optionally buy it with real money. The most commonly purchased items are different immortals. There’s a variety unlocked at the start, enough to form a full party of course, and the locked ones are all balanced equally with the ones that are unlocked. This setup is similar to League of Legends.
The other main category is random packs of gear. Like Hearthstone, you can’t just buy a specific item that you want. It’s always random packs of items using the same currency you earn from playing, and of course items are also dropped through regular play by defeating monsters.
By keeping the pay currency the same as currency earned in game, we enforce that paying players are limited to merely unlocking more options faster, rather than having strict advantages over free players. We also wanted to be sure that active free players weren’t spending months grinding levels and struggling to even unlock a single new immortal. I think the pace is reasonable and there are many avenues to earn the currency for different types of players, whether you like PvP, co-op, the campaign, or hunting for achievements.
Co-Optimus: Do you feel that there’s a greater benefit being an indie game studio and offering a free-to-play game that allows players to, more or less, pay what they want as opposed to offering a full title at $10 or $15?
Jesse: I think there’s absolutely room for both, and choosing your pay model depends mostly on the type of game. When it comes to a heavily multiplayer game like Immortal Empire, whether you’re indie or not, free-to-play is always going to give you a larger population, which is very important.
Co-Optimus: Once the title does hit Steam, what’s next? Continued support and new content for Immortal Empire, or is there another game already in the works?
Jesse: Indeed – the plan is to continue to update Immortal as it grows on Steam, and yes in fact we do have another big game in the works. Though the next game is single player, so probably nothing Co-optimus would report on.
Co-Optimus: Finally, what are some of your favorite co-op games? Were there any games, outside of the obvious choice of Diablo, that influenced Immortal Empire’s design at all?
Jesse: Some favourite co-op games... Wizball, Mario, Civilization, anything team based like Starcraft, DOTA. Castle Crashers, and most recently I had a blast playing Towerfall Ascension. For other influencing games on Immortal Empire’s design, certainly DOTA helped influence the immortals and their abilities, the Baldur's Gate franchise helped with some of the combat feel, many games for the dialog system (though, originally I was picturing Star Control 2), and of course X-Com for the feel of the tile-based movement with the time units.
We'd like to thank Jesse for taking the time to speak with us and answer our questions. Immortal Empire will be arriving on Steam soon.