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TerraTech Legion
Design av en Bullet Heaven Builder - TerraTech Legion Intervju med Payload Studios
Vi tok en prat med sjefsdesigner Andy Harmon og seniorprodusent Tom Page, for å lære litt mer om det kommende actionspillet som dreier seg om en modulær byggesuite.
Audio transcriptions
"Hello everyone and welcome back to Gamereactor. Today we have an exciting interview for you because I'm here with not one, but two members of the Payload Studios team to talk a little bit about TerraTech Legion.
Now, I'm here with lead designer Andy Harmon and senior producer Tom Page and this is quite an interesting one because, well, first of all, I think people are semi-familiar with TerraTech."
"Now, this isn't the first time you've worked on this brand, but it's also a brand new game, really. We only got to meet it a few days ago.
So, with that being the case then, guys, first of all, obviously, on top of, thank you for taking your time out of your day to spend some time talking with me, but let's dive into the question.
So, this is your third TerraTech game, but what have you learned from working on these other games that maybe you come into another TerraTech game and go, this is something that we really want to prioritize. This is something that we really want to make sure that we get right in this next chapter of the series."
"What have we learned? Well, we've learned that players love to be kind of creative, kind of above all else, and I think the other two games have really pushed that aspect of scratching that itch for players.
And, you know, with this new game, we wanted to, you know, take that ability for players to kind of be creative, but also, you know, push aside of kind of creativity and kind of optimization as well.
And, you know, I can not only make my tech and vehicle look kind of cool and powerful and have this kind of power fantasy, but I can also start, you know, choosing weapons and modules and things, you know, that can really kind of emphasize kind of how powerful these things can be."
"So, you know, internally, we have people that build, you know, big, wide things, you know, small things, lots of weapons, not a lot of weapons, you know.
So, you know, the main thing we've learned is just having those features that allow players to do as much as that as possible, you know, within the rounds of balancing the game and keeping that side of things fun.
And that's still something we're dialing in."
"Of course, obviously, this Terratech game is a little bit different to the former two you've done because you've sort of transitioned away from the sort of open world survival crafting nature to go specifically into this sort of action roguelike nature.
What led you to, you know, why did you want to go down that route? Why did you make the change to this sort of different genre of action?
Yeah, good question. A game jam, which where most of these kind of crazy ideas come from."
"So, yeah, as you said, we've been working on two quite similar games in terms of open world survival craft.
And, you know, as a team of creatives, it's good to kind of let your kind of basically dive into different areas.
And, you know, that's why we did the game jam at the beginning of the year.
And this was, you know, this genre is a game that people within studio, you know, love playing."
"You know, everyone's playing Vampire Survivors and Deep Rock Galactic.
And, yeah, I think I remember when Vampire Survivors came out, everybody in the studio was playing it.
So, yeah, I mean, those kind of conversations probably started and kind of happened.
And those seeds got implanted in your brain at that point, Andy."
"But, yeah, when we had an opportunity to kind of do something new, do a game jam, this is the output, really.
Yeah, I mean, it's sort of the original seed of the idea, you know, really appeared when those genres really started exploding out.
And it was like, well, you know, I just immediately saw some potential there.
And what we were doing in the sandbox as, you know, and allowing people to sort of customize their stuff."
"And, you know, and the cross-pollination of that idea into this new genre that was up and coming.
And we're like, wow, this just sort of like immediately starts to work in your head, you know, with the pacing and stuff like that.
So, yeah, I really took off from there.
What we've seen as well with those, I mean, you mentioned Deep Rock, obviously, and Vampire Survivors."
"And they're very popular games.
And we do tend to find with those games, they have a specific focus on gameplay, maybe over sort of narrative and storylines.
Is that something you're going to reflect in Terratech Legion?
Or have you guys looked to go, you know what, these guys have done something, but we can do something slightly different?
Yeah, I mean, the concept of the game is very straightforward and it is very much focused on the gameplay."
"So we're definitely in a more show, don't tell situation with that.
But, you know, but we're still taking steps in that direction, right?
You know, for this game is the first time that we're actually like going inside the cockpit and looking at the characters that are driving these texts and bringing out and how their personality reflects in how their gameplay differs from the rest of the characters."
"So, you know, they have a unique sort of thing going on.
But, yeah, it's not there's not a lot of dialogue to explain all that.
It's really it's it's really just all on the screen for you to sort of like figure out and sort of interpret.
And when you're making a game like this, you know, a bullet heaven, bullet hell, however, when you phrase it, when you're making a game like this with a lot of stuff of stuff on screen at once, it gets very chaotic and it gets a lot of different effects happening at once."
"How do you fundamentally design it in such a way that, you know, it's not too overwhelming for players and that they can stay focused on the task that they have at hand?
Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a huge challenge, especially when, you know, we're trying to push that how many number of enemies are on screen to to to to the limits that we can sort of get away with.
And a lot of that has been, you know, down to the art department and designing the effects in such a way that they're impressive, but yet not, you know, obscuring, you know, bold colors for the for the for the characters versus the enemies."
"So a lot of that is is grounded in, you know, even down to the color of the ground and stuff like that.
So the art team is really the ones that are sort of like, you know, paving the way to allow us to put more in, but still not be overwhelming.
Now, obviously, modular vehicle building is at the heart of what Terratech is.
And, you know, this is sort of one of the core identities of Terratech Legion as well, building your own vehicles to take out into battle."
"When you come up with making a, you know, a creation suite like this, when you come up with this idea, how do you fundamentally build it from the ground up to, you know, to make it intuitive, to make it easy for people of all sort of familiarities with the with the series to come in and just be able to just, you know, run wild with what you've created for them?
How do you make that? How do you how do you refine it to become such a such a design process?
Well, thankfully, we've got a lot of experience in that to draw on with the previous two games, which, you know, very sandboxy and sort of, you know, about expressing that."
"But, you know, you really identified what it is, is that it that that it needs to be very tightly sort of implicit in what's going on.
And so, you know, for this game, what we did was we actually just took a big step back from everything that we know, you know, our instinct is to be very permissive and allow everything.
And what we did is took a really big step back, made very basic controls and only added stuff when we when we needed it to, to allow the flexibility that we wanted to have."
"But we did it very incrementally. And with this with this through line that it needs to be fast and consistent to build stuff as a sort of like foundation.
And from there, we built up to allow for more and more combinations and eventually, you know, got to a place where we felt like we could take sort of the training wheels off and sort of present something that that, you know, that that you can rely on.
But you can also experiment with."
"And how do you how do you balance the creativity side of things with the physics based element with it?
You know, what do you do? What do you sort of what sort of limits do you put in place to ensure that people can build the vehicles of their dreams, but also a vehicle that kind of, to a degree, makes sense and can actually operate and be used in battle?
Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is like show don't limit. Right. So, you know, again, we started with a lot of limitations to find out where those those were, but we we opened the door as we get familiar with it."
"But a lot of it is like, you know, starting off by showing you how things work. Right. And then allowing you to experiment. So, you know, we we started off very cautious about controlling what you could do in order for a consistent experience.
But but now, you know, but that sort of really cramped creativity. So, yeah, we we have sort of added more to that.
You know, we're we give you something that works to start with. And also, we're relying on the fact that the game is about replayability. And, you know, I think at the core of these games are about sort of choices that you can, you know, removing some of that sort of decision paralysis of choices because of the long term consequences of those."
"And with a run based style game like this, you can try something out. And the worst thing that happens is, you know, you try again and you've and you've learned something. So that sort of iterative replayability allow, you know, really allows us to say, hey, try it out.
You know, what's the worst that can happen? And then that that allows, you know, the player to experiment without consequences.
We've got some stabilizers as well on the physics model, which we're slowly removing as well. You know, we were, you know, we were worried, you know, when we started prototyping the game of, you know, so a player could build a very, very high tech and it would just fall over. And then your run would be over because you've created something that doesn't work."
"You know, that in the survivors world is a bad, a bad time. But in the play, in the in the territory, well, that's a good time. So, you know, we're constantly balancing those two genres to get the best out of both. And, you know, as you know, as we've had a fairly good reception, you know, with this game and people have bought into our USB of this kind of terror tech style building, we can slowly now start removing some of these stabilizers.
You know, and see what happens. And, you know, first of all, remove them internally and play them and go, actually, this is this is fun. This is a good experience. And then, you know, if we think it's good, then the players will get to see it next. So that tends to be our process of, as I said, starting off, you know, very tight and then slowly opening the doors to new bits and pieces."
"Now, Andy, you mentioned a minute ago as well about the progression side of things. Obviously, it's a run based game when you're making a game like this. And obviously, it has that sort of roguelike nature to it as well. How do you go about balancing the progression so that people are constantly feel like they're going somewhere heading in a, you know, in a forward direction. But at the same time, there is that element of resetting, you know, how does it work between runs as well?
How does that progression work in Terratech Legion? Can we expect to save more things after you fail a run or is it like, you know, back to square one?
Yeah, I mean, I would say it's definitely in the roguelike or roguelite. Sorry."
"Taking that wrong.
Shouldn't come up with two different or distinct ways of saying that. But roguelite in that, yeah, there's definitely progression that you make as you play. And for our game, you know, as I said, we're focusing on characters for the first time.
So of course, there's unlocking all the different characters, but each character has their own sort of upgrade path, you know, of progression that is unique to them."
"And in addition, so, you know, finding the right amount is key, right? So you want to make some meaningful progression on a consistent basis.
So we're going with sort of a breadth of sort of progression to sort of provide that where you, you know, you're unlocking levels, you're unlocking characters, you're upgrading those characters so that the start, how they start is empowered.
It affects the initial tech that that character starts with. And also, you know, then there's also the library of blocks that you start off with some, but you're, you know, you're consistently finding in the world or recovering, and then those get added to the choices that you have in further runs, so it becomes part of your stable to draw from."
"So, yeah, you know, there's a lot of little tendrils of progression to be following so that, you know, that hopefully every run or so you're making some sort of meaningful step towards unlocking the wider world.
Now with a game like TerrorTech Legion, where obviously you're going to be always crowded by lots of different enemies, how do you go about sort of designing enemies that feel unique, but at the same time, you know, you can slam loads of them on screen at once and you feel overwhelmed, you feel pressured by them, but at the same time, you kind of go, oh, that enemy is different to this enemy and we have to tackle the enemy differently."
"What's the sort of process to designing enemies in such a way when you have so many of them on screen at once?
Right, I mean, yeah, finding that sort of like thing that stands out, you know, is a combination of both like how they look, but also how they behave.
So, you know, I focus on myself on how they behave and sort of draw that out.
So, you know, of course, you've got your standard bots that, you know, are just relentless machines that are coming for you no matter what."
"And they're very straightforward to deal with.
But, you know, but within that, there's the, you know, it's the additional ones that sort of like, you know, slip in and out of those ranks that can, you know, that draw your attention and also, you know, sort of change up your play style.
Like, for example, we've got our wheelie enemies that are unicycles and they have random movement patterns."
"So they're not very predictable, but some of them also are looking to flank you.
So they don't want to be in front of you.
They want to wait till you're distracted by the other hordes before they come in and sideswipe you.
And, you know, in the game, you've got a couple of different ways of approaching that where, you know, maybe you need to shift priority and sort of hunt these guys down so that they stop nipping at your heels."
"Or maybe you decide to place one of your weapons behind, you know, facing back so that they can shoot.
It can shoot these guys as they're coming in.
But, you know, that choice also has, you know, has consequences as well, because you might not have that firepower focused on a really big guy in front of you that's going to tend on smashing you."
"So, you know, you have positioning as well as weapon placement sort of to deal with the various threats.
And, you know, the desire is to always be having you question, well, where do I place this to the best effect?
And, you know, how do I tackle what's on screen to avoid, you know, getting overwhelmed?
Now, Terratech Legion will eventually be launching on PC."
"But have you thought about consoles at all?
You know, potentially like Nintendo Switch 2 with it being very recent?
You know, we're always thinking about consoles.
It's not, you know, something we're jumping on right now."
"And, yeah, so, you know, we've already kind of got the game set up on controllers.
And we're always, you know, trying to do the hard work for console first.
But, yeah, no current plans to put anything out on console just yet.
But, no, that's not a definite no."
"That's, you know, we're just waiting for the right time because, you know, Terratech's on all the consoles.
And, you know, we've always got a good relationship with the platform.
So, yeah, just waiting for that right time.
Yeah, we've got a fun game."
"So, of course, we want to get it to as many people as possible.
Now, you guys have done survival crafting, open world with, you know, former Terratech games.
Now you're doing action roguelite games.
Is there anything that, you know, any sort of like different genre that you'd look at and go, maybe there's a world that Terratech can exist there?
You know, perhaps like a kart racer with modular building."
"Have you thought about anything daft and silly like that?
Well, I don't think there's any daft ideas in the world of Terratech, right?
I mean, the whole idea is that you're building things for a particular purpose, right?
And so, you know, of course, I've got tons of ideas for where I'd like to take that."
"You know, a lot of our games are focused on combat.
And we're really leaning into that now with Terratech Legion.
But there's a whole world of, you know, vehicles that, you know, that don't shoot other vehicles that, you know, that have functionality that, you know, that you can explore."
"And we've kind of touched on a lot of that in sort of like Terratech worlds and harvesting resources and stuff like that.
And me personally, I'd love to go in, you know, to explore in that direction as well as what does a game that isn't about shooting things look like when you're building modular vehicles for a particular purpose?
Yeah, we've got three games in the studio at the moment."
"So, you know, those are our current focus.
But we always have fun talking about how we could apply, you know, our main building mechanics to loads of different genres.
Especially during the game jam."
"All right, then as a final question then.
So Terratech Legion is coming out at some point in the future.
I don't believe you guys have set a release date on it just yet, but it will be coming.
So when that time does eventually arrive, or potentially for people that are checking out the game as of the moment through the demo, you know, what's one part of Terratech Legion that you're really excited for people to experience for themselves?
For me, I think it is the freedom of the lack of consequences, right?
You know, the freedom of like, well, if this doesn't work, I can just, I can try again."
"And how freeing that is to the decision-making that you're doing, where you're like, I could try sticking this on here, right?
And a lot of cases you would be, you know, second-guessing that and wondering if that's going to be, you know, a viable long-term sort of decision."
"But there aren't any long-term decisions here, you know.
You've got it wrapped up in, you know, 20 minutes one way or another.
So you might as well try it out.
And that sort of, like, really frees you up to sort of, like, throw caution to the wind, try something out."
"If it doesn't work, you learn something.
And that sort of, like, fast iteration is, it's just, it's really a joy to sort of, like, try out new things.
Yeah."
"For me, it's, I'm just going to shout out to Cy, our technical director, but we've got some pretty impressive tech when it comes to rendering all of these robots on screen.
And, you know, that feeling when you are absolutely swarmed by, you know, lots and lots of different things and then, you know, you start mowing them down with your weapons is a very fulfilling experience."
"And it's, yeah, I don't think there's that many games out there that can render the types of things we can do currently.
So, yeah, just being able to experience that is, I'd really recommend players diving into the demo and trying it out."
"Well, there you have it.
Two great reasons to check out Terratech Legion when it eventually does fully launch.
As Tom was just saying there, be sure to check out the demo."
"You can do it on PC right now through Steam.
So make sure to have a look, check out the game, see what you think about it.
And for more on Terratech Legion, be sure to stay tuned to your local Game Rector region for more information."
"Thank you all for listening and we'll see you on the next Game Rector interview.
Thanks a lot, Ben."
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