Have you faced any major challenges in making Time of Heroes so it will play on both the larger and smaller iDevices? Will smuttlewerk ever go back and make an iPhone/iPod Touch version of Companions?
Thanks to Unity that’s not much of a problem [with Time of Heroes]. If we ever do Companions as an iPod/iPhone game, that is another thing entirely. Controlling four party members on such a small screen is difficult, if not impossible. If we do it for the small devices, it’ll be a new game basically, where you’re controlling only one character or two characters. I’d like to check it out, but we can’t manage to work on this project right now. Sometimes I really wish I could control time.
The Langrisser series gets name-dropped a lot when discussing Time of Heroes. What are the parallels in game design that Langrisser fans will recognize in your upcoming title, and what distinguishes it from the Langrisser games?
We played Warsong – the Western name for Langrisser – back in 1991 or ’92. I guess I finished the game at least three times and loved every minute of it.
We tried to integrate a similar combat system, but modified certain things. Like in Warsong, your units may only attack horizontally or vertically. Your heroes have a command radius and units within that radius gain additional attack/defence depending on their commanding hero’s stats. The basic mechanism of unit types is also pretty much the same as in Warsong (for example: archers beat flying and melee units, but are in trouble when facing heavy units). The item system is also pretty much like in Warsong: each hero may equip one item before the battle starts. Another game mechanism used in both games is, that if you kill a hero, all his units will die too.
But we also added new stuff of course, like the skill trees. Players have more freedom of choice developing the characters in the game. Unlike in Warsong, your heroes may also bring different unit types into battle, say, one Axe Thrower, two Berserkers and one Bull Rider. That wasn’t possible in Warsong: if you did choose archers, all units had to be archers.
Will Time of Heroes assign units to the player every battle, or does the player get to carry them from one to the next, upgrading and equipping them in between? Have any units or characters become particular favorites among the smuttlewerk team?
No units may be carried over. You can always choose which units you want to control in the next battle. There’s no unit pool or unit cost. Certain unit types will become available as the campaign develops, so you won’t have Bull Riders for the first three to four maps. After that they will be available.
You will find items on the battlefield and equip them in the following battles. As I said above, your heroes will level up and get stronger with each passing battle.
I favor the Pig Trolls and Ariadne, the human priestess. Nikolai favors the human-hunting dwarf Ung Bulmitz and Alex likes the Dark Bishop most. Stephan and Ralph like the big elven woman Runtula, a rather unorthodox elf.
And finally, how many languages was Companions translated into, and how many do you intend to tackle with Time of Heroes? When it comes to offering scripts in different languages, have you pretty much relied on the team’s own language skills, or have you approached translation services at all?
Companions was translated to English only. I did the translation myself, but had Andrew from http://www.indieproofing.co.uk revise what I created. He did a great job for a reasonable price!
I’d really love to see Companions translated into more languages, but the costs for such a story heavy game are very high. Translation services in Germany cost quite a lot: a Chinese translation would cost about €4500. Too much right now! Time of Heroes will have less story, so the probability is high that we will translate it into more languages.
Our thanks goes to Martin at smuttlewerk interactive for taking the time to chat with us about their projects. To find out more about their iPad dungeon crawler/RPG Companions and their upcoming universal TBS, Time of Heroes, check out smuttlewerk’s website and Twitter account.