“Core aesthetics” behind Warton

War It is a roguele strategic game in real time in the development of Stray Kite Studios, a team co -founded by industrial veteran Paul Hellquist. Hellquist boasts an impressive pedigree: in the last two decades Hellquist has served as a creative director behind Borderlands 2chief designer Bioshockand as the leading designer Swat 4Among other things, projects. With the background, mostly at the first person shooters, the roguelet strategic game is certainly a change in the pace for an experienced developer, but it is a project that seems more than equipped to solve.

Hellquist spoke in an interview with the gaming rant War and its development process. According to Hellquist, every game he works on tends to identify several main qualities that can tilt, which are more aesthetic than mechanical; This “basic aesthetics” manages every decision behind the game, leading to a project that is aesthetically and thematically unified.

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Warton's Three Core Aesthetics

“Core aesthetics” refers to the feelings that developers strive for inventing players and inward WarThe case that the chosen aesthetics are brutal, intimate and smart. Each of these aesthetic qualities somehow affects the direction of the game, such as how brutality has often influenced the bleak narrative events or its properties Gore and dismantling. Hellquist explains:

“Every game I work on is identified by the“ basic aesthetics ”that we are trying to achieve. These are the emotions or feelings we try to evoke with our players. For war is: brutal, intimate and smart. As you can see it's not a mechanics. We start with aesthetics and then the design of the mechanic and then the design mechanics and then players who feel these players in players that feel the players feel and raise players and feel players.

The brutal influenced the tone of many narrative events and other pieces of the story, as well as led to things like Gore and Depamemment, and the idea of trying to help refugees find new hope.

Intimate goes through the relationship between our heroes, Yara and Elani, as well as their connection and longing for their family. It also affected how close the camera was during battles, how many units allow you to control and why we name all units.

Smart leads to elemental Combos and Rogue-Lite “sets” entering the design to feel the players as if looking for gaps in the design of games to increase their efficiency. ”

The use of aesthetic features in this way is a unique approach to the design of games, where many developers often decide to design around a particular mechanics or functions and then to shape aesthetics around them. By creating a set of emotions that support any design decision, War has become an evoking strategic game in real time.

Warton's most important features to correct

Regarding a particular quality that was important for nailed WarHellquist chose a playing and visceral struggle of the game that pairs with intimacy that players feel thanks to the persistent units that grow over time – only to be torn into bloody pieces at the time of the announcement. Says:

“Getting the visceral struggle we loved from the myth: The powdery milders were high on my list. I also wanted a more intimate struggle where I could grow my troops and come to feel as if they were on the way and grew up with me.

Then there is another element to be remedied, marrying with the overworld narration of part of the game for battles. To be honest with you, we are still working on it with the help of our community. I do not think that we have fully achieved our goals here, but that is focused on us in this period of early approach. We do something really different and learn how we go. ”

Hellquist admits it War They still have to do some work in another key area: Having Overworld events play a deeper role in shaping the game battles. Yet there's a lot of time to make the Early Access game to achieve its vision, and with an experienced developer like Hellquist at the helm, War He's in good hands.