Hey there — I’m Scott, Design Director at Heart Shaped Games, and I’ve been given the chance to share a bit concerning the distinctive design course of behind our new sci-fi grand technique RPG, We Are The Caretakers. Quite a bit went into creating the sport over its 4+ years in improvement, however I’d prefer to focus on how our design workforce found enjoyable and novel new technique gameplay mechanics from a most unlikely supply: the poaching of endangered animals and real-world animal conservation work.
Inspirations and Ideation
I’ve all the time wished to make a grand technique sport with a big roster of characters to arrange and improve, much like video games like Xcom, Darkest Dungeon, or my private all-time favourite, the traditional Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen. I had labored on ideas and prototypes within the grand technique style for a few years prior, however lastly discovered the correct time to revisit these designs after our workforce was approached about making a sport concerning the monitoring and administration of wildlife poachers.
At first this appeared like an odd subject to construct a sport round, however after spending time with precise researchers and rangers working within the area to guard endangered animals, we got here away impressed. Their unbelievable work led us down a path of discovery concerning the realities of human-animal conflicts and animal conservation. Rangers work in small groups, with restricted assets, monitoring animals and poachers that transfer in unpredictable patterns throughout gigantic areas. That distinctive administration problem translated into fascinating gameplay choices, and mapped completely to the squad-building and huge roster administration RPGs we liked. We rapidly realized we had one thing progressive and particular on our fingers and set to work.
Bending Genres and Creating New Gameplay
Our answer to translating that analysis right into a sport was to mix a wide range of sport genres that every emulated an vital side of defending wildlife. We designed a Caretaker headquarters the place you manage your a whole lot of recruited characters into squads, take care of detained poachers, and improve your know-how earlier than heading out into the sector. We created a real-time-with-pause map exploration system, the place you deploy your squads to seek for poacher exercise. And we created a turn-based fight system to resolve conferences between your squads and poacher groups, providing you with diplomatic choices along with conventional JRPG-like skills.
By giving gamers actions to take on the macro and micro ranges over the course of our 30+ mission marketing campaign, they get to expertise what it’s like piecing collectively a company and that may combat again.
Building a World
While the gameplay design was a protracted discovery course of, we put an equal quantity of effort into creating an thrilling world and magnificence that matched the gameplay. Art Director Anthony “robotpencil” Jones discovered inspiration in Afrofuturist works akin to Black Panther for the setting and character designs; Composer Jon Parra infused a placing orchestral rating with inspirations from rap beats; and Narrative designer Xalavier Nelson, Jr. heightened the real-world tales with the addition of alien close-encounters and a post-apocalyptic planetary redemption story.
Lessons Learned
The greatest lesson discovered making We Are The Caretakers was that wanting exterior of conventional genres and gameplay tropes is the trail to new and unique concepts. By bringing in collaborators from exterior of the video games trade and constructing a various improvement workforce, we ensured we had a wide range of views that might discover the correct answer and create one thing thrilling and recent for our gamers. Working with the workforce at Heart Shaped Games on We Are The Caretakers has been certainly one of my best skilled joys, and I hope it reveals within the ultimate sport you’ll get to play.
We hope you get pleasure from We Are The Caretakers as a lot as we do. It’s obtainable for pre-order as we speak and launches on Friday, January sixth! Your buy additionally helps the oldsters that impressed the sport, with 10% of web income from the sport being given to Wildlife Conservation Network’s Rhino Recovery Fund.
We Are The Caretakers
Heart Shaped Games LLC
$19.99
$17.99
We Are The Caretakers is an afrofuturist squad administration RPG. Assemble an arcane workforce of protectors in squad-building techniques impressed by Darkest Dungeon, Ogre Battle, and XCOM. Defend the endangered animals your world depends on in strategic turn-based fight. Define your strategy to a worldwide resistance by balancing your popularity, funds, analysis, animals and alliances. We Are The Caretakers is a difficult technique RPG fusion that asks you to guard a planet by combating for the folks, animals and ecosystems that inhabit it.
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