Pieces Interactive may be best known for their work on Magicka 2 and Leviathan: Warships, but the Swedish development studio has been around for quite some time and has worked on a variety of projects. Their newest title, Kill to Collect, will mark the first title in a while that's solely developed/published by them. David Rosén, CEO of Pieces, spoke with us recently about this new game and what we can expect when it arrives sometime this spring.
Co-Optimus: Thank you for taking some time to answer our questions about "Kill to Collect." I wanted to start things off by going back a bit. Your studio got its start developing mobile games before transitioning to the consoles with Puzzlegeddon and Fret Nice. From there, you went on to enjoy a partnership with Paradox Interactive and Arrowhead Studios developing DLC for the original Magicka before developing the maritime strategy game Leviathan: Warships, and then working on Magicka 2. That's a very diverse portfolio! What have been some of the lessons you've learned working on so many different kinds of games?
David Rosén: My pleasure and wow, you have done quite a background check on us! Well, saying it's a diverse portfolio is nothing but true. We love games and in the past we were not yet focused on specific genres as we saw opportunities to try a lot of things. Lately however, we looked in the rear view mirror and realized that all past projects are connected in various ways and which has lead us to where we are now. Magicka DLCs, Magicka 2 and Kill to Collect in particular are co-op action games in a top-down perspective, incorporating our personal touch of colorful and hand painted art styles. The gameplay is most recognizable for being deep and demanding, requiring much more than just mindless button mashing. We think past achievements in our portfolio have helped us “find ourselves” and we’re very comfortable operating in this landscape.
Quick additional note: Puzzlegeddon and Fret Nice were actually before mobile, as that venture was a sidestep to our history. Pieces Interactive won a Swedish game development competition with Puzzlegeddon even before the company was technically founded.
Co-Optimus: Ah, ok; when I was going through all of the games you had worked on, the dates seemed a bit off with those two and the mobile games. That makes sense!
This goes a little into the financial side of things, but if you don't mind sharing, were some of these projects taken on in order to help fund Kill to Collect? Is this a game/idea that you've had on the backburner for some time?
David: None of the projects were taken on with the sole purpose of funding Kill to Collect. We loved working with the Magicka brand and Leviathan was a baby of ours which we loved as well. Yes, theoretically past successes helped support future endeavors like Kill to Collect.
Co-Optimus: Why not do a Kickstarter or Indiegogo or other crowdfunding campaign?
David: A Kickstarter campaign is a lot of work not closely related to actual game development. The simple and honest answer here is we elected to rely on partners for the non-game development factors in the journey to bring a game to market. We are improving our personal communication and make sure to keep our website, Facebook page and Twitter updated. We strive to be better at it and are slowly building our own routines for making sure we update our site and grow our Facebook page and Twitter presence (@PiecesInt). I myself just got a twitter account (@APieceofDavid) and we’ll see how that little adventure pans out.
Co-Optimus: Focusing on the game itself, what was the first idea for "Kill to Collect"? Did it start out as an 80’s cyberpunk dungeon crawler, or did those elements get added later?
David: Well, yes and no. The 80’s element was actually added when we rebooted the project in 2015. My first thing as a CEO in 2014, was actually to shut it down. Not for any reason relating to that project, but we needed all hands on deck to deliver I which at the time was our most important project. It started out pretty much as you described, but went through a bit of evolutionary changes given the stop-and-go nature of its early origins. Interestingly, one of the hardest things was actually to define its genre.
Rogue-like is a term used in so many ways nowadays. Do we dare call it a rogue-like when different games like Diablo and Path of Exile have claimed that genre in so many people’s eyes? If someone who is used to play Diablo goes into Kill to Collect expecting to hack and slash through it, they will be gravely disappointed... especially since they’d die straight off the bat! Frequent hacking for loot is not what Kill to Collect is about. This game is about developing your personal skill and having short intense sessions of challenging fun.
Co-Optimus: As we've only seen bits and pieces of the game in action at this point, would you mind walking us through an average five minute session of the game? What happens; what are players doing; why?
David: Sure, my pleasure. A bounty takes about 10-15 minutes so I will divert a bit from the scope of the question if you don’t mind. You gather your friends in the lobby or go solo after a bounty target somewhere down in Geoshelter Alpha - our setting, which is a dangerous and dystopian world that is the last known city on Earth. Room by room you will make your way closer to your target, with each room presenting a different challenge of enemies and environments. The moment to moment gameplay is all about learning the attack patterns of the enemies, striking when the opportunity arises, and dodging to avoid trouble when it gets too hot. Timing and placement are key. Each floor ends in an elevator room where you can buff yourself with snacks from the food dispenser, replenish ammo and health, and maybe pick-up a power up or two. On the last floor your bounty awaits, accompanied by a few faithful underlings.
Co-Optimus: I read in another interview that some of the minute-to-minute action was inspired by titles like The Binding of Isaac and Spelunky. What is it about those games, and/or their mechanics, in particular that you found inspiring?
David: From The Binding of Isaac, I would say the most important thing is the concept of going into a room, seeing the challenge, and approaching it with a strategy. The influences from Spelunky are a bit more vague. We like the Spelunky definition of a rogue-like (and Binding of Isaac) and how both incorporate challenges with leaderboards.
Co-Optimus: In the same interview, I read that you were also inspired by the board game "DungeonQuest." I've never played the game, but one of my favorite board games growing up was "HeroQuest," which seems to share some similar ideas. What concepts/idea did you draw from this?
David: This game would never have existed if DungeonQuest didn’t. That game was as close to procedurally generated dungeons as you can get in the analog world, and it was harsh. Those two elements have been taken to heart.
Co-Optimus: What is Kill to Collect's co-op experience like? Will players essentially be just another gun/katana for their friend, or is there something more? What do you think will make "Kill to Collect’s co-op good?
David: We definitely wanted the co-op to go further than “just another gun/katana,” but at the same time be functionable as a single player experience as well. Having gameplay that promotes co-op but doesn’t force it is important for us. Evoking collaborative emotions are just as important as actual features for creating a good co-op experience. From a feature perspective, each character is designed with a slight skew towards a particular role, but not enough to where they require a friend to function. However, some items, like the chain cutter, are best used with a friend, and some enemies are easier to conquer with an extra hand. Certain buffs will also affect the whole team (vs. just yourself) if you stick together.
Most of the characters’ defensive abilities can be used to aid your friends, and teams that work together definitely have better results. You also have the chance to revive your dead friends through the “down but not out” feature. We didn’t want to create a situation where some players just wait to play for too long or create incentives for the others to abort the mission and start over.
We saw this game having an emotional teamwork perspective, so with that, we wanted to incentivize players to work together to be further invested in game advancement. The main resources, tech and food stamps, are always divided equally regardless of who makes the kill. We also tried to simplify and streamline the game’s flow to decrease any waiting. Obviously some players will act quickly when selecting upgrades and replenishing health in the elevator room while others will be slower, but we have chosen to go with a few simple choices over complex systems in order to decrease the risk of breaking the group’s flow.
Last but not least, we wanted a “flat entry” for all. Having overall levelling out of the individual runs often leads to friends being unable to play with friends due to the power gap. Because of this, we wanted to make sure players could join their friends for short intense sessions of fun without hours of catching up. This is key. Co-op is for playing with your friends more than anything and a game should not work against that ideal. That all being said, you can still accidentally (or purposefully) blow up your friends in game, if you want to!
Co-Optimus: Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't ask about the Jazz Boatman trailers for Leviathan: Warships. They remain, to this day, some of my favorite video game trailers of all time and I still occasionally go back to watch them. Did the idea for those come from someone in your studio and, if so, is that person now the cruising around in their own boat?
David: You and me boat then ;) Love them! [Editor's note: HA!]
We can’t take credit for the concept of that trailer. The originator of the idea was the guy who makes the trailers for Paradox, Steven Wells. I hope and trust he was well rewarded. This was before my time at Pieces but as far as I understand it, and this is well supported by my experience here since I joined, a lot of the puns in that trailer were used quite frequently in the project long before the existence of the trailer. Whether some were transferred over to this genius of a man or not, I can’t say. But I can say we’re a pretty fun-loving gang and the amount of puns and jokes flying around here are at times staggering.
We'd like to thank David and the team at Pieces Interactive once again for taking the time to speak with us about Kill to Collect. There's still no firm release date for Kill to Collect, but Pieces is anticipating it will arrive sometime this spring.